Viva León!

After a bleary-eyed 2:45am pickup from our apartment in El Zonte, we finally bagged the best seats on the shuttle – marginal win! With a quick stop in El Tunco to scoop up a few more travellers, we were soon winding our way towards Nicaragua, ready to trade surf towns for smoky volcanoes, political murals, and our first taste of León’s fiery spirit.

We dozed in the car a bit, but when the sun started to rise it was hard to sleep through the amazing oranges and reds of the sky. The journey took us past more of El Salvador’s volcanoes too, and we could see San Miguel and Conchagua clearly from the road.

We arrived at the Southern most port of La Union, where our passports were taken and scanned by the border control, then we boarded quite a small boat (just 9 passengers) for what seemed like probably a rough boat ride…

And it was…  we were completely thrown about bouncing over the waves and continually landing hard. One particular hard landing got a big “ooohh” out of everyone on the boat and the driver finally slowed slightly, but not enough to stop us taking off! I got absolutely SOAKED with spray, Dave got half soaked, we definitely picked the wrong side of the boat!

The boat took about 1.5 hours, and once again, all we could see around us were tonnes of volcanic cones and hills. We eventually landed at Nicaragua at Potosi and had to jump out into the shallows and walk to the beach, what a glamorous entrance. “Knee deep” it was supposed to be, but when I jumped out, my bum definitely got wet too!! Haha

Then we crossed the border into Nicaragua painfully slowly. We were the first boat to arrive that morning, so we were through the actual border very quickly. We got passport stamps, paid the entrance fee of $13 and were good to go… But then we had to wait in the baking heat for almost 2.5 hours for all the other boats to arrive and for everyone else to do their entrance before our bus would leave…

Very hot and very sweaty, we finally boarded the bus for the 2 hour drive to Leon.

León was our first major stop in Nicaragua, we’d come here because we heard that the Easter celebrations here are supposed to be amazing, with Alfombras in the streets like we saw in Antigua. Plus it’s supposed to be a gritty, arty and liberal city – being the centre of the Nicaraguan revolution in the 70s.

We arrived in the afternoon and checked into our hostel which we LOVED! There was a hibiscus tree in the centre courtyard which was visited regularly by cinnamon hummingbirds, often more than one, so we saw a few fierce mid-air battles for territory! And they let us get super close to them, literally a metre away whilst the fed or perched on one of the branches.

We also found an amazing food place, Coco Calalah, a fully vegan restaurant with very reasonable prices (like £3-4 a meal) set in a beautiful gardens AND with a pool, which was only c100 to use (about £2), we came here literally every meal!

The next day was Good Friday, and we’d expected to see big processions, Alfombras and major cultural and religious events throughout the city. But we asked chatGPT where the events where and it told us that this year the processions had been cancelled and banned by the government. Apparently there are still some political tensions here in Nicaragua… We didn’t ask too many questions, and planned some other things to do instead.

We basically did our own walking tour of the city, first to Calvary Church, then towards the central square and Cathedral, before visiting the museum of the revolution, where we learned a lot about the Nicaraguan Revolution of the 1970s – a movement led by the Sandinistas, a leftist revolutionary group, who rose up against the authoritarian Somoza dictatorship, which had long been backed by the United States. It was a successful revolution, and León was the first city to be liberated, so there’s a deep sense of pride and revolutionary history here.

We were shown around the museum by one of the revolutionaries from the time. The building itself has a complex history – it’s changed hands many times, having been a government office under Somoza, a revolutionary headquarters, a school, a library, and, tragically, the site where government forces once opened fire on peacefully protesting students in the courtyard. It felt like a sombre place, heavy with the weight of what had happened there. Our guide then led us up to the roof, which had amazing views over the city and the surrounding volcanoes – plus a salute to the revolutionary victory.

We headed back for more Coco Calalah and to chill in the cool AC of our room. It was INSANELY hot here, probably the hottest we’ve been on this trip so far, it was easily pushing 40 but the humidity was the worst part….

Later that evening, as we headed back to Coco Calalah, we heard the familiar sound of a Semana Santa marching band. Following the music, we came across a small procession happening within the church grounds of the Calvary church – the paso and its devoted cargadores were marching on the spot. Even though the official events had been cancelled, it was moving to see how people were still keeping their traditions alive in quieter ways. We’re not religious ourselves, but we could feel how important this was to the community. We even bumped into our museum of revolution tour guide again ☺️

On our second day in León, we did much the same, visiting other parts of the city and doing some shopping, trying to find Dave some trainers again (with no luck!). We visited San Juan church and park San Juan, then headed towards Lady of La Merced church via the church of the Recollection (yes, there’s a lot of churches!!). Then we walked down Ruben Dario street, where we saw another quiet stationary “procession” outside San Francisco Church.

We finished the day with (you guessed it) Coco Calalah and then headed back to watch the hummingbirds again.

We did enjoy our time in León — the colourful buildings, street art, and volcano views made it a cool place to explore. But we definitely noticed a different vibe here compared to other spots we’ve been in Central America. There seemed to be more poverty on show — we were asked for money quite a lot, even inside the churches — and people didn’t feel quite as chatty or smiley as we’ve got used to. Maybe it’s the political atmosphere, maybe just city life. Either way, it added a different flavour to our experience — not bad, just a bit more complex. And we were keen to see how the rest of Nicaragua compares. Next stop: Granada – supposedly more touristy, colourful, and a bit more polished… we’ll see!