Playa Tamarindo, Costa Rica

Getting from San Jorge to the Costa Rican border was pretty exciting. We had initially wanted to take the Tica bus (an outfit based in Costa Rica, with modern buses, reliable schedules, and relatively hassle-free border crossings) but after a very confusing Spanglish conversation with a Nicaraguan taxi driver we met after getting off the ferry in San Jorge, we figured out that although the Tica bus drops passengers off in Rivas, it does not in fact pick them up. He offered to take us to the border for $20, so we said sure, but could he take us to the ATM too? He said yes fine, but that would be $25. The driver was still uncertain that we'd understood the whole conversation about the Tica bus, so as we were driving towards Rivas he saw a friend of his who speaks English and flagged him down. We all got out of our cars, I talked to the friend, and he convinced us to take the taxi to the border and his friend to do it for $20.

We stopped at the ATM...and it did not accept my card. Similarly to Honduras, the ATMs in Nicaragua are either Visa or Mastercard (very rarely both) and our card, which is Mastercard, did not work at this Visa-only ATM. So he drove us to a different bank. I apologized for the extra trip and told him we'd pay the $25 after all, which made him very happy.

The drive to the border was interesting, past dozens of newish looking wind turbines along the shores of Lake Nicaragua. I did not expect to see those.

We made it to La Fronterra (the border), our taxi driver helped us with our things, I paid him, and he vanished. We looked around, and saw no signs, no officials of any sort, just some food stands and a nondescript wall topped with barbed wire and a single door. A young man approached us and in broken English offered to help us. He pointed to the door. We walked through and were greeted by two men in immigration uniforms sitting at a folding table. They looked at our passports, stamped them, and said nothing. Again, no signs or any indication of where to go next. Our 'helper' pointed us at another building. At that building we had to pay a small fee for exiting Nicaragua, then on to the immigration officer. He was quite gruff and took forever to review our passports and give us our stamps. Once again, when we were finished, he said nothing and there was no indication of what to do next. Our helper pointed us towards a long line of trucks, and said we'd have to walk from there. He then asked for a 'propina', or tip. I gave him a couple bucks and we started walking.

We crossed a very long stretch of road with muddy, garbage-strewn shoulders, past numerous trucks waiting to cross the border. After what seemed about 1/4 mile, we came to the border. First, a Nicaraguan immigration official checked our passports to ensure we had in fact checked out of the country, then a Costa Rican officer checked our passports again. We walked a short distance to the Costa Rican side of the border, and it was like entering a new planet--it was clean, neat, and orderly, with signs everywhere directing us. The immigration building was air conditioned (!) and full of modern lighting and equipment. The immigration officials were not behind impenetrable walls of impossible-to-hear-through glass, but just sitting at desks. The woman even smiled when she took our passports! There was no fee to enter the country! We used the bathrooms after checking in, and they too were free! And clean! Everywhere else we'd been in Central America, even public buildings, charged us to use the bathroom, and they were usually filthy and had broken plumbing.

The buses lined up at the border were all modern and apparently in proper working order. We purchased our tickets to Liberia and were on our way within about 20 minutes. It was, by far, the easiest and most enjoyable of all the border crossings we made during our trip.

We arrived in Liberia at the central bus depot and grabbed a quick snack at a fast-food joint (which had WiFi--ubiquitous throughout the country--another shocking aspect of Costa Rica). We needed to take a taxi to the car rental place, which is located to the west of town near the airport. A guy approached us and asked if we needed a taxi, we said yes, and we started walking towards what we thought was his cab, but it was a private car. This seemed pretty sketchy, so we said we wanted a licensed taxi and walked back across the bus station to the line of red taxis waiting for fares. We walked up to a minivan taxi, asked how much to the airport, he said $20. This seemed high, but the airport is pretty far out of town, so we said sure. After we had driven about 3 miles, the driver made a phone call. It sounded like he was talking to his boss, asking for directions to the car rental place. He got off the phone and told us he would have to charge us extra because the car rental place is not actually at the airport, but 5 km past it. When we arrived, he said the fare was $30! That was infuriating. I said it was ridiculous to charge an extra $10 for 5 km, and that I wasn't going to pay it. He said he had no choice, that his boss told him to charge that amount. I didn't feel like continuing the argument and really just wanted to get our car so we get to the beach, so I paid him. This would turn out to be the worst rip-off of the trip, which in retrospect isn't really that bad relative to stories I've heard from other travellers.

