Nicaragua’s West Coast in 1 week

Nicaragua is the largest country in Central America and its beauty and richness attracts more and more tourist. Our trip to Nicaragua led us from the mountains in the north, over volcanos, through Granada down to the beaches of San Juan del Sur.

Day 1: After arriving in Managua, the capital of Nicaragua, we drove north to Matagalpa. Matagalpa is located in the mountains and should be visited if you are friend of hiking, bird or monkey watching, history or coffee farm tours.

 

A nice place to stay is Selva Negra, a full-service ecolodge in the highlands of Nicaragua.

After the long flight and a 2-hour drive from Managua to Matagalpa, we only had dinner and some drinks (Toña and of course Flor de Caña with Coke) at Monkey’s in Matagalpa.

Day 2: After getting ready and stepping outside, the fresh, cool mountain air surprised us a little, but it was a great feeling to start the day with a good outdoor breakfast and of course Nicaraguan coffee on the patio with a beautiful view over the little lake of Selva Negra.

Our first trip led us to through the Nature Reserve with over 20km of hiking trails.

The rain forest in the area of Matagalpa is rich of different plants, birds and insects, reptiles and amphibians. If you are lucky you will even see mammals like howler monkeys. It turned out that we were lucky, and a whole family of howlers was right above us. Incredible feeling, when they started howling their songs, only for us.

 

Day 3: On our third day, we passed Jinotega and its large lake in the North, and headed to the Somoto Canyon. Unfortunately, I don’t remember the route, because some locals drove us there and arranged the trip for us. It was a tour of about 4-5 hours hiking, swimming, jumping and floating.

Day 4: On our fourth day, we drove to the Volcano Masaya, one of the many active volcanos in Nicaragua. After paying the C$ 65 entrance fee and about a mile driving, we stopped by the little museum, which displayed some interesting facts about volcanos in general and the ones in Nicaragua.

After we knew everything about volcanos, we decided to finally see one at close range. We headed to the peak.

It was so exciting to be on an actual active volcano, which usually doesn’t happen so often. The green fresh vegetation was a beautiful contrast to the black remains of the old lava flow.

On the peak, we were surprised how large Masaya actually is. You can’t see the lava in the volcano, but the steam and sulfur smell made us realize that this is actually an active volcano. Scary.. Unfortunately, it started raining.. No, I should say: fortunately, it started raining. The cold rain evaporated on the hot bottom of the volcano and created spectacular steam clouds.

 

The recommendation is to not stay longer than 20 min, so we didn’t spend much time up there, but instead drove to El Mirador (The Overlook) in Catarina, Nicaragua. The view over the Laguna de Apoyo was beautiful, and it was really nice to browse through the little market up there.
  

After lunch, in one of the restaurants located right at the overlook, we drove down to Granada.

Granada is Nicaragua’s historically most important city. It was the first European City founded on the American mainland and the Andalusian appearance makes it architecturally to a very beautiful spot to stay.

Granada offers museums, hotels and many restaurants, which made it very attractive to us. We had enough time to browse through the city in the afternoon, to take a carriage ride in the evening and have dinner in one of the many restaurants in the pedestrian zone on Calzada.

Day 5: On day five, we went to El Centro Touristico de Granada (entrance is on Calle El Caimito) and walked along the lakeshore of Lago de Nicaragua. 

After about a mile, we found locals who wanted to take us out onto the lake and show us the “Isletas de Granada”. We decided to let them talk us into it, which turned out to be a good idea. The tour was great.

The Islands of Granada are a group of more than 350 small islands that were formed when the Mombacho volcano erupted many thousands of years ago. On most of the island you will find vegetation and wildlife (A little monkey took a small piece of mango right off our hand). Many of the islands are even occupied. A great tour!

 

In the afternoon, we drove down to San Juan del Sur. A great spot for everyone who looks for sun, beach and nightlife!

Day 6: On our last full day in Nicaragua, we pretty much stayed at the beach, went surfing (My first time! So much fun!), and enjoyed the weather, before we drove back to Managua for our last night in Nicaragua.

