Nicaragua FULL recap

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
3 jet setting through the neon lights from Tokyo to Rios.
Go riding high. The beat drops low.

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Number one, everywhere he goes and.
Show. Late night with stories bold
gold plated and tails untold microphone his mighty sword.
Podcast world you can't ignore. Welcome to the Up in the Clouds

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podcast featuring your host Adrian Hustling.
What is up, everybody? Welcome back to the podcast.
I am your host, Adrian, and today is the day.
I've been advertising this episode for a little while now,
the the Nicaragua Special. We're going to go through

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everything I did in Nicaragua tothe places I went, the places I
stayed, the activities I did, the food I ate, the restaurants
I went to. All.
The good info and you know, if you're if you're planning a trip
to Nicaragua, hopefully this helps you out.
But before we get to that, I'm just sitting here on the side of
a of a mountain right now. Actually, I was looking for a

(01:31):
lookout here in Monteverde. I was hoping I could find maybe
a nice quiet, secluded place to record the podcast because, you
know, as much as I like working at the hostels, there are very
social, loud environment. It's it's really hard to record
there. So I needed somewhere more
secluded, somewhere more quiet. And let me tell you, I
definitely found that. And it's actually the first time
that I felt like I'm truly backpacking.

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I'm on my own and outside of thetown now.
I'm about 3 kilometres from Monteverde.
Honestly couldn't even really tell you the area I'm in.
I just went for a jaunt. I got to the lookout spot, not
really much of A lookout, it's actually just a rain runoff with
some barbed wire fence. So nowhere really to post up.
But I walked a little further down and I found the trail going

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into the the side of the mountain.
So I decided to explore it. And here I am now sitting on the
side of this trail, just me, myself and I looking down into
the valley. And let me tell you, Monte Verde
is beautiful. I a lot of people, you know,
when they're coming here, they say, well, you just need two
nights. And I mean, I do understand that
there's a pretty small town. There's not much of A nightlife.

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So you kind of come in and get out, you know, do your
activities, whether that's your hikes or the cloud forest or
more the adrenaline activities like the bungee jump, the zip
line and the Tarzan swing. And those are the reasons I
came. But I actually quite enjoy
Monteverdi. It's a chance to just kind of
escape, dial in, dial back into a good routine and just relax

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for a little while. The jumping around kind of gets
to you after a while if you're only staying at each spot for
two or three nights. It's, it's a lot, it's a lot of
travel, it's a lot of packing, unpacking.
And what I found in Costa Rica so far is that the travelling is
not easy. So if you're going to go through
that, you might as well stay putfor a few days and give yourself
a little break. But anyways, we're not really

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here to talk about Costa Rica today.
We're here to talk about Nicaragua.
And the reason for this episode is I kind of just want to share
my personal experiences while I was in country.
Now, I was only expecting to be in Nicaragua for 10 days, maybe
2 weeks and end up being there for just under a month.
It actually really surprised me.And I mean, obviously, I've only

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been to Nicaraguan, Costa Rica. But so far.
It is my favorite country and you know, expectations weren't
that high for sure. I did some research on some
places I want to go on some things I wanted to do, but it
definitely exceeded expectations.
And it's definitely a country I would love to go back to
someday. But might as well dive right
into it because there's a lot totalk about just based off my

(04:03):
general itinerary. And then I kind of want to give
you all the information that I possibly can in terms of the
country itself and kind of what you need to expect, prepare for.
So First off, before we even talk about, you know, any of my,
any of my destinations or any ofthe trip in general, let's talk
about general requirements. Now when I talk about
requirements, I'm talking about what do you need to get into the

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country? And I'm talking specifically
about Canadians because that's just my personal experience.
So if you're from another country, I do apologize in
advance. I do not know country specifics.
I just know for Canada now, if you're looking at visas, it's
quite simple. If you're going to be in country
under 90 days, you do not need avisa.
Now that's really handy and that's pretty common in most of

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Central South America and it's one of the benefits of being a
Canadian. So if you're going to be in
country under 90 days, you do not need a visa.
If you're going to be in countrylonger than yes, you need to
apply for a visa. Vaccinations, this was pretty
straightforward. Now they're going to give you a
long list and I mean it's personal preference based on
what you want to get. Myself personally, I just got

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hepatitis A&BI got my MRI, I got2 doses of that typhoid and
tetanus and that was it. Now they're going to tell you a
bunch of other ones. Maybe you know, yellow fever or
dengue. Um, there's a couple other ones.
Again, talk to your doctor, see what they recommend.
It's always changing right? So if you're going to go travel

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in a year or two, obviously the,the requirements or
recommendations are going to change.
So that's something you need to look at.
But those are the only ones thatI got yellow fever was one that
I was worried about needing to have like I was worried they
were going to let me in country,but Nicaragua actually doesn't
experience yellow fever. There are countries in Central
South America that. Do.

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But from what I understand, and of course I haven't got there
yet, is actually when you fly into the airports of these
countries, they actually offer you the yellow fever vaccination
for free. So that's pretty handy.
Aside from that, it's not too much more.
You got to prepare. You do want to contact the
Government of Canada if you're going to be traveling for an
extended period. So I plan to be in Central South

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America for at least six months.I mean, the way it's looking, it
might end up being longer, but you want to reach out to them,
give them a general idea of yourtimeline, what country is going
to be in, at what dates, and give them your info.
That's your e-mail, your phone number and all that.
So that way they can contact youif any kind of travel advisories
or warnings arise. So they essentially can get

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ahold of you and say, hey, listen, like in this country and
this destination, for instance, let's say San Jose, Costa Rica,
you know, there's been some issues at the airport with
people getting robbed or something like that, right?
So they're going to send you anykind of updates.
Now it's interesting because I gave them my info and I haven't
received a single next yet. So maybe that's a good thing or
maybe I did it wrong. But either way, if you're going

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to do an extended trip, make sure to reach out to Government
of Canada. You can find on their website
and as well on the website, they're going to give you all
the travel advisories and warnings as well and give you
any info you need. So you know they they give you
everything like what the transportations like what the
currency is, etcetera, etcetera.The other thing you might need.
Now, I haven't had this yet and I haven't.

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Had a problem with. It but I do know that they ask
you at the border is proof of departure and proof of
accommodation. So when you're getting into
these countries, they, they liketo know you have some kind of
plan, right? You have somewhere to stay and
you also plan on leaving the country.
You're not just gonna stay thereforever.
Now, because I'm backpacking andunpacking for an extended period

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of time and I have no real plans.
I don't usually have accommodation booked and I don't
usually have a departure date. Now, when I got into Nicaragua,
I said, hey, listen, I'll be here for 21 days because that
was my, that was my estimation. And I estimated more than I.
Thought I'd be just to give myself a bit of leeway.
And there is no issue with that.I said 21 days.
They're like, yeah, no problem. Um, in terms of a place to say

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they didn't really ask for that When I was transferring to Costa
Rica, going across the border, they were a little more
particular in terms of wanting to see some kind of proof of
accommodation plans and departure.
And I literally just looked at the guy with a blank face, like
kind of a dumb look. And it was like, sorry, man.
Like I, I don't know any of those details.
Like I haven't planned anything.And he kind of hesitated for a

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second and looked his buddy. And then they started laughing
something, I don't know what, but he stayed at my passport and
let me on my way. So wasn't a big deal in this
scenario. I might not be like that every
time, but I guess my only suggestion really is you can
always just have, you know, you can always maybe just like pull
up like Google Flights or something and like just show
them that you're looking at flights out of country.

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But again, I don't think it's gonna be a big.
Deal. So that's the biggest thing for
requirements. Now I.
I can go over some other things as well, but I kind of want to
dive into my trip. So I think we'll dive into the
trip and maybe we'll break it upa little bit.
We'll do. We'll talk about our destination
and then. We'll.
Also include some information about the country and just kind

(09:05):
of break it up that way so it doesn't get too boring.
You know too. And I don't want you falling
asleep on me. But there's a lot to talk about,
so we're gonna go with the firststop, so.
My friend Tark and I, we flew into Managua.
That's the capital city. That's likely where you will fly
into, especially if you're coming from Canada or the
States. Now Managua, to be honest,

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there's really not too much to be seen there.
It's just a big city. But honestly, it's a big city
with really nothing to do or see.
It's not like it has a lot of culture, any major landmarks or
anything like that. So it's mainly just your
destination to fly into and thenyou get out of there straight
away. So we only spent one night in
Managua. Now we did stay at a hostel

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called La Bicicleta and I quite enjoyed it.
It was a really nice hostel, very small, very cute.
We did get a private room just because after a long travel day,
we figured let's just have our own space, we can get a good
night's sleep. Definitely would recommend that
if you have a long travel day, spend a bit of extra money, get
the private room, get a good night's sleep, and then you can

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go to the dorms and socialize and meet people and and do all
that fun stuff. Labisi Kletter really enjoyed
it. Very friendly staff.
They're very friendly guy and girl.
At reception. I'm unfortunately I'm not gonna
be able to name names. It's just I'm not great with
names in general and I've met somany people it's nearly
impossible to remember them. They do offer a free breakfast,
which was amazing. Really good food.

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I had the pancakes and the fruitand all.
Let me tell you, I was a happy boy.
But anyways, so. Yeah, we ended up just spending
the night there. So I mean just spending the 12
hours there. I would recommend it.
Like I said, I really do like it.
They they locked the gates at night.
You know, security is not an issue.
You're in a relatively safe spotof town.

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You're also in a pretty convenient.
Spot in town so in order to get out of Managua.
There's a few. Different options, obviously,
you know, standard taxis, shuttles, buses.
While we were looking to get a shuttle to Leon, while the area
where the shuttles are was abouta 2025 minute walk, it wasn't
too bad. And that's where you can get all
your shuttles to various areas within the country.

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So that was kind of nice as well.
And then there was also a a big mall there as well.
So if you're looking to maybe hit an ATM and get some local
currency, if you're looking to get a SIM card, all that you can
hit. The mall there.
So again, I don't remember the name of the mall that it's just
past where all the shuttles are and other maybe 10 minute walk.
Um, so convenient location, verynice hostile yeah, would

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definitely recommend if you're just flying in need somewhere to
spend the night and then you're taking off the next day.
I wouldn't say much of A social life, but again, I don't feel
like many people spend much timein Managua there.
There had no to the Oma tapes and the Papayas and the Leons
and all the places we're going to talk about here moving
forward. So.
We can move on from that. Our next stop was Leon, so

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that's one of the major cities in Nicaragua.
Now, Leon is mostly known for volcano boarding, which I highly
recommend if you're going to Nicaragua.
It's definitely one of the top activities that you can do.
Can't say enough good things about it.
Now, if you're doing volcano boarding, you're likely going to
want to stay at the Big Foot Hostel.