We walked up to the rental car office...and it was closed. We had not called ahead to see if they would be open, since this was a Friday, and we assumed that since it was the slow season they would have plenty of cars available to rent so showing up a day early would be no problem. There was another rental office next door, so we walked in and asked if they knew what was up with their neighbor. The very helpful and friendly guy behind the counter explained that since the company we reserved with had no reservations, the guy just decided to go surfing. Fortunately, he just transferred our reservation and we were on our way within a few minutes.

Driving in Costa Rica was a treat compared to driving in Belize. The roads are nicely paved, painted, and signed, and they are not riddled with speed bumps. The rental car company gave us a GPS, which was actually pretty helpful, because despite the relative abundance of signs, they are not quite as consistent or clear as one might wish.

We arrived at Playa Tamarindo after about an hour of driving. Playa Tamarindo is widely known as "Tamagringo" and there is a good reason for it--we saw more white people, primarily of the American persuasion, in this one town than in the other three countries we'd visited put together. It is a cute beach town, very walkable, but also extremely developed. The boys kept saying "I feel like we're in San Diego!" and it sure looks like it, only with a lot more jungle and a stronger Spanish backbeat. We saw a lot of private cars, all of the streets are paved, there are paved parking lots (!) in front of the commercial buildings, and many of the signs are in English first with either no Spanish at all or as a 'subtitle'. The businesses in Tamarindo certainly know their clientelle!

Landscaping...cars parked along the street...sidewalks...

...parking lots...surf shops...no wonder the boys thought we were in San Diego!

We stayed at a nice, smallish place called Villas Macondo. It is a couple of easily walked blocks from the beach, but that distance equates to a much more affordable rate. The weather was beautiful when we arrived, so we dropped our bags, donned our swimsuits and hit the beach. The waves were fantastic! The barrier reef in Belize is beautiful, the snorkeling is superb, and the sailing conditions are near perfect, but there are no waves. Playing in the waves at Tamarindo as the sun set was a blissful experience and we all had a great time playing in the water.

Enjoying the beach

Not enjoying a Bohemia at the beach. That stuff is terrible. Fortunately the other Costa Rican beer, Imperial, is pretty good

Nice waves, beautiful weather

And lots of sand for digging!

The sunset was beautiful

We watched this schooner set sail at sunset

There are many restaurants in Tamarindo, ranging from American fast food (Subway!) to Argentinian to Thai to Costa Rican. They even have a few restaurants that specialize in vegetarian food, which was a delightful treat for us.

We rented four boogie boards for our first full day and just hung out at the beach. The weather was great, the waves were perfect, and it was delightful. The only downside of the beach is the incessant stream of vendors that walk up to the tourists, hawking their wares--bird-shaped clay whistels, ceramic pots, coconuts, beer, you name it, someone is probably going to try to sell it to you. Occasionally we would be approached by people on the beach in Belize, but only one or maybe two at the worst. In Tamarindo, it is totally out of control--we said 'no, gracias' at least 20-25 times each day we were at the beach. We did buy a couple of ice-cold coconuts, which were delicious and cold. The other bummer is we  were beset by camera difficulties in Tamarindo--we forgot one of our bags at the car rental place, and our camera was in it! We were able to use Liam's camera, but I inadvertently deleted a bunch of the photos on there, and then it died.

At the urging of the boys, we decided to go full American and eat Subway sandwiches for lunch. I'm not sure if we were just hungry, or just really sick of rice and beans, but the sandwiches were amazing. They put about half an avocado in each of the veggies and everything just tasted fresh. Clouds had started building in mind-morning, and by the time we had our food it was really starting to rain. We retreated to the hotel and ate lunch while we watched the downpour. We spent the afternoon chilling at the hotel.

My 'office' for a few hours one morning. Not a bad view.

The next day we spent the morning tide-pooling. It was a full moon during our stay there and the low tide was pretty extreme. The boys decided they wanted to spend the rest of the day learning to surf, so we returned to the shop where we rented the boogie boards and signed them up. Their instructor was a very energetic and friendly Spaniard named Christian. While they were getting their boards sorted out with Amy, I returned to the hotel to make some sandwiches in the communal kitchen. When I returned to the beach, they were already surfing waves! It was amazing! Amy said Christian spent about 5 minutes chatting with them, and then BAM! they were out in the water and he had them surfing waves in literally 15 minutes. I watched both boys surfing waves side by side, then one after the other, and they had so much fun. Lochlan got tired after about an hour and a half and bailed out before the end of the two hour lesson, but I was so proud of both of them. They made it look easy!

