A Diamond in the Rough

Can you guess what this is?

Top: View over Granada

Bottom: View over Laguna de Apoyo

In southern Nicaragua you will find the Laguna de Apoyo set conveniently between the cities of Masaya and Granada. An area rich in history, beauty and geology.

Ken and I went to volcano Masaya for a day trip thinking it would be very cool to look down into an active volcano, which it was, and ended up staying a week in the area.

Volcano Masaya was refered to as ¨the gates of hell¨by the spaniards in the 1600´s so they placed a cross on the top of the volcano to help ward off the demons. Today there are 5 craters and one of which is still active, it smokes and chokes daily. We took a night tour into the crater where we watched green parrots return into the crater at dusk to nest safely from predators, decended into lava tubes filled with millions of bats, and looked down into a glowing red betching mass of molten lava. There is a constant stream of sulfuric fumes from the crater and we were given gas-masks just in case the fumes got too bad to breath.

It was on the top of Volcano Masay that we met ¨Ken¨of Ken and Carol and the Guest House La Orquieda. After a short exchange about how beautiful and pristine Laguna de Apoyo was we had to see for ourselves if it was as clear, clean and blue as our own beautiful Lake Okanagan. Wow...it´s a lake that sits in the bottom of an old inactive volcano. I don´t know where the water came from but it really is clear, clean, warm (there is a hotspring or two locatted on the lake, that makes me question weather it really is inactive or not) and bonita. La Orquieda Guest House...ah yes...a private beach, a beautiful garden with its´ own hammocks, and a fridge full of cold beer for Ken. We had to tear ourselves away from it after.....solo uno dia mas!!! Just one more day!!!

A half an hour in either direction of Laguna de Apoyo is Masaya to the north and Granada to the south. Masaya is ¨the market place¨in Nicaragua, it actually has 2 markets places, an old market located in the ruins left behind by an earthquake where artesanias show and sell their crafts, and a new market that is larger in size than a city block with everything from meat to souveniers to Calvin Klein jeans. Granada, like Antigua Guatamala, is a colonial town with many ancient churches, palm lines squares, tiled roofs and lots and lots of great restaurants and cafes.

Returning to the Pan-Americian hyway, headed south to Costa Rica, we both agree (even after paying our first bogus $6.00 trafific fine) that Nicaragua is our favorite country, so far! But, many more to come.

By the way the first photo is looking down into the hole in the crater, full of lava.