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Now, Bigfoot Hostel is the hostel that actually puts on the
volcano boarding. So if you're going to do it, you
might as well go straight to thesource.
At least that was my thought. Now I will say Bigfoot Possible.
It has its pros and cons. It's really good as a social
atmosphere. It's a party hostel.
They have events every night. They do the volcano boarding,
they do pub crawls, beach crawls, beer pong tournaments.

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They got a pool table. They they have everything you
need if you're just getting intothe country and you're looking
to meet some people. So it's great for that.
But if you don't want to be at aparty hostel, if you don't want
to have the loud music till midnight, and if you want to be
somewhere a bit more quiet or atleast to be able to escape the
party, and I'd recommend stayingsomewhere else.
And there are other, sorry, there are other hostels in the

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area. Now, I didn't really go and
explore them, but it's it's fairly easy to find whether
you're using booking.com or hostile world.
So yeah, if you want the party hostile Bigfoot, that's that's
going to be the place. You're going to be a ton of
people and you're going to have a hell of a time.
Now the volcano boarding that issuper fun.
If you're going to Leon, you gotta do it.
It's just that's it. You got to do it.

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There's no if ands or buts. It's a full day activity.
We did the sunset volcano boarding, which of course I
would recommend. So you end up leaving about 1:00
in the afternoon and it's about a 45 minute drive, I'd say.
So you get out to this volcano and you hike up.
It's about a 40 minute hike. It's, it's a good climb.

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I'd say it's like an intermediate hike.
I mean, that's, you know, me talking from my experience in
Canada and hiking quite regularly.
I'd say it was a good little climb.
I mean, wasn't too hard, but there's definitely points had to
catch my breath. But they do stop along the way
too, right. So if you're not an experienced
hiker, they they take breaks along the way so you can, you
know, take pictures and catch the view and have a water break.

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So it's nothing too crazy. And the only thing I guess is
you are carrying your board up the whole time.
So that can be a bit of a how doI say inconvenience?
But it makes it a. Little bit harder of course, but
there are locals there too and they do offer to carry your
board for you and it actually helps support the locals.
So don't feel afraid to be the person that's like, yeah, I'll
get the local to carry my board up.

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It's not legal thing. It actually helps them out.
So you also have the option to do that.
So you climb 45 minutes up the volcano, you get Absolutely.
Gorgeous views at the top and wewere actually fortunate enough
that once we got to the top, there were two other volcanoes
in the area that are actually erupting at the time.
So that was really cool. We got to see two active
volcanoes erupting. Um, yeah, you get to the top,

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you do a little sightseeing. Actually the volcano itself that
you're boarding down is actuallystill active.
So if you just dig your hand under the soil a little bit at
the top, it is sculling hot. I mean like you can't keep your
hand down there for very long. That's how hot it is.
So that was also pretty cool as well.
So anyways, here's the top. You have your board and you have
your coveralls and you get all suited up and you get ready to

(15:12):
go down. Now it was interesting because
quite a few people beforehand were getting a little nervous
because they show you a video before you leave of the volcano
boarding. And it does look very steep.
And they mention, you know, somepeople go 80 kilometers an hour.
And I think the fastest at the time was actually. 101.
And of course. You know, me being me, I was
like, wow, I want to break the record.
But I think I realized when I got to the top, I was like, that

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might not be as easy as I as I thought it was, but.
You get to the. Top.
And it's quite interesting because you can see.
A little bit of the way. Down and then all of a sudden.
It's just a straight drop off. And you can't see anything.
And so that's when people reallystart to get a little nervous.
Now, I don't think we actually had anyone back out and not do
it. I think the only girl that

(15:55):
didn't end up doing it was already injured.
She had a hand injury. I wasn't sure it was a broken
finger, but it was wrapped up. So anyway, she was hiking down.
And that is an option. If you get up there, you're not
comfortable, there is a guide that will hike down with you.
But honestly, with my experience, I'd say go for it.
Like you're going to regret not doing it, especially when you
get to the bottom and you see people coming down.

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Like it's not as bad as it appears, but there is that
straight drop off. So it's kind of one of those
moments of you gotta have a little.
Faith. Anyways, when you're writing
down these, these sleds, they're, they're like toboggans,
right? So you're not snowboarding down,
you're tobogganing down or sledding down.
For for those who don't know what's bogginess?
And the biggest? Thing is, you're holding on to

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this rope in the middle and you want to hold on to it and you
want to keep it in the middle. That keeps you going straight.
If you stray side to side, that's when you're going to fall
off and you're going to go for atumble as while you have your
brakes, while your brakes are your feet.
So if you if you drag your feet,that's going to slow you down
quite considerably and that's your break.
But if you lift your feet and you really try to lie, sorry,

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lean back on the toboggan. That's going to help you
generate speed. Well, it's interesting because
when I went. I was leaning heavily back on
the board, but unfortunately I wore my pretty durable hiking
boots and it was kind of hard tokeep the heels up.
So. I was struggling a little bit at
1st to get momentum going and for the first little part, the
part that you can see before thedrop off, I was going pretty

(17:17):
slow and I was like, OK, well I got to like figure something out
here. So I really tried to raise my
heels up, get my body back. And so that was like completely
off, off the ground. Well, sadly enough, and that
they do, they do radar guns, right?
Like they do radar guns about halfway up the volcano to check
your speed. Because obviously it's like a
little friendly competition to see who can go fast as well.

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I only ended up doing 45 kilometers an hour, so not not
very fast. Unfortunately I couldn't keep my
heels up for whatever reason. I guess I gotta do some more
crunches and work on my my core strength, but that still felt
pretty fast. I have the GoPro video of it.
I have posted it on my Instagram, but it was a hell of
a time. But looking back at it now, I I

(18:02):
was scared. I was scared looking at the
straight drop off and now I wishI had to just sent.
It. Because you really don't.
Go as fast as you think you're going to go.
Now having said that, there was one girl and she went the
fastest that day. She went 84 kilometers an hour
and she had a bit of a tumble. And by a bit of a tumble, I
mean, she went head over hills and just went flying.

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Now, kind of the way it works, as you can imagine, is if you
have a bit more weight on you, you're going to gain more
momentum. So that was kind of the case in
this scenario. And she did not pull the brakes.
And, you know, total respect forthat.
All gas, no brakes. She went for it.
And yeah, she ended up getting up to 84 kilometers an hour.
The only problem is she did not know how to slow down a break at

(18:47):
that point. And if you're not comfortable to
ride it out, you're going to bail.
And that's what happened. So.
There are some videos out there.I know of someone that has a
slomo and yeah, I, I watched thevideo and yeah, it was, it was
hard to watch. She ended up going head over
heels somersaulting I think 3 or4 times and then the last one
was just a pure suplex right on her neck.

(19:09):
And yeah, that couldn't have. Felt.
Felt good at all. Now they do tell you if you're
gonna bail or you feel like you're gonna fall off the board.
Bring your hands up to protect your face because you do have
goggles and you do have like a baklava or something that like
protect your mouth because there's going to be a lot of ash
flying up in your face. But that doesn't protect you

(19:31):
when you're bailing. And you know, you're hitting,
hitting the ash and hitting the volcano.
So anyways, supposed to bring your arms up while she forgot to
bring your arms up. So unfortunately her face was a
little worse for wear after it was quite red.
And quite dinged up, to say the least.

(19:51):
It's kind of like that, that rugburn, right?
Like it kind of had taken a. Layer of her skin off.
So maybe not as bad as that sounds, but yeah, yeah, you
know, it's something to be wary of.
Now, mind you, that was the onlyinstance of that happening.
No one else was injured in this case.
And I think we had, you know, atleast 50 people.
So just something to keep in mind that you know.

(20:14):
You can go fast and you have a good time, but just keep in mind
that that can happen, especiallyif you're going at speeds of 84
kilometers an hour. And if you do happen to bail,
make sure you tuck your roll andyou cover your face.
But again, I don't want to scareyou off.
It's an amazing experience. You can go much faster than you
think. The drop off is not as scary as
it looks, but again, just something to be wary of.

(20:37):
So that was the that was the experience volcano boarding.
Then after that the. Excuse me?
Get you back on the chicken bus now.
Trig muses, as you mentioned they're.
Like. Really old school school buses
that's like the main form of transportation around Nicaragua
and we're gonna talk about that in a little bit but anyways, you
get back on the bus and on your way back to town it turns into a

(20:59):
party bus. So you're partying, they got
music, they're feeding you shotsand you're just having a great
time. So it's a great vibe.
You know, you got the hike, you got the adrenaline rush, always
forgot to mention to you have the sunset and there's an
absolute epic sunset. You're sitting on top of the
buses watching the sun go down and is is a pretty serene
moment. So just a a phenomenal day, a

(21:21):
full day. You're back on the buses.
They're they're feeding you shots of I couldn't even tell
you. I think it was wrong, but who
knows, and you're having a greattime.
You do stop on the way back. You stop at a like a family
restaurant. They feed you, they feed you a
meal. Now, I will say it's a bit of a
small meal considering you have and you really eating all day
and you've been drinking quite abit on the bus.

(21:44):
So I guess it's a it's an easy night in terms of getting a.
Good buzz on. But either way to give you a
little bit of food and then thenyou head back into town.
Now if you are like me and kind of want to make the most of your
days and maybe keep the party going since you're already
getting the drinks flowing if you.
Go. Volcano boarding on the Tuesday

(22:04):
and Saturday. They also offer a beach pub
crawl at night. So how it works is you get back
to the hostel, they kind of havea little bit of a debrief.
They give out an award out to the person that was the fastest
and the person that was the slowest.
Now, I don't know. The award is because I ended up
leaving at that point to go havea shower because I was
completely filthy and I was like, if I'm going to a beach

(22:25):
party, I want to be fresh. So anyways, we won't have a
shower. You have about an hour, an hour
and a half to kind of, yeah, like debrief, settle down a bit,
get yourself ready for the night.
And then you hop on to another chicken bus and they take you
down to the beach. So they take you down to a beach
called Las Pinatas. And we're going to talk about
that later because that was our next destination.
About 1/2 hour bus ride. Again, party bus.

(22:46):
They're feeding you shots the whole way down.
Then you end up this beach club or beach hostel I guess, and
it's just a big party. It's just a good time.
You're obviously all hyped from the adrenaline of the volcano
boarding. You've had some drinks now, you
haven't had a lot of food and you're just the vibes are high,
the vibes are high and you end up just partying the night away
at this beach club. They have DJ, they got a dance

(23:08):
floor, they got a bar, they've got like pool table.
And a bunch of other stuff. And overall, it's just, it's an
amazing day. It's it's a.
Full. Day and it's just good time so I
cannot recommend. Enough, of course.
You don't have to do the beach pub crawl and you can you excuse
me, you can do the volcano boarding on a different day.
But I did notice that the volcano boarding.

