Granada, Nicaragua

We crossed the border from Costa Rica to Nicaragua in just under two hours, two hours of doing waterfall impersonations, the sweat pouring out of me. We used a fixer which speeded the process up a little and in my opinion $10 well spent! The taxes and insurance to enter the country came to $32 each and no photocopies were needed so that wasn't bad.
Out of customs and straight into a traffic jam, this one caused by stupidity really but thats the way it is, 5 minutes and we were on our way. The countryside changed almost immediately, more parched, less green and we are back to seeing more horses being used and for the first time on this trip we saw a couple of Oxen drawn carts. Obviously an indicator that Nicaragua is still struggling to increase wealth after year of civil war and corruption. Granada is a nice old colonial town, founded by the Spanish in the 1500's on the shore of the huge lake Nicaragua, some stunning architecture and very colourful, its also home to some ex pats from Europe and North America (our bikes are next door to our hotel in the home of an expat from London). We've enjoyed it here, quite laid back so we've stayed 3 days but tomorrow we need to head Northwards again, life on the road rather than life by the pool!

 Almost 40 degrees means water on the move is necessary

 Nice House just down from our hotel

 Afternoon, everybody hiding from the sun....except us!

 Nice pad!

 Nice Church

 Street vendors are everywhere

 Lake Nicaragua

 View back into the town from the lake, looks nicer than in reality but work in progress

 Plenty colours around

 Used to take tourists (and cargo) around, feel sorry for these horses in this heat

 Cooling down, it doesn't HAVE to be hard

 As always , guys with big guns

 The town from the top of the church tower

 

 Fiona trying to get a breeze!

 One for the twitchers

 We met Maria from Argentina travelling with her boyfriend in this VW, great to meet you and swap stories Maria