Happy New Years, everyone! Where are you ringing in the new year? I am spending the last few hours of 2017 in Playa Marsella (north of San Juan Del Sur). But the first half of the day was spent on the journey here. We woke up this morning in Mérida, early. Had to catch a 9 AM ferry off the island which meant leaving at 7… earliest start we have had all week!

After the one hour ferry ride, we had another one hour taxi ride. The taxi dropped us off at the beach so we had a bit of a walk up the beach to the “Aussie Hut”. When we got there we were greeted by Charlie and her husband – Australian Jeremy Clarkson. They kindly offered us coffee and gave us instruction on how to get to San Juan.

The first thing we did in San Juan (when we finally got there) was enjoy some smoothies and lunch at Simon Says smoothie bar. After lunch we took a walk up the beach and just relaxed a bit. The day was slipping away quickly, though and it was time to think of a way back to Marsella. We knew there was a shuttle to Playa Maderas, so we booked tickets on the 5 PM shuttle. In the meanwhile, we went to Barrio Cafe for some coffee for a pick-me-up.

When 5 rolled around, we were waiting for our shuttle, as well as 5:15 and 5:30… at 5:45 the shuttle finally arrived. I have not felt closer to death during any of my time in Nica as I did sitting in the back of the truck of some guy who clearly did not want to be giving us a ride and was in a rush to drop us off. But we survived. We walked down the street back to the Hut and were greeted by some friendly faces and offers of beer.

We were shown to our room (very lovely and spacious). We spend a few minutes relaxing, and then went downstairs to partake in some New Years festivities ?

Woke up to some sunshine ☀️ finally ?. We had decided the day before to pass on the volcano hike because if it was too cloudy, there would be no views. Despite being sunny, the top of Concepción was still shrouded.

The backup plan was to hike to the San Ramón waterfall. Lucky for us, that is on our side of the island so we didn’t need to worry about transportation. We decided we would just use the bikes provided by our Airbnb. One factor we did not consider when choosing to bike was how bad the road is. It was an uncomfortable ride.

We got to the trailhead, paid our entrance fee, stashed our bikes and head off on the 3 km trail to the fall. We met a guy the previous day who said the hike to the waterfall kicked his ass. I didn’t think it was all that difficult. The first two kilometers were exposed road. The last kilometer was through deep jungle and was a longer than average kilometer.

We took some photos and cooled off in the pool under the falls. Then we head down – a much easier task than going up. At this point we were pretty hungry, and the thought of getting back on the bike left me cringing. But we got back on and bikes five minutes to a place called Comedor Gloriana. Maybe it was because we were dehydrated, but the smoothies we got there were some of the most satisfying I’ve ever had ?

We brought our bikes home and got cleaned up for the evening. I wanted to watch sunset from this hotel called La Omaha. We made it up with plenty of time to spare. The grounds of this hotel were beautiful. We caught a gorgeous sunset while sipping pina coladas.

After the sun set, we stuck around for the hotels dinner, which was pretty good. After we finished, we walked back to the Airbnb and got packed up – we are leaving early tomorrow for San Juan Del Sur ?

If I only had one word to describe today it would be Rainy. I woke up to the sound of rain. At that point, I was still optimistic! I have travelled to many places where it is common place to get showers in the morning and then have a beautiful day. The rain did push back the start time on our plans, though ?

Our agenda for the day was to rent scooters and explore the island. We rented two and immediately had no idea how to turn them on. Once we finally had the engines going, we just had to figure out how to ride them. I think a cruddy dirt road is not the best place to learn, but we made do with what we had.

After what felt like an eternity, we hit the paved part of the island and made our way to Altogracia. When we got there, we found not all that much to do, so we decided to turn back and look for lunch. I didn’t mind driving, the scenery was gorgeous.

We made our way all the way to Balgue and had lunch at El Bamboo, it was pricey! But the ambiance was very nice! After lunch, we went to Finca Magdalena – I had heard the did coffee plantation tours. When we got there it seemed that no one knew what I was talking about. We decided to go check out the beach ?

On the way to the beach, it started pouring rain, so we took shelter at a Comedor by Santo Domingo. This bout of rain lasted almost 40 minutes. Eventually we decided we should just get going – didn’t want to be stuck on the dirt road in the dark! We made a quick stop at the beach and then turned back to Merida.

The ride back was easier than the ride out. And much to my dismay it was pretty sunny. We got back to our AirBnb in time for sunset. We sat through another down pour and then headed to dinner in town. I’m excited to spend another day exploring the island – hopefully we will stay a little more dry!

Woke up in Granada for the second day. We got a late start like the day before. This morning we started with breakfast at cafe de arte. This time I ordered a cappuccino and got a latte… perfect ?

After breakfast we packed our bags and checked out. We only had a few hours to see Granada before heading to Ometepe. In my opinion it was more than enough. The only real attraction we checked out was the bell tower at the cathedral. The view was magnificent!

We wandered a little more then head back to the hotel to pick up our bags and catch a shuttle. The shuttle ride was about an hour and a half and mostly uneventful. When we arrived at the ferry terminal, we were surprised to find that all the ferries had been sold out until 2 hours later. Thank goodness we were not the only confused foreigners ?‍♀️

After waiting around, the Santa Martha finally arrived. (This was not the end of waiting around though). This was a pretty crappy looking boat. If you had asked me how many people fit on this boat, I would have given you an answer an order of magnitude smaller than the number that crammed on.

An hour into the boat ride, we finally had the most amazing view of Concepción as the sun was setting! Truly magnificent!

We had another hour and a half taxi ride before we got to the Airbnb. It was dark when we arrived so I still haven’t really seen it! We walked a bit and got dinner at a local restaurant that was pretty good. Gonna hit the sack now to be ready to explore Ometepe tomorrow?