One Week for the Rest of Nicaragua

All photos by Josh Meister Photo.

After our week on Little Corn Island, we flew back to Managua to meet my sister and brother-in-law who were spending the next week with us. We rented a car ($70 for 7 days) at the airport and headed straight to Maderas Beach on the west coast of the country, approximately a 3-hour drive.

Halfway there, we got pulled over at a traffic stop. Josh did a great job of intuiting what the cop wanted through a combination of limited Spanish, hand gestures, and his understanding of the various reasons a cop might ask someone to open up their trunk(!). We now know that drivers in Nicaragua are required to have a caution triangle and a fire extinguisher in the car at all times. Luckily, our rental car was fully equipped, and we were free to go.

MADERAS BEACH

San Juan del Sur is the more popular destination in this area. It’s got a great little town with a bunch of good restaurants, bars, and quite a few clubs. The beach though, is not so great. Most people seem to venture out of town to other nearby beaches, including Maderas Beach, about a 15-minute drive north. We opted to find an Airbnb close to the much quieter Maderas Beach instead and were very glad we did, heading into San Juan del Sur a few times for meals including breakfast at Salud, the health-nut outpost, and live music at San Juan del Sur Cerveceria, the local craft brewery. We had intentions to try out “the chicken lady” stationed across the street as well as La Lancha, known for their delicious seafood at around $7/plate, but didn’t make it to either.

Maderas is a surfing destination, we learned from our Airbnb host, a surfer from Canada. He also informed us that we had scheduled our time there during the only two weeks of the year of constant wind. It was both a good thing and a bad thing as it kept us cooler on the beach as we got whipped with sand. Luckily, there’s lots of rock outcroppings that we could strategically set up our towels behind for some protection.

Aside from laying on the beach and exploring the rocks and tide pools along the beach, we made more than one trip to Hush, a boutique hotel and pool club that we literally had to pass right through on the hike from our Airbnb to and from the beach. It’s got an infinity pool with one of the best sunset views in the area as well as some tasty margaritas.

OMETEPE ISLAND

After two nights at the beach, we drove east to the ferry port in San Jorge, and took a pretty uncomfortable 80-minute ferry ride on Lake Nicaragua to Ometepe Island, home to two volcanoes, Concepcion and Maderas (yup, same name as the beach!), both hikable. The boat was incredibly full, and my sister and I grabbed benches in the cabin since there was a tiny bit of room left. The guys, wisely, headed upstairs, taking their chances on not having a seat in exchange for fresh air. By the time we fought our way off the boat, we were happy our bags hadn’t been sitting in water like many others and that we weren’t watching telenovelas to distract us from the constant wafts of vomit anymore. TIP: If you ever take this ferry ride, head upstairs. You won’t regret it.

There’s one main road on Ometepe, and it’s well paved (and crosses right across the runway at the tiny local airport!), but if you want to venture onto any of the side streets, you need a 4×4 vehicle. We weighed the costs and opted to use a taxi service instead to save some dollars. Our driver was great, waiting for us when we docked and giving us some information about the island as we drove.

Our first afternoon, we hiked around our Airbnb, which was adorable and nestled in the jungle at the foot of Maderas Volcano with a perfect view of Concepcion. The second day, we again hired a driver, this time for the entire day. He took us all over the island, starting with the San Ramon waterfall hike on Maderas Volcano.

Next we headed to a hot spring swimming area, Ojo de Agua, which we didn’t love. It’s manmade and extremely commercial and was also extremely crowded when we were there. After that, we stopped for lunch at the beach in Santo Domingo and then to see the petroglyphs, which was one of my favorite parts of the day. They’re various rock carvings, estimated to date back to 1000 B.C., and our driver told us what was happening on each of them. The best preserved one is actually a big mystery – it features a lion, a creature that doesn’t and hasn’t ever existed in this part of the world. We spent a lot of time throwing out reasons for its presence on that petroglyph.

Our next to last stop was my sister’s favorite – El Pital Chocolate Paradise, a mini chocolate factory combined with a freeform yoga studio and swings over the lake. It’s yummy and weird and a great end to a long day.

On the way back to our place, our driver stopped one more time so we could check out a perfect view of Concepcion Volcano over the lake at sunset which came with a bonus – a family of monkeys chilling in the trees over our heads.

The next morning we boarded the return ferry, all marching straight to the deck up top, for an easy ride back to the mainland.

GRANADA

Hopping into our car at the ferry port, we set off on the one hour and 15 minute ride to Granada, the adorable Spanish Colonial darling of Nicaragua. On the way there, we got pulled over again(!) for speeding. Mind you, we were driving the exact same speed as all the traffic around us, but the entire stretch of road between San Jorge and Granada is dotted with school zones that slow the speed from normal level to slug speed. Not a single driver slows down all the way to the speed posted in the school zones because you would barely be moving at that speed. So the cops pull people over left and right, congratulating themselves when they score a foreigner because not one of us is going to say, sure, hold onto my license while I go to the bank to pay this ticket and then return to retrieve it. No, we did what anyone else would do, and said “Can’t we just take care of this here with you?” And we handed over our cash and then drove as slowly as we could without making other drivers honk at us for the rest of the way to Granada so it didn’t happen again.

We arrived in Granada glad to have a break from the car again, relaxing into the charm of the town. Our time there was spent touring the town, exploring the markets, Central Park, and the church bell towers and learning that there’s a fairly elaborate tunnel system connecting all the city’s churches underground as an escape route harkening back to the time of pirate attacks.

Our last day, we ended on a high note with a visit to Laguna de Apoyo, a (warm!) lake in the caldera of an extinct volcano. It dates back approximately 23,000 years and is about a 20-minute drive from Granada. There’s maybe 20 “developments” there that give access to the water, ranging from hotels to restaurants to beach clubs. We checked out Monkey Hut, which costs $6 for a day pass and has tubes, kayaks, paddleboards, and a floating dock. We also spent some time chilling at the free “municipal” area where the locals go, and since it was a weekend, it was hopping with picnickers and an in-the-water volleyball match. It was a great hasta luego to Nicaragua.

All images TM & © 2017 Josh Meister Photo and Shari Margolin (unless otherwise stated). Please don’t steal or “borrow” – just be cool, be cool.