(23:30):
Had. More people on the Tuesday that
we went and I think that was specifically because people were
planning to do the pub crawl. Afterwards.
I heard from someone else that the next day of the Wednesday
there was like 10 people, whereas we had two busloads of
people on the Tuesday. So keep that in mind as well.
If you maybe want more of an intimate experience, something
more low key, you can go on one of the off.

(23:52):
Days. If you want that full social
party experience with a big group of people, then yeah, I
would. I recommend going to Tuesday or
the Saturday. Now, I think that's enough about
the volcano recording. Obviously that was one of my
favorite experiences in Nicaragua, so I kind of wanted
to highlight that and go through.
It for the rest of Leon, there'sreally not much to talk about.

(24:12):
It is a city. I'm not a city guy, so I didn't
really enjoy it. You do have a little bit of
architecture, the colonial buildings, but like.
I don't know. Once you see a few you've you've
seen a few, it doesn't. Really do much for me.
I don't know what. Else to really see on Leon.
It's kind of hard to find like local cuisine too.

(24:33):
We ended up only getting street meat the one night.
It was pretty good, but I think we overpaid.
We ended up paying $15 each, which I think is way too much
for street meat. If you're getting street meat,
should be like 3 or 4. Bucks so it.
Wasn't really that impressed and.
It it was odd because you get your.
You know, you'll have breakfast.And then I almost feel like no
one eats in the afternoon. Like they almost like siesta and

(24:57):
they fast until dinner, but thenit's like they almost have like
a super early dinner and then everything shuts down.
So when we were going to look for dinner at like 6:00 or 7:00,
it almost felt. Like.
Everything was almost shut down and closed.
So we were having a hard time finding local cuisine, local
food. So we end up having like
schwarma and like burgers, like we weren't having, you know,
your typical Nicaraguan food. So wasn't really that impressed

(25:20):
with that either. Blown away.
And maybe we just didn't get, you know, do a good enough job
of, you know, looking for local restaurants.
But either way, that was kind ofit for Leon, though, that's that
was really the highlight was thevolcano boarding staying at the
Bigfoot? Hostel.
Other than that, there's really not a ton to do, so I don't feel
like you need to be there too long.
Maybe 2-3 days tops And and moveon and.

(25:44):
That's like a lot of places. In Nicaragua, and you know,
we're going to find out, find out about that later.
Now. Let's talk about something else
about Nicaragua here. We'll change it up here.
So we just talked about Leon, um, let's give you some
information here. So language, obviously the
spoken language in Nicaragua is Spanish.

(26:05):
Espanol it. Does.
Help to know the basics. You don't have to be fluent.
You don't have to know a lot. I ended up just getting
Duolingo. Everyone knows about Duolingo.
I did some lessons. I don't know, I wasn't very
consistent, but I at least got through like the first.
I don't know if you want to callit chapter or section, whatever,
just to get the basics just so you can put in an.

(26:27):
Effort to at least be able to say like hello, good day.
Like maybe ask for some help or directions or whatever just to
know the basics. It goes a long way because it
makes a good impression on the locals.
They really appreciate you trying to learn the language and
trying to speak to them in theirnative tongue and.
They will switch. Over to English fairly easily as

(26:48):
long as they know it, but I found that most.
Of the locals. Are involved in the tourism
tourism industry, whether that'shostels, shuttle services,
anything like that. They do know a fair amount of
English, and you know when they see you attempting to speak
Spanish. We'll switch over to English
fairly fairly quickly and it's not really too hard to
communicate. So yeah, just just get to know

(27:10):
the basics for for Spanish. Nothing, nothing crazy.
The other note I had here, yeah,was about the local.
So yeah, like I said. The locals are.
Involved in the tourism industry, their English is
pretty good. Again, they're able to
communicate with you and help you out.
I never really had an issue where, you know, I had to pull
out Google Translator or something like that.
Like I didn't use Google Translate my entire time in
Nicaragua. So you'll be all right.

(27:33):
I think the only time I wasn't able to communicate obviously
was, you know, if I was at a mall or something and you're
trying to communicate with someone who's not based around
that tourism industry, who probably wouldn't be as keen to
learn the language just because,you know, on a day-to-day basis,
they're not gonna. Use it so.
That was the only time that yeah, maybe couldn't communicate
as well. But again, I knew the basics.

(27:54):
So for instance, I went to the mall and I asked the girl was
working there, you know, Donda as oh gosh, I'm drawing a blank
now. But anyways, ask her where the
bank was. But it was a specific, sorry, a
specific name for the bank. But I said don't ask where is
and that's just super basic. But just by saying that she was
able to tell me she just looked behind her and pointed and and

(28:16):
it worked. Out so that that's.
Really all you need so if you learn the basics.
You're good to. Go, no problem there.
Let's talk currency. So the currency in Nicaragua is
the Cordoba. Now for Canadians, 36 Cordoba
equals $1.00 Canadian. That's just something that's
good to know when you're trying to do the.
Maths. ATM charges.
It's always good if you're goingto ATM to pull out more money

(28:38):
than maybe you necessarily need because end of the day when
you're traveling, we all go overbudget, let's be honest.
And because the ATM charges, it's just better to pull out
more money. If you can't have to go back to
the ATM, you're going to end up losing a lot of money because
the ATM charges. Now I found in general, the ATM
charges in Nicaragua were about $8.
So that's why I say if you're going to the ATM, I typically

(29:00):
was pulling out about $200 worthat a time.
I felt that was a safe amount that would get me through at
least four or five days and it was worth the $8 charge.
That's really about it on the currency.
It's pretty straightforward fromthat.
OK, transportation that. The main methods of

(29:21):
transportation in Nicaragua, youhave your shuttles.
So those are going to be kind oflike your your minivans.
They have AC, they're going to be a little more expensive, but
they're a little more convenient.
The person driving them has moregeneral knowledge of where
you're going, can give you some good information in terms of,
you know, if there's places you want to go see and visit.
You have your taxis, which I do not use a single taxi because

(29:44):
they are going to be more expensive.
And you know, there is that issue of safety.
Now, I never felt that safety was an issue in Nicaragua, but
you also never know if you're getting in the right taxi.
Chicken bus is the most popular method of transportation in
Nicaragua for both travelers andlocals.
It's the cheapest method. Now, the only downfall to the
chicken bus is, yes, it's cheap.So obviously if you're on a

(30:06):
budget, that's the best way to go.
But they make more stops. So unlike a shuttle, that's just
one point A to point B Chicken bus, I mean, it's for the
locals, right? So they're making their normal
stops. So it's going to be a much
longer trip. It's going to be a much more
full plus you're looking at a school bus with essentially no
leg room. You're going to be holding on to
your bag. You know it's going to be a
tight ride. But everyone I talked to, they

(30:27):
said, hey listen, you gotta ridethe chicken butt chicken bus
once just to get the experience.Well, I didn't end up doing it
mainly because I never really needed to.
Luckily enough. I was always with people and we
were able to split shuttles or even hedge type at times and was
never put in a position that it needed to do the chicken bus.
But I know most people at some point did do it.

(30:49):
It is definitely experience, butit's just not something I can
speak on from personal experience.
And then like I mentioned, you can also hitchhike.
Now in this circumstance, I hitchhiked with fellow followers
that I knew so or fellow travelers that I knew, so it was
a little easier. I met three German fellas,
absolute beauties. They had a rental truck, so I

(31:11):
just hopped in the back of the truck to go from Leon to Las
Pinatas. And that's something else you
can consider doing. Throw them a.
Little bit of gas money, hop in the back and off you go.
So that's also an option as well.
So yeah, shuttles, taxis. Chicken butts and.
Hitchhiking Now at this point I've been talking for.
A little while. Hopefully it's not getting too
dry. We're going to jump back into my
itinerary and the next spot I went to, Las Pinatas, but I'm

(31:33):
just going to take a brief breakhere because I'm the only one
talking. I'm getting the dry mouth so I
need a little top up, some waterand maybe a little snack.
And then we'll we'll get back into it.
Alright, welcome back. It would be nice during those
breaks. I'd have a little, you know,
message from a sponsor or something like that.

(31:54):
Just throwing that out there. But I'm also thinking actually.
For these special episodes, if it's going to be a paid
subscription, we ain't doing anyads.
So no ads on the. Special episodes, but on normal
episodes. There's room out there, so if
everyone knows of a sponsor, maybe wants to reach out, let a
guy know Anyways, we're. Back.
I had a little water break there, had a little snack.

(32:14):
We're we're good to go. We got to keep the.
Ball rolling here though. It is 140 local time, I've got
some yoga booked at 4:00 and I got about an hour walk back into
town, so we'll keep her going here.
So Next up, we're going to talk about last pinatas now.
Las pinatas as I mentioned briefly there.
It's about 1/2. Hour from Leon.
Excuse me, it is right on the coast, little beach town.

(32:37):
Oh, excuse me once again. And it's a beautiful, beautiful
little spot. Now I will say there's not a lot
going on in Less Bananas. This is just from personal
experience. It's just more of a little surf
town, small getaway. If you're looking, maybe from a
break from the parties, if you just came from Bigfoot Hostel
and you're enjoying the nightlife and maybe you're

(32:58):
looking. For a few days just to rest.
Recoup recharge the batteries. Last Canadas is a great place to
go. Yeah, the the surfing is quite
good as well. Now, it was my first time
surfing ever, so it's kind of, excuse me, kind of hard to
comment on the quality of the waves, but still a good time.
Nonetheless, and I really appreciated finally getting out

(33:20):
there for the first. Surf now we stayed at mono, a
mono hostel. Highly recommend.
Beautiful hostel. It is quiet but I feel like
that's most of Las pinatas. It's not a party hostel, it's a
hostile that you come to. You get up early, you go surf or
maybe go for an excursion excursion, sorry or something or

(33:40):
just. Simply chill on the beach.
Most people are in bed by like 9:00.
You know, it's a very low key chill vibe.
Maybe go there to do some work. Whatever it is.
The rooms are beautiful. We were doing dorms and they had
the the bug Nets which was really nice comfortable beds.
The only thing was the pillow wasn't that great.

(34:01):
End up using my travel pillow but I mean.
You know, you're gonna win some,you lose something, they're not
gonna be great at everything. But anyways, just in general.
Nice rooms beautiful hostel uh they do not have a kitchen
unfortunately, but the meals arerelatively cheap slash fordable
and you get very big portion sizes.
So that was nice. The food's very good.

(34:22):
They have a bar there and then got the beach with the surf.
You got a volleyball net all that fun stuff so really good
hostile. I would recommend it if you're
going to Las pinatas. Now, I should backtrack a minute
here because yeah, I kind of forgot.
Now again, this is my first timedoing an episode like this, so I
apologize from a little back andforth and kind of try to figure

(34:44):
out the the structure of these episodes.
So because I just talked about Minimal Hostel and actually gave
you a bit more information in terms of like there's no
kitchen, but there's a restaurant and talk about rooms.
I didn't really do that with Bigfoot, so I do apologize.
I'll just mention really quicklywith Bigfoot.
Bigfoot as well did not have a kitchen, they did not have a
restaurant. So that's a definite downside.

