Lago Nicaragua

Nicaragua has a pretty interesting history - Given that it's the skinniest part of central America it's always been a key transport route between east and west America (at least before the Panama canal was built). It also has a very massive lake (Lago Nicaragua - 177 km long) right in the middle of the skinniest section, and there's a river connecting the lake to the Carribbean, so that meant people only had to cart their gear 20km over land to get from the Pacific to the Atlantic. Anyhoot it seemed everybody wanted to get their hands on this part of the world from day one.

It started of course with the Spanish who built the city of Granada on the shores of the lake in 1524. It was a pretty popular spot for burning and looting, as French and Pommie pirates from the Carribbean managed to sneak up the river and sack the city 3 times before 1685. Then there developed a bit of a rivalry between Granada and another Nicaraguan city, Leon - not sure of the details but the left-leaning Leonese didn't like the right-wing Granadians much and enlisted a yankee wanabe dictator - William Walker - to come down and take over. Which he did, wiping Granada completely off the map - again - in 1856 before the locals sent him back to the USA with his tail between his legs.

Even Ronald Reagan had a bit of dig in the 1980's, funding counter-military groups based in neighbouring El Salvador and Honduras to have a bit of a swing at the Nicaraguans. Anyway with all this burning and looting going on its somewhat surprising that theres anything left, but actually Nicaragua is a really nice part of the world.




This is the cathedral in Granada, which I think looks pretty stylish for the conservative Catholic Church to come up with. Guess that's the latin American influence. Also they've had to rebuild it a few times so they've had a few chances to get it right...

Some other snazzy buildings in Granada....

This is the Cathedral in Leon, which is the largest in central America

Volcan Concepcion and Volcan Maderas - Two rather large volcanos that stick up out of the middle of Lago Nicaragua, together forming Isla Ometepe. I took this photo from the window of a bus on the mainland, hence you can't actually see that the volcanoes are in the middle of a bloddy massive lake. But trust me, they are.

This is a house on a coffee plantation on Isla Ometepe, which I stayed at for a few days.

The view of Volcan Concepcion from the coffee planatation - not bad for $2 a night hey!?!




Coffee plants on the coffee plantation







All around the volcano is thick cloudforest jungle.




In amongst the jungle are the scattered remains of the ancient Chorotega cililization. Hundreds of Petroglyphs (rocks with funky carvings on them) are scattered randomly around the island. Some say the Chorotega were a highly advanced civilization with a complicated written language which is not yet understood... others say they got a bit bored and hence graffitied the rocks randomly with meaningless dribble.

At first I thought, "This is great, there's definitely some advanced thinking behind these amazing rock carvings." Then I saw a few petroglyphs like the one on the right... maybe not.

The island jungle is packed with wildlife - A Howler Monkey observes the crazy tourist.



I wasn't too surprised to come across coffee plants, given the island is covered with coffee plantations. But theres also chocolate growing wild and free! Or at least Coca, like in this photo, from which you can apparently make chocolate.




A butterfly gets all nice and stands still long enough for me take a photo.

Bus stop, Ometepe style.


Back on the mainland, and into the Nicaraguan bus terminal craziness.