hostel in leon was pretty cool but had some dirty thieves. i had the cords from my camera and ipod stolen; it obviously could have been a lot worse but it is just such a dirty low down thing to do as now i cant connect either to a computer and therefore cant upload pics or move them onto my ipod. so it is bloody annoying but it could have been a lot worse-one of the aussie girls in our dorm had her video camera stolen which would make you a bit more emotional. just poor form tho we are all in this together travelling around and then that happens.
went volcano boarding on our last day in leon which i guess is a unique experience. was very cloudy walking up so had no view then it still didnt clear so off we went flying back down not being able to see anything. i forgot to put my goggles on and was wondering why rocks were bouncing off my pupils, i was in the process of putting them on when i lost control rather spectacularly and just to make it better i had just come out of the clouds and was in full view of the others waiting at the bottom.
was also good to be walking up a volcano hearing words like 'increased recent activity' and knowing that the volcano has erupted every 7 years since 1850, and its last eruption was 1999. maths anyone? in the 1992 eruption the local villages were covered with 41 yes 41m of sand and so they just came back and built again on top of it all 41m higher.
had some good street food and then off to the pub with irish dave and jamie and leanne-the first aussies we had met in 6 weeks, where we walked in on a trivia night but didnt win cos the questions were crap. who has a sports round made up ENTIRELY of questions on baseball and quidditch?
were going to go down to the beach the next day but something, probably the tail of hurricane dean bought in some highly unbeachgoing weather so we followed dave down to grenada. it seemed i hadnt fully recovered from el salvador before hiking up the volcano and getting drunk so i didnt see a lot of granada except for a nice big plaza when we had dinner.
nicaragua has an energy and water crisis and has had for a while so different regions seem to not have power or water at certain times of the day which is well annoying if they dont tell you! not as many guns as el salvador here but they are still all noisy bastards letting off firecrackers at all times.
headed down to laguna de apoyo for a couple of nights which was sweet. big crater lake warmed by thermal vents so the water is pretty warm. good food so got some energy back and the lowest point in central america is at the bottom of the lake so now i have been to the highest and on the water above the lowest points around.
did a bit of swimming out near the pontoon, was very cool at night too swimming out there and seeing the lightning reflecting off the water in front of you. me and dave piled on a few red green and yellow rasta coloured kayaks with a couple of yanks and some english girls and paddled out in the middle of the lake for a bit of a puff. luckily we drifted back the way we wanted to go cos we were all pretty relaxed and not up for a hard paddle!
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