Leon

We woke up in Managua and the first order of business was to find a bus to Leon. Hugh's travel book recommended getting a bus at the university because they were direct shuttles and were less expensive so we tried hailing cabs and explaining to them where we wanted to go. The first cab refused to take us, but luckily the second cab agreed. We paid $100 cordobas for the three of us and were dropped off right where the busses were at. It was a frantic fever of people trying to get us on their bus and they ended up kicking a local off the bus so that the three of us could get on the same bus. This was clearly a local means of transportation and only cost $51 cordobas for the hour and a half drive. We weren't as packed in as we could have been and there was a/c so it wasn't a bad ride. Once we arrived in Leon, there was an American working to greet people who arrived via bus and direct them to Chili Inn. We are generally suspect of any of those sales pitches but we had heard that the hostel we wanted to stay at (Tortuga Balooga) was booked so we agreed to stay at Chili Inn (private room $625 cordobas or $25 USD). Chili Inn is very new and seemed nice but then we realized that they blast music all day and night. Bad music at the highest decibels. I wanted to kill someone. So we spent a lot of time walking around the town, getting the lay of the land. We grabbed coffee and lunch at Las Sesento which was very upscale compared to the rest of Leon. It is definitely a city that does not cater to tourists.

There isn't much to do in the city; the big highlight is that it has the largest cathedral in Central America. We tried to go to the top of the cathedral but they closed at 4:00pm so we decided to go back the next day.

I had looked up reviews of places to eat for dinner and "Campstre Habana" was a Cuban restaurant a little bit outside of town that got all 5 star reviews. I mapped it and it didn't seem to far, so we decided to go. It had been been raining for hours so we were reluctant to walk any distance and finally hailed a cab in front of the hostel. When we told him where we were going he said that getting a cab to pick us up and bring us back might be an issue since it was so far. I didn't really realize how far it was until we started driving but 10 minutes later out on some deserted road I became nervous. On top of that, when we arrived at the restaurant it was closed due to the rain so the cab just brought us back and charged us double the fee ($160 cordobas for both ways). What a waste! We ended up eating at a really cute restaurant just down the street from our hostel.

The restaurant had a central courtyard so we could watch the rain and fireworks as we ate. After dinner, we returned to the hostel hoping the music would be off, but it was worse than ever. We stayed up and played a game of pool with some people at the hostel and luckily at 11:00pm our bar shut down and everyone went to the clubs (we went to bed because we are 95 years old ;) ).

Posted with Blogsy