Leon & Estali Nicaragua

Leon Nicaragua is just a short drive away for us since we needed to stop short last night with the dark and poor road conditions.

We spent a few days there so we checked into a hostel and had a Tona to beat the heat. After two weeks in the company of the GSSWEDE we had to say goodbye as he headed south to make his flight home.

Leon is a really nice colonial city with the largest cathedral in Central America. There is a lost of history here and memorials to the revolution. There are also a lot of political messages in this Sandinista Party stronghold. We did a lot of wandering and taking in the sights.

We had a first here we saw this guy actually get a ticket for not wearing his helmet.

Daniel skyping his parents in Hawaii.

To order a drink in Nicaragua, you ask for the size of bottle of rum you want and it comes with a bucket of ice, a bowl of limes, and a bottle of coke for $3.60 for 1/4 liter. We stopped for our first Nicaraguan gas at the UNO.

Trying to beat the heat in Leon we headed for the beach 20 km away, where it is just as hot at 36 degrees, but at least there is a breeze. Walking down the beach for lunch we could watch the locals surf.

Now we really needed to retreat from the heat by heading up into the hills near Estali. It was very hot riding the whole way, but It was almost 10 degrees cooler there when we arrived.

We rode up thru the hills to Somoto, which is near the Honduras border. The area around Estali is lush with farming. There are large fields of tobacco for the local cigar companies.

There is quite a nice cathedral here also. These huge pigs were actually walking him!

Tomorrow we head off on the back roads thru the mountains to San Rafael del Norte, Jinotega, and to Matagalpa.