(35:06):
They do have a bar, but the bar is only open at night.
So yeah, you got, you got to go out to eat now.
Like like we said, it was kind of hard to find spots to eat as
well. So I'd say that's definitely a
bit of a. A bit of a con, but either way
the rooms themselves. Again, we stayed in a basic

(35:26):
room. It really depends what you say
and if you're going basic, if you want to splurge and spend a
bit more money, or if you want to get private.
I know that if you got the next storm up, you actually got beds
with curtains and all that. Which sounds a little nicer.
We stayed in the very basic one.We just had a ceiling fan.
I was actually right beside the door.
So like not the best setup, but again, you get what you pay for.

(35:48):
So again, Bigfoot Hostel, reallygood for the social environment,
really good for meeting people. Wouldn't say the best.
Facilities, though they also didhave a pool, or at least what
they called it was a pool. But it was more like just, you
know, dip your feet in. I didn't really see anyone
swimming in there because it wasquite small.
So anyways, we don't have to go into further detail.

(36:08):
Bigfoot there again, party hostile.
You can have a good time if you want to meet some people to the
volcano boarding, um, but amenities wise, it's, it's not
the best. Um, but going back to manual.
Manual. Hostel, yeah, great vibes.
Like I said, super, super chill.It's really just to go there and
lay low. Do some surfing, do some work,
whatever. Lay on the beach, as I mentioned

(36:31):
the serving itself, that was my first time out so I can't really
engage the waves, but I mean it was good enough to learn on.
Fairly easy to rent a board, fairly cheap as well.
There's like a little surf shackright on the beach, so super.
Convenient that way. Really the only thing we did
while we were there. Now mind you, we were only there
for two nights and you really don't need longer than that.

(36:51):
There were some people. That.
Were originally staying five nights and I saw them actually
in the trip and they're like, yeah, that was that was too long
because there's just really not that much going on now mind you,
if that's what you're looking for perfect.
Um, but if it's not, you know, couple nights, like I said,
recharge the batteries, move on.The one thing we did do there
was beach volleyball. They put on beach volleyball
pretty much every day now. I think it's supposed to be the

(37:14):
locals versus the tourist. But from what I notice, and I
didn't end up playing, and this is the reason why is the locals
kind of just end up taking over the court.
I get it. Don't get me wrong.
I love volleyball. I wanna be playing.
I don't wanna be a sub on the sidelines.
But at the same time, you know, they kind of let the tourists
play for like a few minutes and then basically kicked them off

(37:36):
and it was just locals versus locals.
So yeah, not the greatest that way.
I feel like maybe if they did a better job kind of organizing
the volleyball and making sure everyone was included would be a
bit better. But unfortunately, yeah.
And you'll see that actually. I saw that in the reviews in
hostile world as well, they mentioned you know there is
beach volleyball but the locals kinda they hog the court so that

(37:57):
was unfortunate. But again really nice hostile
like. I do recommend it.
It was a nice break after the partying from Bigfoot.
I enjoyed my two nights there. Again nice to just chill and
enjoy the beach, catch some waves but you don't need to
spend a lot of time there. So moving on from last night
days, we hit Granada. Now Granada is going to be a

(38:19):
popular spot again, one of the major cities.
In Nicaragua, a place that a lotof people go.
Again, recommend it, but again, you only really need a couple
nights. Here.
So Granada, the main attraction,I guess we'll talk about the
hostile first. We sit hostile Azul.
Now there's quite a few good hostels.
The better ones definitely book up fast, especially if you're

(38:41):
going around Friday because Friday is the treehouse party.
Now we're going to talk about that in a minute, but that is
actually the main attraction in Granada.
We see that hostile as well. And I.
Actually really liked it. The volunteers there were super
nice. The local girl working at the
front desk. She was one of the nicest people
I've ever met and very nice facilities as well.
There's actually two sides, so they have the one side and then

(39:05):
across the street they have the other side.
Now we stayed actually across the street from reception and I
really liked it. Again, more of a low key vibe,
nice and quiet. So you can kind of, you know, go
out, socialize, party, but then come back to a nice quiet spot.
We stayed in I believe a 12 bed dorm.
It was not full by any means, soyou don't have to worry about
having shared over 12 other people.
Maybe that's the case other times, but there was only about

(39:27):
maybe 5-6 of us tops in. Here.
You do get your own fan, you getyour own curtain.
It was actually a really nice dorm.
And then you had a bathroom witha shower and then a shower as
well. So you had two showers in the
room. Great setup.
There was a nice little pool there as well.
They did have a kitchen, so theyhave all the facilities, so they
had a kitchen on that side. On the other side they had a

(39:49):
restaurant. You could order some food.
However, it is all vegan, so wasn't exactly for me, but yeah,
yeah, both sides had a kitchen so you can cook your own food.
That's great. There's hammocks, common areas,
lounges and then our side of thepool.
Really good setup, really good vibes.
Met some awesome people there actually as well um, who I ended
up connecting with later in the trip.
So would definitely recommend Hostel Azul.

(40:11):
I really enjoyed it. There are other ones in the area
that are more popular and hey, maybe they're nice, but
sometimes I find them more popular ones.
They're they're a bit more travel like maybe a bit more run
down or there's just so many people you can't get any, you
know, privacy or space yourself.I kind of like having somewhere
quiet to go back to, to just chill.
And if I want to go be social, it's easy to go to these other

(40:32):
hostels And normally you can just walk in and just sit down
and hang out in the common areasand, and chit chat and whatnot.
So I really like hospitals. Hopefully it's a good breakdown
for you. I should mention at this point
as well, if you ever have any questions at all, if there's
something I missed, let me know,reach out to me.
I'd be more than happy to to answer those questions and try

(40:55):
to help you as much as I can. So the main reason to go to
Granada and I found with Nicaragua, there is a big party
scene and a lot of people are just following the party is the
tree house party. Treehouse Party takes place
every Friday. There's a treehouse hostel.
It's about a 40 minute drive outside of Granada and it's a

(41:16):
bit of a climb up a hill. And by a bit of a climb, I mean
it's it's a good little climb. Like there's some big rocks
that's steep if you're going down that thing drunk.
You you might go for a fall and I'm sure.
There's been quite a few in the past.
Beautiful. Hostel, treehouse, I mean, I
don't know how else. To explain it.
But it's just like a giant tree house and the side of the
mountain. People will go early to the
party for the sunset apparently.It's amazing.

(41:38):
I wasn't able to go for the sunset because it was sold out.
It does sell out early, so if you want to do the sunset, make
sure you book in advance. I'd say at least a week is my
guess. We ended up coming at 6:00 PM,
which still, I mean, that's early enough.
That's plenty of time to go up and party.
We just missed the sunset. They have a.
Suspension bridge, there bunch of different areas like
different stages, different DJ booth.

(42:00):
So it's really cool because you can kind of move around.
It's not just one spot, so you know.
If. Maybe one of the DJ's are not
feeling the vibe. You can go to the next one and
then the next one. So really cool that way.
Tons of space you think by the pictures.
When I was looking at the pictures of this party, I was
like, man, it looks pretty cramped.
There is so much space there. And like, we had a lot of people
that went to this party, but there was plenty of room to move

(42:20):
around and dance and have a goodtime and socialize.
Excuse me? And just a great overall vote.
Now trio's party, there's 4 mainparties in Nicaragua.
Trios party ended up being my favorite for a few different
reasons. I really did like the treehouse
vibe. I really did like the music.
It was like house and techno. And just the fact that I met so
many people at the party. Now some are remembered and some

(42:42):
I didn't. And that's, you know, that's an
Adrian thing. But I met so many people the
trios party that would meet later down the road.
And that was the really cool thing is that that's kind of
where it all started. And meta ton of great people
meet them down further down the line traveled with them a bit
and so that's why it's a really fond memory for me O treehouse
party. If you're going to Granada, I

(43:04):
say you gotta do it now obviously if you don't drink, if
you don't party, totally get it all good.
But that is really the main reason to go to Canada.
The other one say the other reason to go to Granada, but the
other thing we did in Granada was a kayak tour.
We did this the next day. Obviously I was pretty banged up
so I didn't really feel like doing much, but.
There is a cool. Lagoon in Granada, you can see

(43:27):
some wildlife, you can see some really nice nature and it's kind
of just a nice relaxing day. The tour guide was awesome.
He was super friendly, super knowledgeable, really took his
time. Like we never felt like we were
in a rush. We were just out for a nice
paddle and I was actually a really good day.
I was a little skeptical. I was like, oh whatever, I've
kayaked before, but it ended up definitely being good day.
I think it was about 3 hours. So that's another activity you

(43:49):
can do. And then of course, you know,
just explore the city in general.
But again, I'm not a city guy, so it just it wasn't really for.
Me. Again, two nights Grenada, I
think you're going to go move onto the next place.
Um, so yeah, we'll move on from.There.
So next stop and. I would say my favorite, yeah,
there, there's two, there's a top 2, but I'd say my favorite

(44:10):
is Oma Tape Islands. Now, if you haven't heard about
Ometepe Island, if you're planning to go to Nicaragua, you
are going to hear about it. And I would definitely make sure
you do your research and definitely make sure that you
plan to stop there because favorite stop by far.
It is an. Island out on a lake, it's got 2
volcanoes on it. And overall, the general vibe is
just like, I guess you could call it island life, but it's

(44:30):
just laid back chill vibes are high.
Everyone's in a good mood. You're driving around the island
on scooters and it's just like, it's freedom, you know, you
don't have to worry about, well,I mean, this is if you get a
scooter, but if you go to Ometepe, get a scooter.
If you don't get a scooter, likeyou're not doing it right.
But you don't have to worry about, you know, shuttles and

(44:51):
chicken buses and the city and congestion.
John and Island. Evolve spaced yourself there's
there's nice roads at least on the main strip and you literally
just go there you get a scooter and you do your your daily
excursions. You get U at a good hour you.
Go and maybe do a hike on the volcano or you go to the San
Ramon waterfall or you go, you know, swimming in the lake or

(45:12):
you go kite surfing or whatever.There's, there's so much to do
that's such a good vibe. I ended up staying in Ometepe
for a week and I could have easily stayed for another week
or two. I.
Absolutely loved it. So there's a lot of talk.
About with Ometepe and we'll dive right in.
I guess so. We ended up.
Staying at a place called HostelPapasito.
Now when you're going to Ometepe, you're gonna have to

(45:34):
take a bus or a shuttle and thenyou got to take the ferry over.
It's a bit of a long travel day,so we decided to stay near the
ferry just for the first night so we didn't have to do, you
know, like a 12/14 hour travel day.
And that's what a lot of people do.
Hostile. Papasito.
It was nice and it has a lot of potential.
I think the only problem is thatit's not in the main hub of

(45:57):
Ometepe. The main hub of Ometepe is
further in, in between the two volcanoes.
It's called Bogue. Think I'm saying that, right?
And that's where everyone's going to go and hang out, at
least for backpackers. So we were near the ferry at
this hostel, Papasito. It was nice.
Don't get me wrong, like it had a kitchen.
They could order. Food from town for you.

