Nicaragua Vacation - Granada, Ometepe and Playa Santana
Photos taken December 13, 2013 - December 23, 2013

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Friday, December 13: Arriving at our hotel room in Granada.
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Our hotel room in Granada.
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View from our hotel window.
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Central square in Granada.
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Saturday, December 14: Kayaking in Las Isletas on Lake Nicaragua.
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Kayaking past a cow along the lake.
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Following our guide.
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If you look closely, there are a series of bats hanging on the right face of that big tree.
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And now all the bats are flying at us!
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Kayaking through the marshlands.
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Jay holding up a flower.
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Opening the flower.
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It's opened!
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Close up of the flower.
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Our guide feeding a monkey a piece of a coconut on Monkey Island.
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He has sharp teeth!
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Just hanging out.
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Check out this guy's reach!
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I think he likes it.
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Main tourist street in Granada; worker carrying a table on his head
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Church in Granada.
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Church in Granada.
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Typical architecture of the town - every building facade was painted a different pastel color.
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Standing in front of another church - this half of the facade has not been restored from a past fire, but the other half had been.
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Inside the church.
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View from the bell tower.
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Inside the bell tower.
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View from the bell tower.
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Here's the other half of the church facade, and some local boys playing soccer on the plaza in front of the church, using two upside-down bikes to serve as each goal.
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Our hotel - Hotel Terrasol.
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We visited Masaya Volcano, an active volcano about an hour's drive from Granada. We're standing on the edge of the crater.
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Smoke rising from the crater.
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Smoke rising from the crater.
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After a short walk along the edge of the crater, we arrived at another viewpoint.
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Hiking around the volcano - it has multiple craters, only one of which is still active.
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Hiking around the volcano.
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Jay hiking around the volcano with our guide.
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More smoke rising from the crater.
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The ridge line along the volcano afforded great views.
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Watching the sun set along the crater was a very unique sight.
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Pretty sunset.
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Before visiting this cave, we stopped by an airhole to watch lots of bats fly out of it. We squatted outside this hole in the dark and felt the bats whoosh just above our heads. This photo is alit from our camera's flash.
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Inside the cave - pitch black except for our flashlights.
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Now that it is dark outside, Jay attempting to see lava inside the volcano; conditions were too smoky tonight.
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Jay fell in. (ha ha)
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Sunday, December 15: Now, we're on to Ometepe island in the middle of Lake Nicaragua. The island is actually formed by two volcanos - Maderas and Concepcion. We stayed on Maderas, which is the inactive volcano.
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Riding the ferry to Ometepe.
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Riding the ferry to Ometepe -- we appreciated the comfortable seating and spacing. And we really appreciated this ferry after boarding our ferry returning from Ometepe (photos to come later).
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Arriving at Ometepe.
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Squeezing through the trucks and cars as we exit the ferry.
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Our hut at the Totoco Ecolodge -- completely off the grid; electricity solely provided via a solar panel.
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Jay hanging out on the hammock on our porch.
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Our wonderful bed with mosquito net, that blocked away moths primarily; we only saw a handful of mosquitos the whole trip and didn't get any bites!
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Our bathroom - we were pleased that our shower was scalding hot, after our Granada hotel had only lukewarm water.
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Our daily breakfast table.
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View from our breakfast table - and from our porch - was simply stunning. Since we are on Maderas volcano - this is Concepcion.
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Closeup of a flower.
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Sunset from our porch.
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This is a little frog that would come visit our shower every evening -- he was only about the size of quarter, but would jump several feet at once. Fun guy!
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Monday, December 16: Heading on a hike up the Maderas volcano rainforest into the cloud forest - this spider had built a web across our path; we nearly ran into it. That may not have been pleasant!
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That big nest-looking thing on the tree is a giant ant hill / ant home. CRAZY.
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A farmer's horse hanging out in the rainforest; the farmers are out collecting coffee beans.
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Walking by some banana trees!
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Pausing at Mirador - the only viewpoint along the hike. When we arrived, the view was completely blocked by cloud cover, but as we stood there, a burst of wind pushed the clouds away, allowing us this view1
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After the viewpoint, the conditions became very wet, muddy and difficult.
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We hiked up the volcano for about 3 hours, making it about a kilometer each hour.
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Definitely in the cloud forest. Looking down into a ravine, can only see dense white clouds.
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Kelly's muddy pants and shoes.
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Kelly is holding up a "cacao frutas" (aka a cocoa fruit aka chocolate) that fell from the tree above us. Yes, chocolate grows on trees! The monkeys (didn't get a good photo of them) loved these fruits, go figure.
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Walking through a grove of coffee bushes -- I was surprised that the coffee beans looked just like little green and red berries.
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Back on our hut's porch, enjoying another beautiful view of the Concepcion volcano.
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And we finally were rewarded at sunset with a non-cloud-covered Concepcion. This was the only time during our four-days on Ometep where we could see the volcano's apex.
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Walked past this big bullfrog on our way to dinner. This guy was bigger than a softball!
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Tuesday, December 17: We took a hike to the San Ramon waterfall.
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Kelly braving the water in the waterfall's lake basin
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The water was quite cool. It was nice to get in for a quick refresh and a photo, but that was about all we lasted.
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Back in a kayak, this time to the River Istian which runs between the two volcanos
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Kayaking afforded us fantastic views of both volcanos.
