Blog 8 - Take off Your Shoes & Put on Your Sunglasses

From Tuesday 18^th November, we spent six days in Leon, Nicaragua.  On the first morning we discovered a French bakery called Pan y Paz, selling croissants (for Nick) and cheeses (for me).  We went there every morning after that for our wake-up coffee and breakfast.  The main touristy thing we did in Leon was to visit the Cathedral.  The inside is pretty impressive, as you’d expect, but the really amazing part is the roof.  We paid about a dollar to walk up the tiny narrow staircases up to the very top of the inside of the building.  Once there we were met by a man who advised us to, "Take off your shoes and put on your sunglasses".  The reason being, the roof has recently been painted the brightest white that white can be, meaning the effect underneath the midday sun is almost blinding.  The second picture is from the inside of the roof looking out - quite a difference! 

The next day I was simply too hot and fed up to stay in the city and Nick diagnosed me with a severe case of “beach withdrawal syndrome”.  So, we got on a bus and travelled the 40 minutes to the coast.  As we have been quite spoiled re the quality of the beach in La Tortuga Verde, we found that this beach was nothing special, but I got my seaside fix anyway.  That night we went for dinner at a fish restaurant called Pescalitos.  Here’s a picture of me with my MASSIVE fish, covered in garlic sauce….the fish, not me.  It was delicious.

 We’d heard that about 15 minutes walk out of town, there was a “Museum of Myths and Legends”.  I don’t usually go in for visiting a lot of museums as I have a fairly short attention span, but this sounded quite interesting so on Wednesday we thought we’d give it a go.  Well, I think maybe the word “museum” was used fairly loosely here, as we managed to get round the whole thing in under half an hour.  With our limited Spanish skills, we were unable to decipher much of the information.  My highlight though, was this giant woman.  Apparently she is very important in Nicaragua.  If you closely at the picture, you can see Nick too – this gives a sense of just how giant she really is.

 After three nights at the hellhole that was La Pasada Gordita, we packed up and went in search of an alternative hostel.  We ended up at Hostal Latino, which was a massive improvement.  The next couple of days were spent mooching around and trying to firm up some Workaway placements for later on in our trip to save us some money.  So far, we have booked a placement working in a small hotel in Peru for the month of February. 

On the Saturday afternoon, we obviously had to stay holed up in our room at the hostel and find a website that was showing the AC Milan v Inter Milan game, otherwise Nick would have been most unhappy.   They drew 1-1, and as I helpfully pointed out: a draw is better than losing.

Sunday was our last day in Leon, and Nick went off to go Volcano Boarding.  This is a most dangerous activity consisting of sitting on a snowboard/go-kart contraption and hurtling down the side of an active volcano at speeds of up to 100kmh.  Nick will tell you more about it in the next instalment.  For my part, having carefully memorized the way to Pan y Paz the day before (due to my being more than slightly directionally challenged I was nervous about making the 3 minute journey alone), I set off to have my breakfast there as normal.  However, when I arrived I found that it was closed on Sundays and so I’d have to find somewhere else to go.  Panic.  Well, I was most pleased with myself as after 10 minutes or so of wandering around I found myself in a coffee shop with air conditioning, free Wi-Fi and lemon drizzle cake: Result. 

The problems began when I walked out of the door and found that I couldn't remember which direction I’d come from, not least how to get back to the hostel.  After half an hour of walking round in circles feeling stupid and getting slightly teary, I approached a friendly-looking American couple and informed them I’d lost my hostel.  They showed me a map of the city, which didn’t exactly help matters, and I was about to give up and sit in a heap on the floor, when they pointed out that my old favourite Pan y Paz was only two streets away!  As I was rounding the corner to the hostel, I bumped into Nick who had returned from Volcano Boarding and had come to find me – probably wise.

And finally....on our last night in Leon, I received my first ever electric shock.  This was given to me by the dodgy plug socket in our room at Hostel Latino.  It hurt a lot, and my hair didn't stick up in the comedy style that I've seen in so many films, which definitely would have helped counteract the pain :-(