Nicaragua

We had to hotfoot it straight through Nica at first in order to pick up our van... This meant spending a night in Managua in transit. Not much to recommend the town, it was hot, dusty and seemed pretty dangerous. Luckily this was the exception! At the Costa Rican border we spent the day walking back and forward in the heat with immensely important (I gather) pieces of paper, in order to re-enter Nicaragua with the car. This meant a 1 hour vacation in Costa Rica, purchasing a nonexistent bus ticket and most of a day spent in perjury between nations.
When we were able to hit the road, we headed for Maderas near San Juan del sur. The van immediately began to repay the debt with super cheap camping right on the amazing beach and the freedom to come and go as we pleased.

The Howler Monkey family at Maderas were fun to watch, disturbing to listen to.

"Cafe la revolucion" was right in front of the beach. They did wood fired pizza, which was a nice change from camp food at times.

Great waves at Maderas. The giant lake Nicaragua sits in the south between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. A nice by product is that the lake induces constant offshore winds about 350 days a year. Great for surfers, bad for people who don't like sand blown in their face.

Our Econoline. Looks small in this pic but its massive! We'll do more of a rundown on it next post.

Cooking pancakes for Laura's birthday breaky. The camping gear came with the van too. 

Wine and Pringles with the sunset for a perfect birthday treat.

And we got one of these!

After the coast we headed north to Granada, the old Capital. Its been sacked and burned 3 times by pirates and once by the self proclaimed "emperor" William Walker of the US. The lake is connected to the sea which made Granada the most important port in central America at the time. There are 2 volcanoes on one of the 365 islands in the lake, but this is Mombacho on the mainland. The eruption of Mombacho actually created all the islets when most of the top blew off the volcano into the lake!

An islet.

The remains of the Original Presidential Boat, now an old man lives in it. No, he's not the President.

No he's not the President either. This guy lives on the aptly named isla del monos (monkey island). A local animal carer rescues the monkeys from circuses etc. and re-habilitates them here.

The only unrefurbished building in the city is apparently this church. It's survived earthquakes, volcanoes, fires, pirates and Americans.

Laura in the bell tower.

Looking out toward the other major (definitely refurbished) church.

Car breaking down too often? Try new "horse".

Granada definitely hasn't lost the colonial look. 

Right now we're in Costa Rica, camping our way down the Nicoya peninsula. Writing from a bed in an actual room in Montezuma!

El Salvador

After a relatively easy series of buses we found ourselves in El Zonte, El Salvador. The weather was perfect; hot sunny days and warm nights with light winds. The bonus was a swell that started at about  head high and built to more than double overhead through the week, added to the fact that el Salvador is the land of the long, right point-breaks, it's a surfers paradise.
We spent a little over a week at a place called Essencia Nativa, which was incredible. Gorgeous place, amazing waves, cheap delicious food and we became good friends with an Aussie couple and the owner (Alex, picture Tarzan with a surfboard) and had a lot of fun with our little crew.

El Zonte beach. The volcanic sands in el Salvador take some getting used to.

This river runs to the beach. Picturesque but pretty grubby at the end of the dry season. Doesn't stop the locals playing, washing and swimming in it though.

Essencia Nativa. This was the view from our deck under the mango trees (scares the sh#% out of you when they drop on a tin roof). The beach was visible looking the other way, and having a pool was awesome, we floated around for hours every day. Despite the climate, pools aren't common (at least in budget hostels). 

Punta  Roca was hands down the best wave I've surfed. We started being silly and counting turns on a few waves. I think 12 or more on a wave was pretty normal! The locals stand on the beach selling beers and photos of your session. This is a marked improvement from a few years ago when (I hear) they waited on the beach to rob you when you came out...

We hiked through this crazy landscape to some amazing waterfalls. The hike was pretty tough but there were locals going back and forth with 40kg bags of cucumbers on their backs!

Cool colours.

We saw, swam and played in a whole series of waterfall-fed pools below these cliffs. Then the local guy we were with gave everyone a massive cucumber.

And what do you do when you find a waterfall? Jump.

If you're ever lost in Latin America, ask the nearest local. Most of the time they just escort you where you need to go whilst chatting about the weather and asking about where you're from.

Currently in playa Maderas, Nicaragua. And living in our van!