Day 7:  Except for our breakfast and a last cup of real Nicaraguan coffee, there was nothing to report about. We had to get up very early to catch our flight back home.

We did as much as we could in such a short time. Unfortunately, we couldn’t cover Leon, La Isla de Omepete, the East Coast with Corn Island or the jungle in the South.

Rainforest, historical cities, mountains, volcanos and beaches are just a few of the highlights. 

Nicaragua is a poor country, but beautiful and rich on nature, landscapes and culture.

It was a great experience and definitely worth the trip.

I hope you enjoyed this report. Please leave your comments or questions.

- Thanks for reading and safe travels -

4 Days in Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Park

Being from Europe, we had always dreamed to visit Yellowstone. In June 2013 we finally made it, but with limited time. So, we had a tight schedule and needed to plan ahead in order to see everything that we thought was important. There are so many more things to see and you probably could spend weeks or even months in the park, but if you only have limited time like us, you may find our itinerary helpful.

Day 1: We arrived in Salt Lake City, UT on Friday morning and rented a car for driving up to Grand Teton and Yellowstone.
After 5 hours driving we finally arrived in the Signal Mountain Lodge at Jackson Lake, where we rented a cabin for one night. The Lodge is located directly at the lake and has a beautiful view on the Grand Teton mountain range. We only stayed 1 night and didn't have much time for exploring the area. But we were able to take some sunset pictures. It's a beautiful area and I wish we would have stayed 1 or 2 nights more. It is definitely a must for at least a couple of hours if you are coming from the south.
  

Day 2: We got up really early, I believe it was around 5:30am, we took a quick bite for breakfast and went down to the lake where we took some sunset pictures of our little group.
We stayed maybe an hour and just enjoyed the calm atmosphere of the lake and the awakening nature.
Finally we headed to Yellowstone and the typical tourist attractions like the geyser basin with Old Faithful and Grand Prismatic Spring.
Somebody told us the line at the entrance was a half mile at 10am, so we were anxious to arrive early.
Old Faithful erupts every 90 min and is the most famous place, but there are boardwalks through the whole basin and you can spend hours and hours exploring this area. 

After a couple of hours, we went to a hiking trail south of the Grand Prismatic Spring. We followed it for around 15 min until we saw the spring on our right. I took my camera and climbed up a hill (not easy at this high elevation ;) ) for getting a breathtaking view over the valley. 

In the late afternoon, we left this area and drove to the northwest entrance and further to Gardiner, MO where we stayed in the Super 8, which was surprisingly comfortable and had a great continental breakfast.

Day 3: On our third day, we visited Mammoth Hot Springs and took a nice 5.5 miles hike. The hiking trail is called Beaver Ponds and is a nice loop through the wild. The "dirt trail" goes 400 feet up and is partly shady. Be careful! You are in bear country and you should always keep your eyes open and definitely carry bear spray. As we saw a Grizzly cub, I was glad that I was prepared. When I heard from the hikers a few minutes behind us, that the cub's mom charged them and they had to use their spray, I took it with me wherever we went. 

After 4-5 hours hiking, a few nice shots of the view, our group and some other animals, we definitely earned our lunch break. We were tired but really happy that we did this hike. 


In the afternoon we drove to Lamar Valley in the northeast. This is one of the valleys where you can see big bison herds and sometimes other animals like coyotes, bears or even wolves.
Unfortunately, we were not careful enough and left the car to take some pictures about 300 yards away from the car. In the meanwhile the bison herd moved between us and the car and we had a BIG problem. Luckily the herd kept moving after a few minutes. But, there was one bison that appeared to be angry about us being in his living room and it went back and followed us. You have never seen me running faster. Luckily we made it back to the car safe :) 

Day 4: The last day we checked out and drove down to the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. The took the South Rim to Artist Point where we had a great view on the lower falls. 

