A dose of Salts...: Leon, Nicaragua

Our final stop in Nicaragua….and what a way to finish! This town has much of the Colonial charm of Granada, but with a more shabby, rugged and local-feel and I like it! After traipsing around the town with our backpacks and turning our noses up at the giant party hostels (we must be getting old!!), we settled for a friendly hostel called Sonati. Sonati is in fact a non-profiit organisation where by all profits made from room lets or organised trips go towards environmental, conservation, community or recycling projects in the local area. It relies on volunteers to run it so that funds can be directed into these worthwhile causes (have a look at their work here if you’re interested)-I would definitely recommend staying here if you’re ever in Leon.

Sunset from a terrace bar. From here we enjoyed watching the local kids skateboard and play basketball

We spent a few days in Leon, and enjoyed a couple of trips to the nearby beach (Las Piñatas) on the decidedly over-crowded (but absurdly cheap) chicken bus. On one of these days we did hire a surf-board again, but the waves weren’t really playing ball and I wouldn’t say we were particularly successful in our endeavours! The beach was rather pretty though (although nothing by Costa Rica standards), and it was a nice place to while a few hours with our books.

On our second day in Leon, we enjoyed climbing up the succinctly named Real e Insigne Basílica de la Asunción de la Bienaventurada Virgen María (or the Real and Renowned Basilica Cathedral of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin if you care to know) - apparently the largest Cathedral in Central America and it's a beaut! This Cathedral is not only impressive in its own right (and if you take your shoes off you’re allowed to scramble all over it), but it also has spectacular views over the city and out towards the volcano range (Cordillera Los Maribios) in the distance….topped off with azure blue skies and you have yourself a pretty marvellous spot.

If you look carefully into the distance though you may spot a sandstorm-severe deforestation in the region to make way for farm land has contributed to increased desertification and sandstorms are unfortunately a rather unwelcome side-effect.

Coming from Costa Rica which on the whole we found rather clean, we have been disappointed to discover that Nicaraguans have an appalling approach to litter. On every bus we’ve been on in this country we have noticed that people simply throw their litter out of the window-probably more so than anywhere else we’d been. It’s quite horrifying to watch and I even tried to catch one little girl’s bottle as she flung it out of the window, but wasn’t quick enough so gave her a feeble (but stern) finger waggle instead in the hope that I might have some impact….wishful thinking though I suspect.

Our favourite spot for some street food

On a similar thread, Lake Managua (Lago de Managua)), one of the largest lakes in Nicaragua is often referred to as “The World’s Biggest Toilet” as the Capital City’s untreated sewage has been draining into the lake since 1927! The Government have started to do something about it (in 2007 they opened the first sewage treatment plant, although this still only treats 40% of the city, and apparently a plan is in place to improve the quality of the water) but they have a mind-boggling task in front of them!

This guy was a street vendor and had a fascinating story. And such a wonderful smile!

We also went to the Nicaraguan Revolution Museum. It was fairly interesting considering the fact that everything was written in Spanish and we were shown around by a Spanish-speaking Nica (I forget his name so for the purposes of convenience I shall call him Jose). It's amazing how much he could communicate with us considering our shoddy Spanish and his non-existent English, but as we've discovered before, it's quite amazing how much you can communicate with a spot of charades, the help of a giant bazooka, and a little context! There were also lots of historical photos taken in Leon during the revolution, and the museum actually employs ex-revolutionaries (like Jose), so it was an interesting experience and we actually learnt quite a lot.