We woke up and met with Cherry for breakfast, then headed to the bank to exchange some money, and have a wander around town. We checked out the sights of Leon, then came back to gather up our stuff, say goodbye to Cherry, and continue on our journey.
We had decided wed do a couple stops on the way to the beach house- at Masaya to see the volcano and market, and at San Juan del Oriente to see pottery. From google maps, it looked like we had about a 5 hour drive, so we thought we could do a few stops, and still make it to our destination before dark.
Masaya was great. There was a museum with some interesting information, including a little video clip of someone crossing over the volcano on tightrope just a year or so previously. After going through the museum, we drove up to the volcano, which was a pretty impressive sight. There are several craters at the site, but only 1 is active.
After the volcano, we drove into town- I had been to Masaya when I was in Nicaragua about 12 years ago, and I thought there were some good
things to see at the market, including good hammock prices, but we couldnt find where to go, so we left and drove on to San Juan del Oriente.
San Juan del Oriente was also a stop of mine the last time I was in Nicaragua, and I had purchased some beautiful pottery to gift my family on that trip. We stopped at a few roadside vendors on the way to check out hammocks and flower pots. Sylvia picked up some great flowerpots to take home with her. I was looking for some as well, but wanted different colours, and didnt find what I was looking for. Then we drove into the town itself, but it took awhile to find where there were any vendors. Eventually someone showed us the way to where one woman was making pots, but none were yet ready to sell. We checked out a few other places close to hers. I didnt find anything that caught my eye.
Time had disappeared on us, and it was already getting late in the day, we could see we werent going to be able to make it before dark, so we decided wed stop for dinner, as
we were both getting hungry. We found a cute place along the road, then stopped at a convenience store to pick up some breakfast basics, and continued on our drive in the dark that was setting in.
We programmed in our destination to Google Maps (weve called her Mabel). She started leading us down a bumpy dirt road, and it looked like that was going to continue on for almost 20 km, so I looked up an alternative route and we did a U turn. That route was much better, but eventually it came to a dirt road turn off too. We bumped along, following Mabels direction, until we eventually got to a gated property. The guard informed us that we were at the wrong spot, and directed us to continue down the road further. The ruts in the road got bigger, the drive got bumpier, Mabel said we just had a few minutes to go. By now it was much later than we had anticipated arriving, and we werent feeling as relaxed anymore, but as it wasnt too much further, we just continued on the journey.
with the guard. He said that the road didnt continue through the property, that wed need to go back out and over to another road, and gave us a name of a property to enter into Google Maps. It showed another 20 minutes added to our journey. I think the dismay was evident on my face when I got back in the car and directed Sylvia to turn around.
We had passed a few restaurants along the way, so when we got to one, I asked Sylvia to pull to the side for a moment, while I contacted the caretaker to explain the delay, let him know where we currently were and make sure that the rerouting suggested to us by the guard was correct. He said that was the right way, so we continued on.
It was pitch black, no street lighting, and almost no other traffic. We took the turn off advised by Mabel, and went up a bumpy hill, and over some deep ruts in the road.