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After a grueling 40-minute kayak out on the open lake, we were rewarded with the calm waters of the Istian.
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Floating by a turtle hanging out on a log.
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Following along behind our guide and another couple that we met on the island.
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Floating past some interesting trees growing in the river.
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Unfortunately, this view means we're on another grueling session back across the open lake water. Very difficult work, but at least we had great scenery!
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Wednesday, December 18: ready to go horseback riding through the rain forest and then to the beach.
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And we're off!
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Kelly pausing for a photo.
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My turn for a photo op.
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Walking along the road -- notice that this road is made of paver stones. The majority of the island is just dirt roads; most of the roads that are paved are made out of these paver stones. This surprised us -- seems like it would be much more costly and time-intensive to install.
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Passing by a chicken along the road -- the roads were shared by chickens, pigs, horses, bicycles, motorcycles and cars. Cars were definitely the exception to the rule.
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Riding along the beach -- it was fun to canter along the beach.
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Riding along the beach.
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Stopping to allow the horses to rest (ha ha). Actually, our bodies needed the rest -- we opted for a 4-hour riding session, which beat us up pretty good. My butt and legs were very sore by the end of this day!
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Fun thatch-roof umbrellas along the beach.
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As I mentioned before, riding by more chickens and a pig, along the road.
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Riding up Totoco's driveway -- the road to the ecohotel was completely paved, but the 1.25 mile driveway -- completely uphill -- was not. This dirt/rock road took about 10 minutes to surpass on the road, and 30 minutes on our horses.
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Every once in awhile, the driveway had a brief stretch with more solid rock, which was so welcome in the car, because we wouldn't get jostled quite so much.
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Back at Totoco, enjoying yet another picturesque view.
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Not a bad location for a swimming pool!
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Jay reading by the pool.
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Thursday, December 19: And here's an example of a series of cows crossing the road.
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Time to leave Ometepe -- getting ready to board our ferry.
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Boarding Ferry Che Guevara -- we were amused by the ferry's name.
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As I hinted at before, we were not amused at the ferry's seating arrangements. The tiny cabin was completely full, and all of the seating was these unforgiving park benches. So, our 75 minute quite rocky ride back to the mainland was not the most comfortable, but we managed :).
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Arriving at our final destination - Buena Onda along the Pacific coast. Our room was the leftmost of the three rooms.
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Our front porch, featuring another hammock. I was a big fan of all the hammocks!
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Our hotel room - you can see we had a small back porch also!
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We slept on the big bed and used the little bed for our suitcases. The refrigerator was nice to store our 2 liter water bottles that we bought daily.
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Closet nook off the entry door.
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And our bathroom.
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Bueno Onda's poolside area and main reception / dining area.
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Heading out to the beach!
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Walking south along the Playa Santana beach -- the series of building in the distance is the sprawling estates of Rancho Santana.
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Playa Santana
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Playa Santana
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Playa Santana
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Playa Santana - the beaches were nearly empty, which greatly added to their beauty
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Just in from the beach, Bueno Onda had a small skateboard quarter-pipe!
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View of the beach just after sunset.
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Interesting fan-like palm on Bueno Onda's grounds.
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Friday, December 20: Heading back to the beach.
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Trying to show off some of the waves.
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This time, walking north along the beach, towards Playa Popoyo
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We enjoyed watching these little birds scramble back and forth along the edge of the water as the waves ran in and out.
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Walking towards Magnific Rock and the appropriately-named Magnific Rock Hostel -- we enjoyed a couple meals and views from there!
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Magnific Rock
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Magnific Rock
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Magnific Rock
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Arriving at Playa Popoyo. After walking for 30+ minutes past no more than a handful of half-built buildings, and the hostel, and seeing maybe 6 people, this felt like civilization, ha.
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Back along Magnific Rock.
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View of the beach from the Magnific Rock hostel restaurant
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Inside the restaurant -- no surprise to see more hammocks!
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Saturday, December 21: We went horseback riding along the beach again today, but didn't get any photos this time.
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Checking out some of the surfers -- the Pacific coast of Nicaragua is a hotspot for surfing.
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Watching the surfers at sunset.
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Sunset
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Watching a fishing boat come in from the ocean.
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See the log on the left-hand side of this photo? We were sitting on one of two of these logs watching the surfers and the sunset, until a group of children came running up to us yelling Panga! Panga! We didn't know what they meant initially, but learned that they needed to use the logs at the edge of the water to roll the boat onto so that the boat could be pulled out of the water.
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Sunset
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Sunset
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Jay pretending to skateboard
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We met a big crab walking back to our hotel room.
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Sunday, December 22: As we walked back out to the beach, we were surprised to find a group of horses roaming the grounds.
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We followed them out onto the beach. A fun surprise!
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Earlier in the trip, we took a surfing lesson, which was lots of fun and also pretty intense. Now, we're out to try it ourselves.
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Here's Jay catching a wave.
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Now, it's Kelly's turn. The waves this afternoon weren't as big as when we took our lesson -- we think we missed the proper tide/time.
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Kelly paddling to catcht he wave.
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Ride that wave.
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Surfing was a lot of fun, and also beat us up again. Our abdomens were good and sore for a day or two after the lesson. I had good road rash marks on my stomach from the board that took a good 10 days to heal
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Kelly modeling her board and rash-guard shirt.
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My turn to model.
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One more group photo.
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And, a final sunset, and it's time to go home in the morning :(.
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