And back to Managua

We left our bikes in Granada at La Libertad Hospedaje after a couple days of rest and relaxation in town, then took a bus back to Managua again to meet dad. Once in Managua, we returned to the hotel we had been to twice before, paying too much again to have air conditioning in the morning. Actually, all the hotels we visited in Managua were either grossly over priced or just gross. Pete flew in at 9pm or so and we caught a taxi back again. We caught up a bit talking about tectonic fault lines and our plans for travel, deciding in the morning to head for the Pueblos Blancos.

Erin napping enroute back to Managua

We caught a taxi to the bus station in the morning, and found that the easter holidays had made the bus station a little deserted but then extremely crowded on the buses that did run. We squeezed off the bus at Catarina, had a snack and took a tuk tuk up to the Mirador (viewpoint) in town.

Sitting in Catarina looking at Apoyo

After taking in the view (again) we wandered back down the hill in hopes of finding a nice hotel. None existed so we decided to splurge and headed down to Lago de Apoyo on another tuk tuk. We stayed at the Peace Project for two nights. The Peace Project is a school but they also rent out rooms. There was also a kitchen with a set menu and amazing cook.

Having a meal at Lago de Apoyo

We noticed right away the abundance of howler monkeys lurking in the trees overhead. One of the women there said we were pretty lucky to see them as they are not always there. Our time was spent lazing around, swimming, eating good food with great cmpany and conversation and watching howler monkeys. For the Easter weekend it seemed all the locals were out at the lake blaring their music. The lights in our room flickered to the bass a block away.

Howler monkeys over our hostel in the trees

Lago de Apoyo being a crater lake without any feed we wondered about the population of fish and found out there are 5 different species that all diversified from a single species but no one knows how they got there but there are a few current theories such as the fish were brought by a tornado or birds or the lake overflowed at some point.

Pete and Rigel going for a s3im in Apoyo