Lots of family love

Even the old man caught a wave or two

Lochlan totally approves of Tamarindo

Liam riding a wave

Lochlan enjoying a cold coconut

Lochlan catching a wave

Liam catching a wave

The boys and Christian, post-lesson. Unfortunately there was some seawater on the lens when I took the picture.

View of the beach from the water

Another view of the beach

We spent Father's Day on the beach, it was wonderful

Our final morning we spent walking the beach. We took a few photos, then piled into our rental car and headed back to Liberia. The guys at the rental car place had stored our bag and not a single thing was missing! It was quite a relief to get our camera back. We left Liberia, and headed into the mountains, towards Monteverde.

Isla de Omotepe, Nicaragua

Isla de Omotepe is an island in the middle of Lake Nicaragua. It consists of two large volcanoes connected by a low lying isthmus, and is ringed by small towns and villages. It was heartily recommended to us by friends so we added it to our itinerary when we were planning our trip. In order to get there, we had to take a bus from Granada to Rivas, another bus from Rivas to San Jorge, and then a ferry to San Jose del Sur.

After packing up our things and bidding farewell to Gerry, we walked south from our hotel into the market of Granada. The shiny facade presented for the tourists quickly faded as we moved further from the central park. The market was crowded, noisy, smelly, and super-duper busy, but even there, people were cleaning up the garbage and rotting produce from the street, which was very nice to see. We took a wrong turn down one of the very narrow side 'streets', backtracked, and found a vacant dirt lot filled with old American school buses. I asked one of the ladies at a market stall if this was the bus to Rivas, she gave me a toothless smile, and said 'Si.' We found the correct bus, climbed inside, and proceeded to sweat our brains out. It was very, very HOT in Nicaragua during our visit. On this particular day, the temperature was around 95 with about 70% humidity, very little breeze, and no cloud cover. After about 10 minutes, Liam said he had to go to the bathroom, so I took him off the bus and asked one of the guys that sorta kinda seemed like he worked for the bus company (nobody was wearing a uniform or any other sort of identifying clothing, badge etc) and he said we needed to go three doors down. We walked back through the market, and I saw a door into what looked like a weird house/store combo. We walked inside the dimly lit room, and saw three old ladies sitting in rocking chairs. I asked if this was the location of the bathroom for the bus 'terminal', she said yes, I paid the 5 Cordobas for each of us, and then she led us through the rest of her house, past several relatives busy doing various household chores, into her back yard, past some chickens, and showed us a crude shack with two doors. Inside was a concrete box with a hole in it leading down to a deep pit. The smell was indescribable. But, we did our thing, thanked her, and made our way back to the bus.

The bus ride itself got a bit more comfortable after we started moving and the air was flowing through the open windows. The ride took a little over an hour, and we had a stroke of luck upon arrival in Rivas--the bus to San Jorge pulled up right behind us! We thanked the driver, husteld out of our bus and on to the one behind us, and were on our way. About 15 minutes later we were cooling our heels in the waiting area for the ferry.

The Nicaraguans have an interesting mix of vessels on Lake Nicaragua. Some of them are ancient wooden boats that look like they could fall apart at any moment, and others appear to be relatively modern and in decent shape. In the latter category is a car/passenger ferry called the Che Guevarra, and that made me smile.

Any Ballard hipster would be proud to ride this ferry

Our boat was an old Dutch (!) ferry, and all of the signs were in Dutch and English, and occasionally German and French too, but nothing in Spanish. The entire vessel was a bizarre mixture of modern European naval engineering and half-assed Nicaraguan improvisation. For example, the plumbing on the toilets did not work, but they had installed brand new flat panel TVs throughout the ferry. There were also posters for Daniel Ortegas political party, which was just weird to see.

Pretty much every language but Spanish

The boys on the ferry

We arrived at San Jose del Sur and took a taxi to our hotel, which is located on an old farm just outside of the little town. We were shown to our room, a simple upstairs setup with three beds and a great view of the lake. We dropped off our things and headed for dinner at the hotel restaurant.

The menu selections were not great. I get the distinct impression that Isla de Omotepe is definitely still figuring out the whole tourist thing, not only because they are about 20 years behind in food, but for many other reasons that became apparent over the next day and a half.

While we were ordering dinner we met Will, a Nicaraguan from Omotepe who is the resident guide at the hotel. His English was extremely good, and we learned that he spent several years in the States with his stepfather. He told us he was organizing a kayaking tour of the Isthmian River the next day, and said we would see lots of cool birds and other wildlife. He showed us a video on his phone that he'd taken from a previous tour, and it looked really great--a nice, calm, flat, broad river with lush green vegetation overhanging the water. We signed up.