(46:18):
The rooms were nice, the beds were nice, plenty of showers,
plenty of bathrooms, pool table,they had a jacuzzi pool on the
roof, they had a bar. Like like I said, plenty of
potential, just a little unfortunate the location and
when we were there, there was really no one else there.
So really not much of A vibe, but more just a place to stop
along the way. Hopefully that does change in

(46:39):
the future, maybe that becomes more of a hub because like I
said, it does have a lot of potential, it's just there
wasn't anything going on there. So anyways, we spent one night
there and then we headed toward Bulk.
Now, I decided to stay at a place called El Patel Chocolate
Paradise. Um, again, if you're researching
Ometepe, you're probably going to hear about this place because
it is one of the most popular hostels to stay at.

(47:01):
It was highly recommended to me from both friends and.
The YouTube videos I was watching now.
It is a low. It's hard to explain.
It's a little more I guess bougie you could call it, but at
the same time like there's back,there's backpackers there,
there's families there, like it's a vast variety of people.
I absolutely loved it. They have tons of accommodation

(47:22):
whether you want a private room,if you want a tent, if you want
over, almost like an Airbnb style accommodation and they
have the. Dorms.
And I really enjoy the dorms. There's a lot of complaints
online, you know, all it's like full of bogs and blah, blah,
blah. I'm like, yeah, but you're in
the jungle. Like what do you expect?
You're not at a freaking Best Western.

(47:42):
Like you know what you're getting into.
So I anyways, I didn't have any issues with it.
I thought it was an amazing location.
I really like the vibe there. I will say one note but again
this is like a one off. This could happen anywhere, but
the girl that was actually bunking next to me on the bottom
bunk the one night at about 4:00in the morning she actually got.
Stung in the. Forehead by by a scorpion, which

(48:05):
is crazy. So she's just sleeping there and
I guess it was probably crawlingon her head or whatever and she
flinched a bit and it just boom right in the forehead.
So. Luckily it wasn't super
poisonous, she just had a bit ofnumbing for about 24 hours so
she had some numbing in her lipsand parts of her body.
So super unfortunate for her because it actually happened the
day before the main party in Ometepe, so she wasn't able to

(48:27):
go. So that that was really
unfortunate. But again, that that's a
one-off. Hadn't heard about that
happening in anyone else. But yeah, there are, there are a
lot of, a lot of bugs there for sure.
Right. Yeah, your scorpions and your
general bugs and geckos and spiders and all that.
But like, I didn't, I saw one scorpion in the washroom.
That was it. And I will say, like in any of
those locations, especially if you're in the jungle, make sure

(48:49):
you're aware of your surroundings.
Like if you're going to the washroom, like check the toilet,
make sure there's not something in it.
You know, check your shoes before you.
Put them on, just see it I'll like.
Be a bit more. Aware that there could be, you
know something there, but again,don't don't let that like deter
you from going to these locations because again, it's
not very calm and that's something like that happens and

(49:09):
for the most part like nothing'sgonna hurt you, right.
Anyway, so yeah, really nice hostel.
They have events every day now. It is more hippie for sure.
They do like a cacao ceremony and they have like the chocolate
tour. I didn't really bother with any
of that because it wasn't reallyof interest to me.
Plus I didn't really want to spend the money for that and

(49:29):
that's more on the hippie side. Just wasn't for me.
I will mention as well they did not have a kitchen unfortunately
and the food there is all vegan.Again this.
Tended to be a bit. Of a common theme in Nicaragua
now, even though the food is vegan is actually delicious and
it is a they call it chocolate paradise.
So not only is the food really good, but there's a ton of

(49:52):
really good chocolate you've gotlike chocolate cheesecake, cow
cobbles, brownies, you name it. Phenomenal.
So I mean, even though I'm not vegan, I actually ended up
eating there more often than notjust because the food was so
good. So it is good.
It's a little more expensive, obviously, because you're at the
hostel, it's vegan, you know, soyou're paying a bit more.
But I kind of just said heck with it.

(50:13):
Like, you know, it's, it's good food.
And yeah, so. That was good there, huh?
What else we got for for Al Patel, That's kind of.
Kind of it for there, I guess like yeah, but but just overall
good vibes. Met a lot of people there as
well, a lot of other backpackersthat ended up exploring all the
tape with. Now, of course I mentioned OMA

(50:35):
tape. It's somewhere that you need to
get a scooter. I highly recommend and as I say,
this is getting a little cloudy out here, so I really hope it
doesn't rain. But anyways, ometepe Big Island,
right? A lot of space to cover.
The best way to do it? Get a scooter.
Get a bike. And it's only for my scooter is
$15 a day. I think that's a great deal,

(50:56):
especially compared to places like Costa Rica.
They want like 60 bucks a day for a scooter.
I'm like, are you kidding me? So. 15 bucks a day for the
scooter you that you do have to put down a damage deposit.
It was $80.00. I ended up getting most of it
back but I highly recommend. It's the best way to travel the
island. It gives you the freedom to just
go do what you want when you want.
So I got that as soon as I got off the ferry, I went to a place

(51:17):
called Green expeditions. I believe that's what it's
called. Um, it was recommended to me.
They were great, super helpful, super nice.
Again, the $15 a day great deal.They said everything up for me.
It was super easy and I got my scooter and was on my way in
about an hour or. So definitely.
Recommend them and they are justjust past support there when you
get off the ferry. Super easy to find.

(51:39):
You can just Google Maps. It so we got scooters and then
we RIP into bug and that's the main area we're staying out.
Patel. So some of the activities that
we did while. We're there and there's a ton of
stuff to do and it is starting to rain a little bit.
Hopefully it doesn't shut me down here, but anyway, excuse
me. First thing we did was the Sand
Roman waterfall. So this is a hike up to a
beautiful waterfall. Highly recommend the hike

(52:01):
itself. It's a little challenging but
it's really not too hard. I saw every walk of life going
up this hike. You just take the time you need,
there's no rush. Now the main part of this is the
first 2 1/2 kilometers. Now the first 2 1/2 kilometers
you can either. Choose to walk or you can choose
to take your bike U. Now, if you choose to take a
bike U, you do have to pay an extra 50 Cordoba, whereas you

(52:23):
only have to pay 100 Cordoba if you're just walking up now this
is a very small price that's a dollar.
I opted to take the scooter because like that's 2 1/2
kilometers. I can RIP this scooter off up.
Not only is it going to be fun, but it's going to save me a lot
of time. So my group opted to do that.
Now I will say that was my firsttime riding the scooter.
I ended up no problem, but it was a little sketchy.

(52:44):
There are certain points where it does get quite steep, quite
rocky, cruite, sandy, and you gotta be pretty comfortable in
the scooter. So if it's your first time or if
you're not very comfortable, I would recommend park the scooter
down at the bottom and walk up. But for us, you know, again, you
know how I am if you're listening to this and if you mad
at me like I was like, yeah, we're going for it for sure.
So we took the scooters. Up and that definitely saves

(53:05):
some time. Then you park them eventually
after about 2 1/2 K and you finish the hike.
When the higher self took about.Maybe an hour and a half, two
hours tops to get up, probably an hour and a half.
Again, memory is not the best. But anyways, you hike up and
actually as we're hiking up, we actually ended up hiking up
through a cloud, which is kind of cool because all of a sudden
just started raining and were like, what the heck?

(53:25):
And we realized we're in a cloudnow.
Even though it's raining, it's so hot there.
It was so refreshing. So you don't got to worry about
that. You can bring a rain jacket if
you really want, but it wasn't needed.
Like it was so hot it it felt quite nice.
And then you finally. Get up the waterfall.
The waterfall is gorgeous, there's a nice little like
wading pool and you can get yourpictures.
You can wait if you want. Most people just got up, they
took their pictures, kind of enjoy the view, had a snack and

(53:48):
then head back down. So definitely recommend the San
Ramon waterfall. You don't have to put aside a
ton of time. It's like maybe 1/2 day tops.
And I do recommend taking the scooter unless you're not
confident, then definitely leaveit at the bottom.
Next thing that we did was hiking up the volcano.
So there's the two volcanoes that I did mention.
There's conception and medeles. Now conceptual, I'm trying to

(54:10):
say like a local, you know that is the taller one.
Now a. Lot of people will hike.
Up to the top of that just to get a better view.
I believe there's like a lagoon in the volcano if I'm correct.
It looks super cool. Don't get me wrong if you choose
the wrong day though, you're gonna have no view if you're if
you're in the clouds, so definitely check the weather.

(54:31):
It is about an 8 hour hike so itis no joke.
I did not end up doing it, so just be prepared for that I'm.
Sure, the views are worth. It but 8 hour day full
commitment. We ended up doing Maderas
Volcano. Now with Maderas you can do the
half or the full. Now the day we went we decided
to do the half. Couple reasons.

(54:52):
One, it's only like a four hour day compared to an 8 hour day.
And also sometimes the weather can affect going to the summit.
So again, if it's going to be super windy or if you're going
to have no view, then probably not the best time to go to the
summit. Anyways, we decided to go to the
halfway point. It was a good hike.
This I'd say was more more as the intermediate to heart.
I was actually having a hard time getting up it.

(55:13):
I had to take quite a few breaks.
It was a very good challenge, very rewarding.
Once you do get the halfway mark, however, I say rewarding
in the sense of. The fact that you.
Were able to achieve and get there.
Unfortunately, the views that day were not very good.
You basically just come up to where there's like a little
bench and a bit of a clearing and you do get a good view of

(55:33):
Oma tape, the island, the coast.But like honestly, again, me
being from Canada and the hikes I've done, I don't think the
views worth it now. It was great in the sense of
like great physical activity, great exercise, and that's what
I took away from it. And I tried to always take a
positive but. The view itself.
Wasn't that great? Maybe on a better day it would

(55:57):
be, but even just the location you're.
At I was kind of like. Yeah.
So anyways, that was the halfwaymark of Maderas I think.
As long as you can do it and you're comfortable with the hike
and you're in good physical shape, I would say do the 8
hours. Get the actual view.
Just make sure you go on a day when the weather is good and

(56:17):
you're actually be able to see something as the biggest.
Thing after that we had let's talk about Playa Mango.
So Playa Mango is a pretty popular tourist spot in Ometepe.
So we're a lot of people go to. See the sunset and there are
some beautiful sunsets and Alma tape, so that's a popular spot.
It's got a. Restaurant.
It's got a bar, it's got plenty of room for everyone to hang
out, the lake is right there, there's a dock, and they also

(56:41):
have kayaking and tubing. So we were applying Mango and we
actually said, you know what, why would do some tubing?
Cause that'd be sweet. We had a group of us and we did
two groups of three and it's just like.
Well, if you're familiar with, it's just like back in Ontario,
if you're at the cabin and you're getting pulled behind the
boat and you're just going tubing.
So three of us on a tube gettingpulled behind the boat and the
whole time buddies just trying to throw you off it.

