In the end we decided not to take the truck to Isla de Ometepe in the middle of Lake Nicaragua. We left the truck in a hotel's secure parking and headed on over on the ferry. Just the sort of security we like. It turned out to be rather false advertising, as the dog was only about a foot tall and was the biggest softie, but he did his job and we found the truck safe when we returned. We had a lovely 3 1/2 km walk to our rustic room on an organic farm down on the lake shore. Isla de Ometepe is made of two volcanoes, so is roughly a figure of eight shape. The main paved road rounds around about half of one of the loops, the rest of the roads are pretty rough dirt. The island's volcanic soil is very fertile and the lower slopes have many small farms. Finca Tierra Bianca had cows, horses, bananas and many different fruit trees. They had a few basic rooms overlooking the lake and Larey, the lady running it was very friendly. She whipped us up meals straight from the farm, only the coffee wasn't hers, it was grown further up the volcano. We were the only people there. Larey is one of those great people you meet when you are learning a language, she chatted away about lots of interesting stuff but slowly and clearly enough for us to understand and was patient with understanding what we were trying to say too. We couldn't work out quite how they came to be advertised online as it was all so low tech. After a lazy few hours we realised there was not a whole lot going on there and if we were going to see the island we'd need some wheels. The next day was Sunday and as the infrequent buses were running even less often, Steve hiked back into the town to arrange a taxi for the next morning. Our trip around the island took us to a sand spit with lots of birds, a nature reserve and to the largest beach on the island Playa Santa Domingo. We also bumped into fellow overlanders Alex and Mire who we had first met in Mexico, and their friend Sharon at Agua del Ojos (the eyes of water). These crystal clear pools have water rich in minerals that bubble up from the volcanic rocks. It was wonderfully cool on such a hot day.

On the hikes to and from the Finca we heard the distinctive whoops of a troop of howler monkeys above. They are one of the loudest animals in the world and the whole forest erupts into a cacophony of noise when they are declaring their territory to neighbouring troops. When you hear them, they are usually hard to spot way up in the treetops but on the track we got some great views of them leaping through the mango trees.



We headed back to the mainland after two nights. We first met Alex, Mire and Sharon on the boat and then the Duchies who we'd met back near Leon, near the port. We all camped up that night with the not so scary guard dog.

The Duchies and us turned out to be aiming for the same beach at Playa Mederas the following day. Erika and Michel are veteran beach campers which gave us the confidence to drive along the sand to the far end of the beach. Although the beach had many surfers during the day, it emptied out at five with just a few people camping and sleeping above one of the restaurants. It is a gorgeous beach with shallow exciting enough surf for us but without an undertow. Alex, Mire and Sharon turned up later in the day, which lead to another lovely evening of watching the sunset over the sea, the howler monkeys, chatting,eating and drinking.









The girls have loved having lots of lovely fun adults around them willing to play crazy imaginative games. They have made themselves into mermaids....

...raced hermit crabs....



....and fallen in love with Dunya, the Duchies' elderly dog.

Mire, Sharon and Alex even taught them to boogy board and they were far braver with them than they ever would be with us.



The French family we've been bumping into periodically since Mexico also came on foot too for a couple of days, so it was a quite an overlanders gathering at one end of the beach.

Our next stop was the still active Volcano Masaya. Even though it is still active you can drive to the crater rim to look down into the smoke billowing up. Mind you there are notices to take some safety precautions.

As you can see we were able to park pretty close to the edge.



We camped at the visitor centre which was really nice and informative. This was a few Kms from the crater rim. On the way back down we passed a lava field from previous eruptions.

Since we have been in Central America we have found that we have been driving a lot less and the distances between sights are much smaller so our next stop was only 37kms away, the wonderful old colonial city of Granada. For many years Granada was the great rival to Leon. Because of this rivalry the capital was moved to Managua and Granada became more of a backwater but it still has a magnificent history. In its history it was also sacked by pirates a number of times who sailed in small boats across the lake. As there are very few real campgrounds in Central America we need to be more imaginative where we stay. The best place to stay in the truck in Granada is at the fire station. It is very centrally located although it was a bit noisy as many people use it as a parking lot and the firemen have impromptu games of football at 11 at night.

The city is really beautiful with magnificent churches and colonial houses.















We also took a horse drawn carriage down to the shores of Lago Nicaragua a very large inland lake.

From there we hired a boat to explore the many small islands just off the shore. These islands were created from all the volcanic activity in the past. They used to be a very poor part of the country but now many of the islands have been bought up by the rich and are used as holiday homes. Some are still for sale.