The next morning we woke up at 5:30 and did some birding at the nearby ecological reserve. The first bird we saw was a magpie jay, which all of us had been hoping to see. They are beautiful birds that look exactly as their name would suggest--the body of a blue jay with the very long tail of a magpie. They also have a bizarre, quail-like feather sticking up on their heads, making them appear a bit Seussian. We were all delighted to see them at last, and it turns out they are all over the island. Unfortunately, we did not see very many other birds, just a few tanagers and the usual aquatic species. The boys did find an incredible number of small frogs (actually they were probably toads) and that was pretty interesting.

We met Will at 7:30 for the tour and were joined by Jeanne and Michelle, two friends from New York city. We got into an SUV and started driving towards the eastern half of the island, where the Madera volcano is located.

One of the interesting things about Isla de Omotepe is that pretty much no matter where you go, it feels like you are in the middle of a large farm. The people who live on the island let their animals roam all over the place, so there are horses, cows, bulls, pigs, goats, dogs, chickens, turkeys--you name it--everywhere you look. You can also see and smell these animals feces everywhere you go and everywhere you look--on the beach, on the road, on the hotel grounds, on the paths, everywhere. And boy does it stink.

So, after dodging just about every kind of livestock imaginable, we made it to the kayak launching site. I had been under the impression that we would start off close to the river, but it turned out that we had to kayak about 3 km on the lake to get to the mouth of the river. This was actually fine with us, because we wanted to get good views of the two volcanoes, but unfortunately, the two girls from NYC had never kayaked before. It was extremely windy out on the lake, and they had a very hard time. It took us much longer than Will anticipated to get to the river, and when we arrived, he could not find the river mouth.

This was not good. So, we beached the kayaks, and started walking along the shore. He explained to us that it's been unusually dry and that the rainy season was about 4-5 weeks late. The lake level was very low, and the river was not actually flowing all the way to the lake, which is why he could not find it.

Unfortunatley he also could not find it as we were hiking. So he called a local guy, who eventually met us on the lake shore. We had to stand in the full sun this whole time because the one bit of shade was taken up by some very ornery looking cows and their calfs. The local guy showed Will where the river channel was, and we started hiking.

The river was gone. The channel was bone dry, with no water in it at all. Eventually we came to a tiny, sad looking little pool, but by this time we had been kayaking, hiking, and standing in full sun at 95 degrees for over three hours, and we were all done. We told Will it was time to head back. I felt a little bad for him, but at the same time, I also feel like he should have known that THE RIVER HE WAS GUIDING US TO WAS GONE.

Will stopped to buy some honey on the way and we met this farmer and his 'pet' (actually wild) yellow-naped parrot

Liam paddling in our kayak on Lake Nicaragua, Concepcion volcano in the background

Amy and Lochlan kayaking in Lake Nicaragua

The fam on the shore of Isla de Omotepe with Concepcion volcano in the background

The 'river'

We found some water!

Paddling back, starting to melt

The white faced monkeys were super cute

More cuteness

Evaluating their likeness for accuracy

Liam at the springs

The boys cooling down with some coconuts

Playing on the beach on departure day

Our room was on the top of the building on the right

We had lunch at the kayak launching site, which was pretty good, and then we drove back towards the hotel. Along the way we stopped near a stretch of forest. Will got out of the SUV and said, "look guys, monkeys!"

There was a troop of white-faced monkeys, and he took out a container of sliced bananas and gave each of us a chance to feed the monkeys. He explained that this troop frequently hangs out at that particular location and they are fed by the guests of the hotels along that stretch of road. He said that ordinarily it is strongly discouraged to feed the monkeys, but this particular troop has been sort of 'adopted' by the local community because they are plagued by a genetic defect that gives many of them a cleft palette that can make it dificult for them to forage successfully in the wild. We got some great shots of the monkeys and then continued on to the Ojo de Agua, a natural spring.

The spring was very cool--beautiful clear water ringed by huge trees. The water was cool and refreshing and a welcome change after the roasting heat of the kayak trip. We spent a couple of hours relaxing, and a large group of howler monkeys climbed around the trees on the other side of the springs from us, including several babies. They were very cute.

