Ruta colonial y de los volcanes

Wakeup call at 5:30am, on the road by 6:20am, including breakfast we had prepared last night - not bad! We had a longer day ahead of us, so had to leave early.
Getting out of Managua was no fun, 4 lanes, no shoulder and climbing - but we made it. Traffic got a bit better once we got out of the city. It was also cloudy which made out ride a little less strenuous.
After about 25km, we had some nice views of Masaya lagune. It's located next to Masaya Volcano, so the land around is all volcanic rock. In general, we saw quite a few of volcanos today. As Nicaragua has 39 of them, all along a the fire circle which we currently follow, it's no surprise.
Today, we were also on the "Ruta colonial y de los volcanes" again, the one we already followed in the South of Guatemala and El Salvador. In Nicaragua, it took us to the beautiful colonial town of Granada where we spent some time on the central square to watch people.
From Granada , we had another 75km ahead of us, most of them with headwinds, so it was a bit of a struggle. We tried to get to San Jorge to get on the 3pm ferry to Isla de Ometepe. When we arrived just in time, we heard that there was only a 4pm ferry. So we took that one instead.
The cost system for the ferry is pretty weird: First you need to pay US$1 tourist tax to get into the harbour. Then you buy a passenger ticket for 50 córdobas. Then you pay another 8 córdobas taxes for the bikes. When we arrived on the island, they asked for 30 córdobas for each bike. We refused to pay because when we asked on the other side they told us nothing about additional costs for taking the bikes. We had quite some discussion with the guys, but in the end they let us go.
We found a hotel a bit outside of town where we relaxed in order to be ready to explore the island tomorrow.Read more