Honduras to Nicuragua: a survivors tale
Travel Location: Leon,Nicaragua
Reports of the Bay Islands off Honduras were of constant rain, the tail end of a hurricane. So after Copan Ruinas, we thought it would be pointless trying to scuba – the main draw of the Bay Islands – in murky waters. We headed south instead to Nicaragua, stopping briefly in the Honduran tongue-twister capital Tegucigalpa.
‘Tegus’ as its often shortened too turned out to be just as scary as our guidebooks made out, and when we visited an 11pm curfew was in place. But a nights’ sleep was essential after the long bus journey so we picked a hotel which was close to the bus terminals. A crazy taxi from the station careered out of a side street forcing the oncoming traffic to slam on while horns blared. To our dismay, our driver then took on a chicken bus and lost, while we braced ourselves for narrowly-missed impact.
Thankfully, Hotel Hedman Alas was suitably prepared for trouble and as we slept an armed guard kept watch over the iron-clad front door. Next day, we hopped into a less-crazy taxi and jumped on the first bus headed south. It was going to the equally horrendous-sounding Nicaraguan capital of Managua, but making a stop at Leon, one of Nicaragua’s colonial cities, where we decided to jump off. We found refuge from what looked like the beginnings of a riot in the street at Lazybones Hostel, and bumped into Ellie, a fellow Brit we met on the mini bus from Antigua who we had had an enjoyable meal with in Copan Ruinas.
The three of us discovered that the riots were actually celebrations that a Sandinista party mayor had been elected, despite rumours of a rigged election. This electoral impropriety would later lead to unhappy civil unrest but thankfully, this was long after we had departed the city. So, the cars packed with cheering people on the streets waved rather than attacked as we headed out for pizza, and by the time our stomachs had been sated, the horns and end-of-the-world-style banging fireworks had stopped and everyone had gone home.
Back at the hostel, we had our first sip of potent Nicaraguan rum and a few beers with Ellie and a happy-go-lucky Dutch lad she had met, who was in good humour despite getting up at 4am most mornings to make his way through Central America at lightning speed. Ellie tucked into the rum with gusto, and after a good sing-song with her ukulele had to be packed off to bed before she carried out her threat of jumping fully-clothed into the hostel’s small pool (which had just been freshly chlorinated and packed with noxious-smelling chemicals).
Lazybones was the first hostel we had stayed at which had a colonial-style layout. A huge open-air courtyard was in the centre of the rooms, complete with hammocks, murals and vegetation. There was even space for a tiny pool, a dip in which was most welcome after carrying our backpacks in stifling heat. A tour around Leon revealed more such Mary Poppins handbag-style colonial buildings and a really impressive Cathedral, the largest in Central America, which was filled with tombs and religious paintings.
A couple of days at the hostel were enough to get our mojo back, and we decided to head on with Ellie to Nicaragua’s other colonial city – Granada.