(57:02):
He's going left, he's going right and you're just getting
bumped around and holding on fordear life.
And honestly, it was such a blast.
We only end up doing it for 15 minutes.
It was like 9 bucks each. I mean, I think it was worth it.
I know 9 for 15 minutes, but 15 minutes is all you need.
Like I was holding on for dear life and I had no forearm
strength left. Like I was gassed.
I got thrown off twice, same with most other people, but it

(57:25):
was a hell of a time. It was awesome, super fun.
So definitely recommend that youcan do the kayaking.
To be honest, it looked a little.
Tame. Like, I was kind of like, oh,
like. Look at the couple going
kayaking. But I was like, yeah, not really
for me. Not for the adrenaline seeker, I
guess. Yeah.
With the lake, you can also, like I said, do the kayak and
there's also kite surfing. Now, I haven't gotten the kite
surfing yet. There is a popular spot where

(57:47):
you can do that. So if that's something you want
to try, that is also an option. What else do we have for Ometepe
here? All right, so we talked about
parties. Nicaragua, a big part of it is
the party life. There's 4 main parties.
So we've talked about the Treehouse.
Wow. This is the next one, It's
called Wet Wednesday. Wednesday takes place obviously

(58:07):
every Wednesday, and it's at theRain Dance.
Hostile Rain Dance is a newer hostel.
It's very nice. It's very social.
It's your party hostile. If you can get in there.
Awesome, but it does book up fast.
Excuse me now brands hostile it's got the pool.
That's the main feature right pool party.
They also do a fire dance that night for the wet Wednesday.
That was really cool and then they have a big common area.

(58:30):
They also have what they call the rave cave.
If you're looking for a different vibe and just overall
like a great party. Everyone's just at the hostel
drinking dancing, having a good time.
I really enjoyed it. The rift cable wasn't really for
me, but it would be, you know, definitely up other people's
alley, but I love having the pool there.
I I was jumping in the pool. There's a video of me, you know,
doing a little dance, doing a little shake that, uh, ah, what

(58:53):
are those lines that you do the slack line there, the slack line
going over the pool that you could try to get across.
Maybe a little dangerous for really drunk people.
But anyways, just a great party and it's just a party at the
hostel, right. And just just a good time, good
music, like I said, good vibes and it was kind of cool because
like I said, everyone chases theparty.
So a lot of people out Wednesdaywere people that had met at the
treehouse. So it's kind of just like.

(59:14):
A big family reunion and just overall a good time.
The last thing I want to mentionis, you know, I was saying
Alcatel, I mentioned it's vegan.I ended up eating there anyways
because the food was really good.
But there are a lot of spots on the island that you can eat.
Now, this kind of goes into a little bit of some of the
information is going to talk about later, but in Nicaragua,
the local restaurants are calledCommodores.

(59:36):
So if you're looking maybe for acheaper meal or a more authentic
meal, you want to look for a Commodore.
So they have quite a bit of those on the island.
So you can easily go check one of those out, get some good food
at a bit of a lower price as well.
They have a lot of things. Or tourists so I'm gonna tape is
becoming a big tourist hub so ofcourse you're gonna have a lot
of people from other countries that have either set up and

(59:57):
built a hostel or they've set upa restaurant so tons of options
for food and restaurants if you don't want to eat your hostel.
The only one really I'm going tonote is a pizza Mediterranea,
obviously a pizza spot. The pizza was phenomenal.
So yeah, that was a great night.Actually.
It's a lot of pizza. And that's me saying that like I

(01:00:17):
have a pretty good appetite and I hate the whole.
So but then I lay in bed for like an hour trying to sleep and
I was like, Oh my God, I'm so full but delicious pizza.
Would recommend that spot. But again, there's plenty of
places to choose from. So you're definitely not going
to go starving. So we might as well dive into
some more information here. And we'll take a little break
from our itinerary because we got 2 spots left.

(01:00:38):
So let's dive into our next information.
Now we're talking about food. So let's just talk about food.
So as I mentioned, in Nicaragua,the local restaurants are called
Commodores. That's we're going to get your
authentic cuisine, your cheaper meals, better bang for your
buck. If you're looking to save some
money. As I mentioned, it is hard to
find local spots because they just have weird hours.

(01:01:00):
I just felt like they closed super early.
They just maybe have a super. Early dinner and then they shut
down and it was hard to find. Somewhere local to eat.
So that was something we did struggle with.
As mentioned, you know, a lot ofhostels are gonna have their own
kitchen or their own restaurants, but they're going
to be more expensive. If you're eating at the hostel,
typically you're going to be paying more.

(01:01:20):
Now, the food is probably going to be good, but there's that
added expense. So just something to keep in
mind. The hostels in general that I
stayed at and from what I could see pretty much a 5050 split
down the middle, whether they actually had a kitchen or not.
So that's something obviously you need to look into if that is
a factor for you. So if you're looking to be on a
budget, save some money, you want to do your own cooking,

(01:01:40):
obviously you want to book a hotel.
With a kitchen, if you're not asworried about it and you're
like, hey, I'm only here for twoweeks, I got some money to
spend, I just want to eat out, then that's not an issue for
you, but it's not too. Hard to find a hassle with the
kitchen. Like I said, it's about a 5050
split, so. Depending what you're looking
for, you can find it drinking water.
So you cannot drink the tap water, you gotta drink filtered

(01:02:04):
water. Now the interesting thing about
this is during my time in Nicaragua, the three weeks are
just about over that I this might be TMI, but I didn't have
a solid shit the entire time. I had diarrhea the entire time
and I was trying to figure out what it was.
Maybe I was just. You know, climatized, maybe it
was the food, but I'm starting to think it might be in the

(01:02:25):
water. The reason I say that is every
hostel offers filtered water. But if you actually take a
closer look at the filtered water.
I didn't really see a filter or what the filter process was, I
just saw a half water jug. With like a spout and then
another water jug inside of it and I'm like.
Well, I don't really see. Where the filtration process is,

(01:02:46):
and it's not like they're bringing in like new jugs.
Like I think they were filling it from the top.
I don't know, that might not be the case.
But anyways, every hostile does have filtered water.
It's up to. You whether you want to drain or
not or get balled water. But I will mention again, I was
suffering for the whole time in Nicaragua.
Now I don't know if it's specifically the water.
Itself or the food. Or whatever, but something was

(01:03:09):
definitely not agreeing with me.Yeah, that's pretty much it on
the food drinks. So alcohol pretty cheap over
there. And obviously that was a big
part of Nicaragua for me becauseagain, you're going, you're
chasing the party, you meet people, you go for dinner, you
have some drinks. It's just that part of travel.
I said I wasn't going to drink that much and I I drink quite a

(01:03:30):
bit Nicaragua anyways. The local beers are Tonia and
Victoria. I personally like the Tonia.
Some people like Victoria. You're looking at about a dollar
to two bucks a beer. So again, super reasonable
liquor. I don't know about it if you
actually go to the store becausewhen I was in Nicaragua, the
drinks were so cheap. I wasn't buying my own liquor

(01:03:50):
cocktails. You're looking at like anywhere
like 6-7 bucks. You can get happy hour deals too
where it's like maybe 5 bucks oryou get like 2 for ones.
But in general, the alcohol in Nicaragua super cheap.
You don't really have to go buy your own stuff.
And yeah, as I mentioned, there's, there's always happy
hours too. And that's that's the best way
to maybe, you know, get some cheaper drinks or do a pre drink

(01:04:10):
is like you do your day excursion, maybe have a little
siesta, go hit happy hour. And you know, that's the start
here. Right.
What else can you talk about? Safety.
Let's talk about safety in Nicaragua.
So I was actually super surprised.
I felt super safe my entire timein Nicaragua.
I never felt threatened. Yeah, just in general, like I

(01:04:32):
just, the locals were super friendly.
I would walk down the streets atnight on my own and never, you
know, felt threatened. I remember one time after the
bar like it got back to the hostel and then ended up, you
know, doing the drunk walk to the.
To the convenience store to get some snacks and maybe not the
best decision, but again, like I, I never felt threatened.
I felt super safe. And even the one night we were

(01:04:53):
walking through like, you know what you'd call the slums of
Nicaragua. Now, mind you, we were in a
group, but again, like, at no point did I feel unsafe.
So that was really nice as well with the hostels, you know, just
being with other backpackers in the general vibe, like always
felt super safe. The hostels, they either have,
you know, locked gates or security 24/7.

(01:05:14):
They have, you know, locked dormrooms.
Like everything seems super secure.
And I noticed like, because whenI was going there, I was like,
OK, well I have locks. Like I'm going to lock all my
shit up because I don't want my stuff getting stolen.
But when getting into Nicaraguanby day like 3 or 4, I noticed
like everyone else just left their stuff out in the hostels.
Like no one really cared or wereworried about stuff getting

(01:05:34):
stolen. Like everyone just left their
stuff out. And I was like, OK, like, and I,
I started to understand that about a week in, I realized,
yeah, like it's super safe here.Like maybe you might get the one
off. Like, I'm not saying don't walk
yourself, you know, So don't take it that way.
Obviously you want to be safe and precautionary.
I'm just saying in my experience, I basically just
locked my passport and my walletand my wallet just had like my

(01:05:56):
cards and then the access money that I didn't need for the day.
And that was it. Like and I have.
Maybe I should advertise? This, But I have, I have a lot
of electronics and I just didn'tfeel the need to lock it up.
Like I just never felt like conditions were unsafe.
So that was a really nice thing about Nicaragua Now, and take
this in mind as well, like if you're listening to this, like

(01:06:17):
I'm obviously a guy, so like a girls, a woman's experience
might be a little different. Well, some of the factor in as
well I guess, but just in my personal experience felt super
safe. What else are we talking?
About here yeah that's that's pretty much it for safety then
the only other thing is like sometimes you order these
countries right like you go to Thailand and you're like always

(01:06:39):
getting like approached by people to like buy stuff
Nicaragua wasn't really like that like you'll get the odd
time maybe if you're a beach town or something someone will
come up to you trying to sell something but as soon as.
You say like no glasses, they leave you alone like they don't
Heckle you. I'd say the only thing you will
encounter but I mean I think youget this anywhere is the guys
trying to sell you weed or coke.I feel like that's pretty normal

(01:06:59):
anywhere you go. It was kind of funny cause in
San Juan, which we're gonna talkabout soon, you get the guy, the
guys with the sunglasses. It looks like you're selling
sunglasses, but as soon as you say no sunglasses, they're like
weed, coke, like what do you want?
And you're like, no, no, no, I'mgood man I'm good.
But again, like it's not a it's not a huge thing like it's not
like a big interaction. It's just you say no gracias is
all good like they don't Heckle yeah, they don't fall.