We made it back to the hotel, and had a quick family meeting. We all discussed our impressions of Omotepe and agreed that it was not living up to our expecations--it smelled awful, there were many fewer birds than we were hoping for, the food was not great, and there just wasn't much to do. We decided to leave a day early and add an extra day to our time in Monteverde, Costa Rica.

Unfortunatley, I was not feeling well that evening. Every joint in my body ached, I felt nauseous, and it seemed like I had a raging fever. I drank a ton of water, took a cold shower, and went to bed by 6:30. I slept for about 12 hours and felt much better in the morning. Amy said it was likely heat exhaustion from the tour. Regardless of the cause, I was happy to be feeling closer to normal. We paid our bill, took a taxi to the ferry dock, and caught the 7:30 am boat for San Jorge.

Granada, Nicaragua

After the disappointment of Leon, Granada was a breath of fresh air. However, getting there was a bit of an adventure. Liam was feeling a bit carsick upon our arrival, and given his vomiting episode on the way from Antigua to Copan Ruinas, I wanted to make sure he had as close to a front row seat as possible. However, first things first, he had to puke.

As soon as we were off the bus we started getting mobbed by bus 'helpers.' I pushed through them and got Liam into a bathroom. Fortunately he was feeling better just being off the bus and no longer felt nauseous. When we walked back out into the bus station, the mob descended on me again. Men started grabbing my arms and my bags, and were literally pulling me in two (maybe three?) different directions at once, each shouting in my face, trying to get me and my family onto the bus *he* was working for. When one of them grabbed Lochlan's arm and started leading him off, Amy's tone of voice chagned significantly and my fight-or-flight reponse was triggered hard. I knew these guys were just trying to be helpful, but I was about to start swinging. Instead, I wrenched my arms free, raised my voice and said "TIME OUT!!!" They backed off, probably not because they understood my words, but I'm pretty sure my tone of voice and body language were very clear. I pointed at one of the men and asked if Liam could sit in the front of his bus. He said "Si si si!" We got on that bus, Liam sat in front, I calmed down, and everything went smoothly.

Our arrival in Granada was lovely. The streets were clean, the buildings were well maintained and freshly painted, and best of all, we met lots of friendly people everywhere. Our bus dropped us off just south of the Parque Central, which was full of trees and a functioning, clean fountain. The cathedral is beautiful and painted in striking yellow and white. Our hotel was just a block south of the cathedral. We walked up the front gate and were met by Gerry, a heavy set Irish man (!) who owns the place. Like many of the buildings in colonial Central America, it fronts direclty on the street and has an interior courtyard. This particular courtyard was filled with--a swimming pool! The boys were very happy to see it and were swimming in a matter of minutes. Gerry gave us a map and a very helpful rundown on the layout of the city, where to go to eat, sites to see, guides he recommends, etc.

The boys enjoying a shaved ice in the shade of the Cathedral in Granada

Cordoba, founder of Granada

Courtyard pool at our hotel. Our room is on the right.

Another shot of the hotel

In the pool the boys met Ana and JJ, two Scottish kids from Lochgoilhead in the highlands. Their mom, Annette, is a doctor there, and their dad, John, is working towards a doctorate in religious studies with an emphasis on Latin America (hence the trip). The kids were a bunch of fun and I threw each of them in the pool what felt like about 100 times.

We scheduled a tour for the next day through Gerry, then walked around the town, checking out the central park, the cathedral, and the local shops. We had a very nice dinner at an ecletic restaurant called El Camillo, which featured avocado fries (!) as an appetizer. I can heartily recommend this culinary innovation.

The next day we were picked up outside our hotel by a packed tourist van that took us up to lake Apoyo, which is located in the caldera of an extinct volcano. It reminded me of a less dramatic version of Crater Lake, but with jungle instead of evergreen forest on the slopes. The water was clean, clear and refreshing, and we spent the day swimming, kayaking, and playing on the beach. We stayed until the afternoon, when the van took us back into town. It was a very relaxing way to spend the hottest part of the day. We ended the day with shaved ice from a vendor in the park followed by another stroll around town and dinner at a restaurant that served us the worst Mexican food I have ever tasted. It was truly execrable. We were also visited by about 15 vendors, who walked right up to our table as we were eating and asked if we wanted to buy. It was pretty annoying and really detracted from the al fresco dining experience.

