Isletas
The Isletas tour was with Hendrix’s uncle Cesar. I don’t have his contact details but you can contact him through Hendrix +505 8468 9360.
Cesar knew lots about birds and fish and seemed to have a relationship with the monkeys on the monkey island. There were lots of tourist boats around the monkey islands but the monkeys were staying high in the trees. When we arrived Cesar shouted “Lucy!” And one of the monkeys came straight to us. It was great to see her up close.
Cesar also cast a throw net into the water and we caught a few sardines and tilapia. Hector was obsessed with these fish and we kept them in a wee tub.
I tried fly fishing, to no avail, and we also caught various species on some cow’s heart which I picked up before we went out.
There’s a restaurant on one of the islands in the lake and they had a small pond with about 20 alligator gar in, which again was a big win for Hector.
The tour cost £20 per hour. We ended up having a 3 hour trip.
Our bike trip to the Asese peninsula started well enough, but just too late in the day.
We didn’t get started until about 11am which meant by the time the cycling was underway it was really, really hot.
After a gruelling cycle on rough roads in the baking heat to the point of the peninsula we arrived at the spot that was meant to be a good swimming area. The water didn’t look to clean though, perhaps due to a lot of recent rainfall. As soon as we stepped off the bikes we got bitten by some wee black ants. The bites were very uncomfortable and after staying for about half an hour we headed back up the long, hot, bumpy road to Granada.
If we were going to do this again I think we’d hire motorbikes or start much earlier in the day, or even better, both.
On the plus side during our Asese cycle I did get this awesome picture of a local lad in the bus. It’s one of my favourite photos of the trip.
When we arrived back into Granada we stopped to get some life-giving coconuts from a lady who kept these parakeets.
We stayed at the rather disappointing Selina Hotel in Granada, which has now changed its name to Socialtel Granada. It’s probably a fine place to stay if you’re a teenager or an early twenty looking for a social party scene, but it didn’t suit us. It’s basically a hostel with hotel prices. It felt exploitative in terms of expense and the late night loud music, till 10pm, didn’t help in getting kids to sleep. We tried to get a partial refund and move hotel but they wouldn’t refund us (this may have been due to us having booked through booking.com).
The surf and weather forecast by this time were saying that the swell and weather were in our favour for a return to Popoyo, so we did.
Although riding with Hendrix was great, his car at the time didn’t have air-con, so I went looking for a cooler option to take us back to Popoyo. After a bit of asking around I met Carlos carlosnicaragua2017@gmail.com +505 7850 7726 he had a very comfortable car and agreed to take us to Popoyo for the exceptionably reasonable price of $50 USD. It turns out Carlos also has a 17 seater which he uses for tourist tours. He also speaks English after living for 20 years in the US.
Our destination was the lovely Casa Vitini which would be our base until our second to last night in Nica.
We loved it here and our host Lucas was very friendly. His son Lucitas had fun playing with Hamish, his wife Kayling went to pilates classes with Maja and we all got along great.
The accommodation is beautiful, with comfy beds, separate rooms, a great kitchen, a lovely pool and the most beautiful doors ever. It was also reasonably priced at about $80 per night for our apartment for four people.
+505 8802 4199 is the number to call to book Casa Vitini, or look them up online.
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