(01:07:20):
Yes. So super, I guess respectful
that way. They're just trying to obviously
make some money. So anyway, safety never an
issue, never an issue. OK, so couple more things I want
to talk about, but let's dive back into the itinerary here.
I gotta leave soon, head back toMonteverde, might actually try
to hitchhike. We'll see what happens, but
let's get our last two stops here.

(01:07:41):
So next stop on the itinerary was San Juan del Sur.
Now, we ended up staying at a place called Hostel Pachamama.
Now, if you're going to San Juandel Sir, you're likely going for
Sunday Funday. That is party #3 and another
main reason to go to San Juan O Sunday Fun Day actually changes

(01:08:01):
its venues each week in terms ofwhat hospital is.
It goes through, but it always starts at hostile Pachamama.
So my group and I decided, well,why don't we go straight to the
source? We'll stay at that hostel
because not only will the party start there, we'll meet other
people that are going to it. Plus, if you stay there, you
actually get a. Discount for the Sunday funding
now Sunday funding. Is a little.
Sense of it's $35. Don't love paying that for, you

(01:08:26):
know, just like a pub crawl, butat the same time you're in
Nicaragua. It'd be silly not to do it,
especially when you're with a bunch of friends.
Everyone's going, it's like, alright, let's do it like it's
it's a good time. I recommend it for sure.
But you do get a discount if youstay at the hospital, so that
was another benefit. Nice hostel, nice rooms.
We just said stayed in A4 bed dorm and I was staying with my

(01:08:47):
friends at that point. You had a fan, You had a
bathroom? Yeah.
It really had everything you need.
It was nice. It had a kitchen, so that was
great too. Had a kitchen, had a bar, had a
pool, common area. So again, really nice.
Hostile, would recommend, friendly staff, good security,
all that stuff. So that was hostile.
Pachamama, Sunday fun day. Let's talk about that.

(01:09:08):
So San Juan for me wasn't one ofmy favorite spots, really was
mainly just for Sunday, fun day.Sunday, funny as you can
imagine, happens every Sunday. It is a pool crawl.
So you start a Pachamama, you'rethere for about 2-3 hours,
you're drinking, having a good time, they got the music going,
everyone's dancing, and then youhad to your next spot now.

(01:09:30):
For us, and like I said, hostelswill change every week, we went
to a place called the Naked Tiger Hostel.
This place was sick. It is up in the mountains with
an unreal view of the sunset andthat's what we're there for.
We went there to party. There's a.
Egg pool, massive area to to setup your dance floor and then

(01:09:51):
have your DJs and then of coursewatch the sunset.
It was phenomenal. Amazing hostel.
The only thing is it is a ways out of town.
Like we all end up getting like shuttled there.
So staying there maybe a little inconvenient, but the spot
itself was freaking phenomenal. So that was my favorite part of
Sunday funday. So you go.
There and then after that we went back into town, actually

(01:10:11):
near Pachamama to a club and that's where we ended the night.
So we went to the club and kept drinking, dancing the night.
Sunday Funday. Really good time.
Actually, it's a lot of people'sfavorite party out of the. 4 Now
I guess all rank mine at the endof this episode, but I will say
yeah, a lot of people rank Sunday Fun Day as their top.
It was very fun. What else for San Juan?

(01:10:34):
So the only thing I note with San Juan other than that is I'm
just going to mention a restaurant.
We went to tons of restaurants, unfortunately a little more
expensive because really San Juan is literally like 2
streets, like 2 blocks and that's it.
And that's all based around tourism.
So obviously the price is going to be more expensive, but we
want you to a place called Nachos and it was really good,
very reasonably priced and supergood food.

(01:10:56):
We're talking Mexican, right? So you get tacos, your burritos
are really good cocktails. Like I got a pina colada.
The thing was freaking huge. So really enjoyed Nachos.
I'd recommend going there if youwant some good some good
cocktails and some reasonable prices.
Other than that, those San Juan didn't really do it for me.
It didn't really have a lot likeI said, it was 2 blocks.
There's not much to do. There's a massive each there,

(01:11:18):
but honestly the beach kind of sucks.
There's just a bunch of boats like docked in the in the water.
There's no surf, like there's nowaves, and quite a few people
get their shit stolen at the beach.
So if you go to the beach, you leave your bag, you go for a
swim, it's likely you'll come back and your stuff will be gone
or you'll be missing something. It's quite well known that the
locals from the smaller towns outside of San Juan will come

(01:11:41):
into San Juan on the weekends just to steal.
Shit and then leave. So.
That was a little unfortunate. Always something to be aware of
when you're traveling, of course, but I was in other
places like Poppoya where I had no issues leaving my bag on the
beach and going for a swim. I wasn't worried about it
getting stolen. Unfortunately San Juan, because
it is such a tourist hub, the locals are going to go there and
they're going to try to get somestuff, so.

(01:12:02):
That's unfortunate. Not a great beach.
I don't know, I didn't really explore the nightlife past doing
Sunday fun day. I mean, Sunday finally put me
out of Commission for. Like 4 days.
So yeah, I needed some time after that.
Apparently there is a beach maybe about 20 minutes outside
of San Juan where the surf is good.
So I guess if I had more time there, maybe did a bit more
exploring, maybe could have found some more things to do,

(01:12:24):
but just my personal experience.Ah, I wasn't really blown away.
I was there for Sunday fun day and then time to move on.
So speaking to moving on, we're going to move on to our last
stop and my second favorite or let's call it top. 2.
Apoya. Now originally this wasn't even
on my list, but the group I was with, the two gentlemen,
actually had an apartment there.The whole group was out of that

(01:12:44):
direction. I said, you know what, I want to
keep the party alive. I love that Nicaraguan crew.
I wanted to stay with him a bit longer.
I said alright, let's do papaya.So we did.
Papaya, which is again, a small little surf town.
A super small little surf town Ishould say, actually.
It's barely developed, they're actually only just building the
road into it now and there's a few hostels and that's really
it. But that's the nice part about

(01:13:05):
it. It's very intimate.
The people that are there are like very close and like, I
don't know, it's just just high vibes, great vibes and I loved
it. I loved it.
So we went there. Excuse me?
And the first night we went out saying a place called latika #2
now. I'm mentioning all the places I

(01:13:27):
stayed. Usually I'm mentioning them
because it was a good experience.
Unfortunately, Latika 2 was not the case.
Now there's pros and cons. They do do a BBQ every night and
I actually would recommend goingto the BBQ because it was
actually really good food. Huge portion sizes for a
reasonable price. So the BBQ is actually quite
nice, but that was really it. I guess we did pay 15 a person

(01:13:52):
and you actually got technicallya private room.
Our one friend got a private room with two beds.
Me and my friends shared a room but there's three beds.
So I mean I guess like if you'relooking for more space or
private room for cheap that's a pro for sure but just overall
like not the nicest hostel. The shower was pretty shit.
The sinks aren't even put on thewall properly, they're just like

(01:14:14):
clipped in. Like not even like actually
secured. To the wall, so.
My friend actually ended up bumping the sink, it fell and
broke and he ended up having to pay for it.
Now, luckily we're in Nicaragua,so it was only 40 bucks, which
like, you know, could have been a lot worse.
But yeah, pretty, pretty basic facilities.
Let's just call it that. There there is a kitchen.
There was no water there when I was there, right?

(01:14:34):
Like no drinkable water. So I was like, what the heck.
So anyways, didn't love it just personally, you know, if you're
looking for bare bones private room cheap, I mean, it'll work,
but like I, I wouldn't recommendit.
We we got out of there as soon as we could and we got.
Out of there and we went to a place.
Called Amarula and I could not say enough good things about
this awesome Verona papaya or even if you're not gonna papaya,

(01:14:57):
I think amarula is even worth going to papaya for and that
says a lot it's actually one of my favorite hostels, if not my
favorite hostel and it's for a lot of.
Reasons Now the only thing I will mention is it is more
expensive. But you get what you pay for.
So now I was paying $35 a night.That was for an actual queen
size bunk. Bed.

(01:15:18):
Now I it was just me in the bed,right?
So that's why I was paying 35. If you got someone to split that
with then it's a lot more reasonable.
Right, but I, I. Absolutely love this hostel.
Like really nice facilities, really clean new.
Yeah, like they had they had therestaurant, they had free
breakfast. The free breakfast was really
good. And they put on events every

(01:15:41):
night, like great soul shot atmosphere.
All the volunteers were absolutebeauties.
Like I love them all. Like hopefully some of them
listen to this episode seriously, because shout out to
you. Like you made my time there
amazing. And actually I end up liking
Amarula so much. I was like, I want to volunteer.
Like I don't want, I don't want to leave like I'm staying, I'm
volunteering. And then they told me they're
like, yeah, it's a 2 month wait list of volunteer and I was

(01:16:01):
absolutely crushed. So maybe one day I'll end up
back there. I would love to, but overall
amazing, hostile, amazing staff,both locals and volunteers,
amazing atmosphere. Like I said, activities every
night. So we did beach tennis.
The one night at a beach tennis tournament, they had a
volleyball tournament and they had a volleyball tournament,
unlike in Las pinatas, whereas all locals, there were some

(01:16:23):
locals, but then they they they did a good job like including
all the tourists as well. Like they had all the teams and
they had an actual structure tournament like they they
organized it very well. So I was very impressed,
especially because I'm big volleyball player back home they
had trivia night and and a bunchof other activities.
So it was it was a really good vibe.
And I guess at this point we cantalk about the party because

(01:16:46):
it's ran through Mehula and it'scalled Poppoya Secret.
So that is the 4th party of Nicaragua and I'd say maybe the
newest one, I guess, or like theup and coming party to like, you
know, join the circuit. And it actually ended up being
like my second favorite party. I I absolutely loved it.
Such a good vibe. So you go to this hidden
location. It's right on the beach, right

(01:17:07):
on the water. You've got sand under your feet,
you've got the DJ stage and theydid a nice job.
They made like a bamboo wall. So you have like the dance
floor, but then if you want to like chill and socialize by the
bar, like it kind of blocks out the music so you can actually
talk to each other. They had two bars, tons of
servers. So like no lines.
Like that was the thing with funny funny a lot of times, like
you'd be waiting in line for so long, but with Papaya Secret,

(01:17:29):
like you hardly waited in line. You just went up, got your drink
good to go. So I love that party.
Unfortunately, I got a little too into the drinks on that one.
I guess like I haven't really shared too many stories.
This has been more informational.
But I do have a friend, Mikey gonna be coming on the podcast.
I don't know if that's going to be released before this episode

(01:17:50):
or not, but we're going to reminisce about our experiences
in Nicaragua. So I'm sure at that point we'll
talk about the parties and kind of, you know, the shenanigans I
got into. This is more just kind of
informational for you. And again, you guys can give me
feedback if you're like, hey, this is a good episode.
Like I really love the information.
That's great. Or it can be like, you know
what, throw some stories in there too and I'll kind of spice

(01:18:11):
things up. So let honestly let me know what
you think. Always appreciate.
Feedback anyways before a secretphenomenal again highly
recommend Amarula love that place hopefully I'll go back
someday hopefully I'll volunteer.
I honestly I would love to anyways we'll move on from
there. Popoia biggest thing to do there
surf. That's why you're going and now
they have different areas you can surf in we were going to a

(01:18:34):
place called beginners Bay for obvious reasons really nice
small waves. They got rental shop right on
the beach again. It was like.
I'm pretty sure it was 15 bucks.For, uh, for a board.
So super reasonable, good waves,good vibes.
Like no ones like after each other.
Like, oh, you're like riding my wave.
Like everyone knows their beginners.
Everyone knows there's gonna be someone else on the wave.