Lochlan paddling in Lake Apoyo

View of the lakeshore

Enjoying the water

Amy and the boys during our swim

The resort where we hung out for the day

Liam playing on the beach

Enjoying a tasty Nicaraguan brew on the beach

Enjoying a fancy drink at the horrible 'Mexican' restaurant

Amy gets serenaded

The fortunate part about eating at the horrible Mexican restaurant is we found Leo's Tours. Leo is a Nicaraguan, and a super duper nice guy. We signed up for a tour of the Mombacho volcano and left from his office at 9:30 the next morning.

Our guide for the day was a young man named Alejandro. He is studying to become a biologist and is very interested in conservation. He was so excited when he learned that Amy worked as a wildlife biologist! He told us that very few Nicaraguans are interested in conserving the counry's national resources, and he wants to work to change that.

We drove with Alejandro to the park entrance, where we had to wait about a half hour for the departure of a truck specially designed to carry large groups of people up the extremely steep slopes of the volcano. The road is paved almost the entire way with cobble-like stones, but at points the road is so steep I was convinced the entire vehicle would just topple over backwards. Fortunately for all of us it just kept climbing, slowly but steadily, like some kind of mechanical mounain goat.

At about 700 meters elevation the truck stopped at the Las Flores coffee plantation. We tried some of the Nicaraguan coffee grown on the slopes of Mombacho, and even though I don't like coffee per se, I could tell that this was very high quality stuff. They also had a specially protected garden area with a sign showing a red-eyed tree frog. Liam has wanted to see one of these animals since we moved to Belize, so he asked one of the workers if there were any frogs in the enclosure, and he said "Si! Estan aqui!" and he pointed them out. They were asleep, and so well camouflaged that we were looking directly at them and still couldn't see them until the guy picked up the leaf and pointed his finger right at the frog. He very gently prodded the frog through the leaf so it would wake up, and when the frog opened its eyes and moved its legs, all sorts of colors sprang to life--bright red eyes, orange feet, blue belly stripes--it was so beautiful! We snapped some pictures and watched for a couple minutes more until all the frogs went back to sleep.

We continued on to the summit of the volcano, which was completely wreathed in billowing clouds (hence the name, cloud forest). Alejandro led us on a hike around two of the craters, stopping frequently to show us plants, bromeliads, trees, fungi, insects, frogs, and various other organisms. He would often use the latin name for species and look at Amy meaningfully, as if she would surely know what he was talking about. It was pretty funny and I think Amy was flattered but eventually got it through to him that *everything* we were seeing was a new species to her.

The special truck that took us up the volcano

We stopped at this coffee plantation about halfway up Mombacho

We saw a red-eyed tree frog at the plantation!

After hiking around to the 'dry' side of the volcano we walked through a field of orchids (seriously) then sat down at a beautiful vista for some fruit salad. The boys agreed that the mangos we had that day were the best mangos of all time.

We cleaned up and continued hiking, and just before finishing our loop we noticed one of the other tourists standing in the middle of the trail ahead of us. We asked what he was looking at, and he just pointed up into the trees, where we saw---a SLOTH! After staring at him for a couple minutes, he raised his head to look down at us and he was very cute. We were all very excited, because a sloth is one of the species we were all looking forward to seeing on this trip.

On top of the volcano. Note clouds.

Found this tree frog in a bromeliad

In a slot canyon formed by flowing lava!

Amy with her arm in a fumerole

We saw this beautiful field of wild flowers...

...that turned out to be orchids!!

View of Granada and Lake Nicaragua from the top of the volcano

Interesting fruits we found on the trail. Our guide told us the name, but it is long and difficult to pronounce and has fled my mind.

Sloth! Of the two-toed variety.

The drive down was even more exciting than the drive up, and I kept thinking that we were placing a lof of faith in the mechanic who last serviced the transmission and brakes on the truck, but it was a very uneventful descent.

We bid adieu to Alejandro at the road junction and the driver took us back into town, where he said Leo had a surprise waiting for the boys. We returned to the office, where Leo gave each boy a t-shirt and he told us we could take out some of his rental bikes for no additional charge the nex day. It was a very nice end to the day.

In the morning after breakfast we walked back to Leo's shop and took him up on his offer. There were a handful of sites we hadn't yet seen, so we started biking towards the lakeshore where we saw a statue of Cordoba, the founder of Granada (490 years ago!). On the pedal back up the hill towards town, the rear tire on Amy's bike got jammed into the side of the frame and I could not unjam it without tools, so we walked the bikes back to Leo's shop, thanked him again, then picked up our stuff at the hotel and walked through the market to the bus station to find a ride to Rivas.

Walking through the market to catch the bus to Rivas

Produce stall

Amy and Liam on the chicken bus

Bulk food section