Wednesday 3rd May – Sunday 7th May 2006, Granada, Nicaragua.Granada is an old colonial city (the oldest in Central America), which was once the capita

Granada is an old colonial city (the oldest in Central America), which was once the capital of Nicaragua, and is set along the shore of Lago Cocibolca (Lake Nicaragua). From Granada there is easy access to visit nearby Volcan Mombacho, Masaya Market and Laguna De Apoyo.

We arrived in Granada on Wednesday afternoon and checked into a lovely renovated colonial backpacker hostel with swimming pool so we spent our day lounging by the pool and meeting fellow travellers. This was were we met Jody (a fellow Englishman) who introduced to the idea of creating this blog – he has also created his own to document his travels through Central America.

Thursday we travelled an hour away to Masaya to visit the biggest markets in Nicaragua. There are two different markets, cheap one used by locals and travellers and another very touristy expensive one. We visited both and came back with no souvenirs! Oliver had quite rightly pointed out that buying souvenirs at this point would mean us having to carry them around South America! However we will return to Masaya market when we return to Nicaragua to catch our flight home so we can stock up on our souvenirs!

Friday day and night was spent at the extremely relaxing Laguna de Apoyo, Nicaragua’s cleanest, bluest and deepest swimming hole - 48 square-kilometres body of water inside the crater of Volcan Apoyo. The volcano still has some underwater thermal vents and there are the occasional seismic tremors but we didn’t experience any!

The lagoon is half and hours drive from Granada city and there are a few tourist facilities and private homes built by the water’s edge. We stayed at The Craters Edge a newly opened hotel run by a lovely Canadian woman called Sandy. We spent the day sunning and swimming by the lakeshore and talking English football with the three English lads we had met (we met the most amount of English people of our trip so far whilst visiting Granada).

Jody in a kayak on Laguna De Apoyo

We also treated ourselves to a full body massage by the on-site American massage therapist which was the nicest setting to have a massage in – under huge trees by the waters edge. Food was included in the price of the room so we enjoyed dinner on the terrace overlooking the lake to the accompaniment of howler monkeys. We had the most relaxing time at Laguna De Apoyo and hope to revisit time allowing.

Sunrise at Laguna De Apoyo

Saturday morning we took the bus back to Granada for our afternoon kayak tour of Las Isletas just off the shore of Lake Nicaragua. Las Isletas is a 365-island archipelago formed when nearby Volcan Mombacho erupted 20,000 years ago throwing the top half of the volcano into the lake in giant masses of rock, ash and lava. Today the islands are inhabited by a few hundred campesinos and the ever increasing number of tourists – you can buy an island from as little as $45,000!!!!

A visit round Las Isletas is either in a lanchas (engined boat) or by kayak. We went for the kayak as we were told this was the best way to see the most amount of wildlife and we were told right!

We set out at 2pm to avoid the worst of the heat and catch the start of sunset but it was still very hot and still on the lake. At our first corner we rowed straight into a herd of bulls so had to divert our route!

Traffic at Las Isletas

We slowly worked our way through the gleaming water to the sound of bird calls and the odd boat engine and we took a break when we stopped off at Fortin de San Pablo, a Spanish fort built to prevent pirate attacks on Granada.

Apart from the constant worry of getting the camera wet (!) we had a great few hours kayaking, took some great pictures and felt very happy at having experienced something quite unique to Nicaragua and Central America.

Celina kayaking at Las Isletas

Oliver kayaking at Las Isletas with Volcan Mombacho in the background