(01:18:55):
Like you're just going straight.You're just trying to figure out
how to get on the board. And it was awesome.
And so we went surfing for a couple of days.
Excuse me. The only thing to note is if
you're staying on that side, like Amarula, there is a river.
So you have to cross the river. Well, at low tide that's not an
issue. It's just a Little River
crossing. But at high tide, it actually
gets so big and so deep that thewater is pretty much up to your

(01:19:16):
neck. So something you need to keep in
mind if you're going to be crossing at high tide, you need
to make sure that one, you're going to be tall enough to
cross, I guess two, you can swimand three, if you've got a bag
or something, you gotta hold it over your head unless you know
you have a waterproof bag. Obviously waterproof bag would
be the solution. I for some reason didn't bring
one. I just held my bag over my head
that it was up to about my shoulders and I got through no

(01:19:39):
problem. It's not like it like swept me
away or was like super strong, but it was it was an adventure
nonetheless. But anyway, so you have the
river, you have beginners Bay. Biggest thing to do in Poya is
surf. Another thing though, is just to
hang out, socialize, do the do the nightly activities, the
volleyball, the trivias. And there's also a place I want
to shout out, it's called Nika Vibe.
Small little bar just down the road for Amarula.

(01:20:02):
But great vibes, great people, great owners.
It's literally it's just this little bar tucked away.
They do like a cookout. I'm not sure how often, I think
a couple times a week. But yeah, again, just great
vibes, good people. You go there, you just have some
cheap beers, you know, singing songs and whatever.
Just carrying on, having a greattime.
So I just want to shout them. Out.

(01:20:23):
Um, we ended up there more oftenthan not.
Now our buddy Mikey, he actuallyknew the gentleman there, one of
the one of the owners. And yeah, I just, I couldn't
recommend it enough. Like if you just want to have a
fun night, go socialize with some people and just have a good
time, go to Nika vibe. Couldn't, couldn't recommend it
enough. But that's it really for Poya.

(01:20:45):
Um, again, like super small surftown, but The thing is like it's
on the rise, like this place is gonna blow up.
So if you plan to travel the next few years, make sure you
get out there because the unfortunate thing is it's such a
nice spot and has so much potential that at some point
it's going to turn into that next tourist.
Hub. And you won't get the same

(01:21:05):
experience, but right now it's much more intimate, it's much
smaller. So if you can get out there,
highly recommend it. And that's it for Nicaraguan.
That was my last stop before I had none to Costa Rica.
There's a few more things I wanted to talk about what we're
kind of getting to the end here.Hopefully I've given you a lot
of good information. Again, like I mentioned, if
there's anything I'm missing, any questions you have 100%.

(01:21:28):
Reach out to me and I will do mybest to get back to you with
some. Answers O Let's just end it off
with a couple things here. Nothing too crazy.
Weather in Nicaragua, what to expect?
So I traveled from the 12th of January to like the 2nd of
February. That's their peak season.
That's their hot season. I barely experienced any rain.
There was a little bit Noma tape, but it was one of those it

(01:21:49):
rains for like 20 minutes and then it's done.
So you're never caught in the rain for too long.
Honestly, it's more refreshing than anything.
But for the most part, it was just 30° and sunny every day.
Gotta wear sunscreen. The sun is super strong.
The Uvs are high. Um, it's literally you wake up
and like you're sweating. You like you're sweating from
the moment you wake up till you fall asleep.
Like even if you shower, like I would shower, get out of the

(01:22:11):
shower and I'm like, I'm still wet, like, you know what I mean?
So you kind of just get used to being sweaty used, being used to
sandy, all that stuff, but phenomenal weather.
OK, So last note is just the general culture, the locals and
kind of the, I guess the attitude or treatment of
tourists. And what I want to mention is

(01:22:32):
from what I experienced, any of the locals involved in tourism,
whether it was like shuttles, transportation activities,
hostels, we're all super, super friendly.
Super friendly, you know, alwaysmade an effort to make you feel
welcome, comfortable, would helpyou with anything.
If you had a question about something or needed to go
somewhere, they wouldn't hesitate to help you.

(01:22:53):
That was amazing. General population I didn't have
a lot of experience with. I would say maybe a little less
approachable, but I think that'sjust more because they just
don't know the language, like they don't know English.
So like even asking that girl inthe mall, the cell phone booth,
like where the bank was, like, you know, I could tell she
didn't really give a fuck, but like it's all good.
Like you know what I mean? So anyways, for the most part

(01:23:15):
though, locals amazing they obviously anytime I interacted
with the local I'd try. To at least say.
You know, Hola como estas, like try to speak a little bit of
Spanish and then just say, you know me espanola poco like just
means like, I don't know a lot of Spanish and just saying that
like they'd really appreciate it.
And they quickly turned over to English.
Like for the most part, their English was pretty good and

(01:23:36):
you'd be able to communicate andthey really just appreciate you
making an effort in general. People in Nicaragua, it's, it's
always surprising when I go to these countries where like
they're not classified as first world, but yet they just seem so
happy. Like they have less, but it's
almost like less is more like itjust seemed like quality of
life, like they're just happy with where they're at.
And you're looking at their like, you know, where they're

(01:23:59):
living and like their houses andlike, you know, they don't have
much. Like it doesn't seem great.
But at the same time, like maybeit's because it's all they know,
but they just seem so happy. And it was really nice to see.
I it really was because you lookat, you know, North American
sometimes how spoiled we are. And I don't need to really dive
into that. But anyways, I'm just saying for
the most part, yeah, they they seemed really happy about life.

(01:24:21):
And that was a really cool to see you.
And then, yeah, I guess the lastnote and this kind of goes back
to safety as well. I just want to mention, like
some of these places you go, some of these countries are told
like, you know, don't have your don't have your phone on.
You don't have your wallet, maybe just have like what cash
you need and that's it. Just in case like something
happens, you don't want to lose your stuff.
But at no point in Nicaragua didI feel like that.

(01:24:41):
I wasn't worried about having mycell phone out or my GoPro or
even money, you know, like shuffling through my Fanny pack
looking for money. I never was worried or felt
unsafe about like that. I was always walking around my
phone. I saw other people walking
around with their phones. I'd have my GoPro out recording
and it was never an issue. There's there's never, never a
moment where like someone you know, was approaching me or I

(01:25:02):
felt, you know, sketchy in any way.
So that was really nice as well.So anyways, that's really all I
have for Nicaragua. So I really hope you did enjoy
this episode. I can't recommend the country
highly enough. Had such a great time.
I didn't even want to leave, to be honest.
But I just knew like I have so much more to see that like I
have to go at some point. But I could have easily spent

(01:25:23):
like at least another couple months Nicaragua, maybe
volunteer at some places and yeah, just get comfortable.
I I loved it. I absolutely loved it super
affordable, great vibes, good parties, if that's what you're
looking for, good landscapes like all of that.
So again, if you're looking for somewhere to travel, I I would
definitely recommend Nicaragua and if you're looking to do a

(01:25:46):
circuit too, I'm, I'm not probably going to get there, but
a lot of people have recommendedEl Salvador, Guatemala.
So you do like a. Little Central America.
Circuit I've heard really good things about those places too
cheap as well and just really good vibes and like you're
treated really well too as a tourist.
So yeah, I think that's all I got.
I gotta make my way back here, figure out how to get out of

(01:26:07):
this jungle. But I really do appreciate you
tuning in for this if you did subscribe, thank you so much.
I'm gonna, like I said. Keep doing these.
Special episodes probably do once a month and it'll just be
checking in on the country I'm at or the country I was recently
at and just trying to give you like as much information and
knowledge as I can and just extend that.

(01:26:28):
I've sent that forward because Iknow when I was doing the
research and watching the YouTube videos, there are a
couple people that are pretty good at giving you a lay of the
land and some information on places.
But it is sometimes hard to get like real in depth analysis.
And that's something I just wantto do.
It's like, hey, I did it. I experienced this.
Like this is my personal experience and if I can help

(01:26:48):
someone or like make someone strip better, like that's all I
want to do. And even even traveling now,
like I'll talk to people and they're like, oh, like, where
did you come from? How was it?
And I love doing that. And that's kind of why I want to
like volunteer somewhere too, just because I don't know, I
just, I just love that. But anyways, I don't need to
ramble on. Like I said, thank you so much
for tuning in. I really appreciate the support.

(01:27:09):
I hope this helped. Let me know like give me some
feedback, be like, hey, like this was too long or like too
boring or throw in some more stories, whatever it is.
Definitely let me know if you have any questions as well.
Feel free to reach out. You know, my Instagram, it's up
in the cloud, same as the podcast with an under score at
the back. I even forgot what that thing
is. But anyways, just look up in the

(01:27:29):
clouds. You'll find me.
Thanks for tuning in. We'll do another one of these
soon. Like I said, we're gonna have
Mickey's last member of the Nicaraguan crew.
He's gonna be coming on shortly.We're going to reminisce about
Nicaraguans, tell some of the more, you know, fun,
embarrassing stories because we're getting after it.
So that will either be before orafter this episode.
I'm not sure I'm going to structure it yet.
But either way, thanks for tuning in.

(01:27:50):
And yeah, just keep on keeping on, you know, I'm saying hope
you're all doing well and we'll see you next week.
That's it for today's episode. Thanks for listening.
If you enjoyed it, make sure to leave a review and follow us on
your preferred listening platform as well.

(01:28:10):
You can follow at U in the Clouds under score on Instagram
and at Up in the Clouds on TikTok for my latest travel
updates. We'll see you next week for an
all new episode. Take care.

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