Later we went to Lamar Valley, where we saw more bison and had a great view into the valley.
On our way back to Salt Lake City, we stopped at Moose Junction and were lucky. There was a moose at the river, that was finally moving closer to the road and even crossed it right in front of our car. 

Due to this unexpected encounter, we arrive in Salt Lake City a little late, so we didn't have time to explore the city and the surrounding area with its lake and famous sand plates. We decided that we would have to come back soon. 

I think we will combine it with a trip to Arch National Park close to Moab, UT and Monument Valley, UT.

We will never forget this trip to Grand Teton and Yellowstone and I can only recommend to take a few days off, pack your stuff and just go there. It's for all ages and even if you only cruise around you may see Black Bears, Elks or even Wolves. The geological uniqueness, the landscape and the wildlife makes it one of the best and most visited placed in the US.

If you decide to stay on the road and in tourist centers, you will be fine without special equipment. If you decide to do back country hiking, please be cautious, carry bear spray and always keep in mind that you are in the wild with its own rules.
Get information about how to behave when encountering wildlife and check the weather. The morning and evening can be chilly, during the day it can be hot. However the high elevation and the surrounding mountains can bare a surprise; a blizzard in summer is possible.
  

Here are some additional information:
http://itinerariesandmore.blogspot.com/2015/04/our-stay-in-grand-teton.html

Here are some interesting links that where really helpful for our trip planning:
http://www.nps.gov/yell/index.htm
http://www.nps.gov/grte/index.htm
I hope you enjoyed this report and the pictures. Any comments or questions are well appreciated.

- Thanks for reading -

3 days in Seattle

Hi all,
This post is about an trip to Seattle, WA that my wife and I made in August 2012. It's a little late, but it was a trip that we will never forget and it's definitely worth to be mentioned.
Unfortunately, we only had 3 days, so we had to limit ourselves to just the most important things.

Here our itinerary:

Day 1: We arrived at SEA-TAC in the morning and went to the Red Lion Hotel Seattle Airport, where we stayed.
We chose this hotel due to its convenient location and the very high rates of the hotels downtown. The hotel was located right next to the airport and very close to Central Link Light Rail station. For a few $ and within 30-40 min, the train took us downtown, where we just started walking around a little. In my opinion that is the best way to get a feeling for a city. We ended up at the Pike Place Market in the Water Front Park, which is one of the oldest farmers' markets in the US.
We found a nice little place to eat amazing and fresh seafood and just enjoyed the weather and nice atmosphere there.

Day 2: On our second day, we rented a car and drove north to Anacortes from where we took a ferry to Friday Harbor where we did whale watching tour with one of the many companies there.

I guess you could pick any of these companies. We were lucky and saw a Bald Eagle, Orcas and other wildlife.

On our way back to the hotel we stopped at Kerry Park on the south slope of Queen Anne Hill and took some pictures.
It was quite nice to see the skyline and the Space Needle with Mt. Rainier in the background. I guess this is the most famous view on Seattle.
Finally we got hungry and found a nice pizza place close-by.  It's called 'The Rock'. They make delicious pizza in a wood fired oven. It was awesome, we would return the next day for lunch. :)
After a great dinner, we decided to go back to Kerry Park for the night view on Seattle. We could have stayed there forever, but we were tired and needed some rest. So we went back to the hotel after about half an hour.

 Day 3: On our last day, we went back downtown to the park where the Space Needle is located at (between Broad St and Mercer St). This park offers dining, street artists and little snack booths. You can find locals and tourists next to each other just enjoyed the weather and the special atmosphere.
It was just a great day to relax. 

We didn't make it to the top of the Space Needle; for two reasons: a crazy looong line and the fact that you probably wouldn't see much except for the surrounding area. We had been at Kerry Park, which is probably the best choice to enjoy the view on the city.

After 3 wonderful days, we finally left Seattle in the very early morning the next day.

I hope you liked this first post of Seattle. Please do not hesitate to leave your comment or to share your own experiences here. Every single idea or comment, will help others to choose the right itinerary for their hopefully unforgettable trip to Seattle.