In Leon, I spent Thursday wandering the city and writing my last blog update. Thursday night I went to the local Salsa night at La Olla Quemada, a very popular and very busy bar just a few blocks from my hostel. Some friends from Utila were there, and we watched the locals dance for a few hours before I called it a night and went back to the hostel.

Friday, I continued exploring, and when it got too hot I went to the local movie theatre. I saw I, Frankenstein in 3D for $5.20. (Don’t judge me – I had never heard of the movie and picked it based solely on the image on the poster, and the fact that the box office woman said it was in English. I also didn’t know it was 3D. And yes, it was really terrible.)

Saturday morning I switched hostels from Bigfoot – a major party place (first picture below) – to ViaVia, a beautiful hotel with two dorm rooms and a much more tranquilo atmosphere (photo).

Despite moving hostels, I was still signed up to take a shuttle with Bigfoot to their beach house about 30 minutes outside the city. Since I wasn’t staying there any longer, it was $2 instead of $1 for the roundtrip ticket.

They drove about 16 of us out in a big open air truck.

Where we were stopped by transit police who decided to search all of our bags for drugs.

A guy with a large camera showed up randomly and started filming us. I took photos of him. He was not happy with that.

They let us go without incident, and I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening at the beach house.

I met a few interesting folks, had a veggie burger, rode a whale, and tried not to lose my glasses or drown in the enormous and enormously fun waves on the beach.

Our 6pm shuttle back left at 7, so when I got back to Leon I just had time to quickly check my email before heading out to the metal show.

The show was awesome. There was a lot more posing and posturing than you see at US metal shows – how many of the non-candid photos have people throwing devil horns in them? – but the music was actually really heavy (which for those of you not into black/death metal, is a good thing), and the energy was awesome. At least until the entire courtyard cleared out for a massive brawl and they shut down the show.

The next day I had breakfast and then caught two local shuttles from Leon to Granada with a German man I’d met at ViaVia. It was $2 for the first 1.5hrs to Managua, and then $1 the last 1.25 to Granada. Tourist shuttles are $12 for the same trip (though without the exceptionally easy transfer in Managua).

Granada is quite beautiful. Like Leon, it is very safe and reminiscent of Antigua. It’s perhaps a bit more like Antigua, in that it feels like more of a museum than a city, and there is a much higher tourist-to-local ratio here than in Leon.

Yesterday, when we arrived, we had lunch at a cafe suggested by our hostel. It was full of 65+ year old Western men drinking rum, and the food was awful.

In the evening I went out with the German guy again and we had beers along Calle La Calzada while people watching.

Today I switched hostels (the other one was gross) and found a soy burger for breakfast.

The place I’m at now (Backyard Hostel) has two bunnies running around. They’re so cute I just want to squeeze them and squeeze them and squeeze them until their eyes pop out of their cute little heads.

After breakfast, I wandered down to the lake (Granada is on a HUGE lake) to explore. It’s really hot here, and even in shorts, flip flops, and a muscle shirt I can only spend a few hours walking around before I need a rest.

As of now, my plan is to spend tonight in Granada, and tomorrow somehow get to the volcano island in the middle of the lake.

I’ve only been here a few days and seen two cities, but so far Nicaragua may be my favorite country of those I’ve visited on my trip.