San Juan del Sur and Jinotepe

San Juan del Sur

After crossing the border, San Juan del Sur was our first destination in Nicaragua. That was really good for the beginning. The small town is well known as a tourist destination, but there weren't really many tourists during our time there. So it was very relaxed. We stayed there for 3 nights.

The only attraction of San Juan del Sur is the Christ Statue on a mountain similar to the one in Rio de Janeiro. However, the mountain here was not as high, but the statue with a height of 26 meters is only 5 meters smaller than the one in Rio. We jogged there to do some exercise 😉. The rest of the day we spent at the beach.

On the second day, we used the shuttle service to Playa Hermosa. It's a beautiful beach that is especially popular among surfers. It was so hot there that you could hardly walk through the sand. Unfortunately, we didn't have a camera with us, so I can't show you any photos of the beautiful beach.

Jinotepe

From San Juan del Sur, we continued to Jinotepe. There is actually nothing touristy there. We went there because we wanted to take a five-day refresher course with Kathrin's Spanish teacher from back then. We also took the opportunity to visit some acquaintances of Kathrin in Diriamba.

The only excursion we did there was the hike to Mombacho, an inactive volcano. The 5.5-kilometer ascent to a height of over 1300 meters was strenuous, but it was really fun as you can see some animals along the way, such as monkeys or some bird species and insects. At the top, you also had a very nice view of the surroundings. You could see Granada, the Isletas de Granada, and the Laguna de Apoyo, as well as the Masaya Volcano. I will write more about these places later on. Furthermore, there are some hiking trails on the volcano that we also explored.

After 5 days in Jinotepe, we continued to the beautiful Granada.