This one looked like the perfect lair for a James Bond villain.

Granada also has lots of good restaurants which we took full advantage of. However we have to admit that after nearly 7 months on the road we finally succumbed and went to an Irish bar. As with Irish bars everywhere the food is always the same so we were torn between fish and chips, shepherds pie or sausages and mash. In the end the fish and chips won out and were pretty good. All washed down with litre bottles of beer that were less than two dollars each. We really enjoyed Granada but as you can see walking around is pretty hot. (And no that's not me!)

From Granada we drove to San Jorge on the shore of Lago Nicaragua. This is the port from which you can catch a ferry to Isla de Ometepe. The island is really just two large volcanos but it is supposedly the largest freshwater island in the world and we want to spend a few days there.

The only question, is do we take the truck? Yes it will fit on the ferry!

Leaving El Cuco in El Salvador we headed to the border with Honduras at El Amatillo. It was a relatively painless border crossing which took about 2 hours in total. I'm certain the border guards must have some deal going with Xerox as they required at least 3 copies of everything and when I say everything, I mean everything! Steve had to make about 50 copies in total, he couldn't even do all the photocopying in one go. He kept on having to return to the copy shop to give the next office evidence that their colleague in the preceding office had done their bit, all in triplicate and he also had to keep track of it all. Sometimes the meticulous and fastidious side of him absolutely drives me up the wall but at times like this I'm so pleased he is the way he is. Many overlanders cross in and out of Honduras in one day. The Pan American highway route is only about 150km. Although there is quite a bit to see in the rest of the country, on the Pacific side there isn't much. Moreover, it has the reputation of having unending checkpoints with very corrupt policemen. We'd put our fire extinguisher in the front, 2 warning triangles ready and stuck reflective tape down the sides ready to take on them on. We'd heard that even with everything present and correct they would still pull you over and fine you from something spurious. However that didn't turn out to be our experience at all. The one time we got pulled over at a checkpoint, the policeman was happy to look at a colour photocopy of Steve's licence before he waved us on. It was a very pleasant surprise. We had decided to spend the night halfway through. The thought of a double border crossing in a day, didn't appeal. So we had our second pleasant surprise when we pulled into the hotel car park we had found online to stay in overnight. Although the road and surroundings had been very dry, dusty and with quite a lot of rubbish on the side of the road. The hotel on the outskirts of Choluteca was a green oasis. They had a lovely grassy, shady area for us to park in, great wifi, a good restaurant and even better than that a pool. The temperature was 36 degrees Celsius in the shade, so we were in the need of some cooling off. The following day's crossing to Nicaragua was also relatively smooth, taking about 1 1/2 hours all together. Driving south-west towards Leon, we were treated to some great views of volcanoes. We also saw people selling huge live iguanas on sticks beside the road. "Bamboo Chicken" was a popular dish in Belize until they banned it but it looks like it is popular here too. This one is definitely not on my culinary to do list! We hadn't got any info on where we could stay in Leon, online we'd found a possible hotel that might let us stay in their car park but unfortunately when we go there they wouldn't let us and their other suggestions didn't work out. We were very keen to see this former capital city that is famed for its colonial architecture and huge cathedral. Steve had seen on Facebook that another overlanding couple, Erika and Michel from Duchiesgoglobal were just ahead of us and staying near Leon. He'd sent them a message the night before and they'd told him that they were staying on the beach about 20 km away from Leon. As we'd lucked out in Leon we headed to beach at Las Penitas to see if they had space next to them. Luckily they did and the bus went every hour to Leon from the beach. It is a surfing beach with black volcanic sand but it was perfect for cooling down and they were parked in a little beachside lot filled with palm trees and hammocks.



The following day we headed into Leon by bus to have a look around. The city was as picturesque as we'd heard and although it was baking hot we had a good wander around the streets. Being Sunday morning the churches we were hoping to see had services going on, so we headed to an art museum. Returning to the main plaza after lunch we found the place almost deserted. A second service had just finished so we got chance to have a quick peak at the biggest cathedral in Central America. The church was planned for Lima, the capital of Peru but after submitting the original smaller plans to the town council in the 18th century, the architected switched the plans and they ended up building the cathedral planned for Lima instead. We'd hoped to see the inside of some of the other churches that the city is famed for but they were all closed on Sunday afternoon too.









We also wanted to do a bit of shopping and whilst we could get groceries we were unable to get a SIM card, so the following day Steve was back on the bus again.

The rest of the day was spent cleaning, enjoying the beach and the girls enjoyed their first bath since Las Vegas.