Laguna De Apoyo

 After Masaya we were off to Laguna De Apoyo.  Considering the bedlam at home before we left, and the fact that we had moved around and been seeing a lot of sites during our first 4-5 days in Nicaragua, we were ready to slow it down a bit.  And Laguna De Apoyo proved to be a good place to do it.  We spent 3 days and 3 nights here, and it was everything we needed.  I can' t say we experience much Nicaragua culture, but it was a nice relaxing break.  Everyday we went for a walk/hike returning after lunch, and then we'd spend the rest of the day in the facilities of 'Paradiso' the great little hotel we stayed in.

Laguna De Apoyo I should explain is a fresh water lake that has formed in the crater of a Volcanoe.  It tastes/feels a bit salty or 'sulphury', but is very clean and pleasant to swim in.  It can be a bit windy there, but nothing too terrible.

 We walked out of our room onto this patio... The best thing, we had the whole hotel to ourselves for 2 of the 3 nights we stayed.

Our first walk (about the half the circumference of the crater) led us to this little debauchery.  This 4WD truck apparently only had 2WD functioning and got stuck in the soft sandy road.  I'll tell you, he sure wasn't concerned about 'babying' the thing out and just kept digging himself deeper.  We worked for a bit, but we did eventually get him sorted!

 Day 2 hike, up to the crater Rim and a town called Catarina.  This is about halfway up.

View of another volcanoe Volcan Mombacho (I think) from the Catarina lookout

View of Laguna De Apoyo from Catarina... our hotel would be right below us on the water slightly to the left.

 And a few more of the pictures and the facilities we enjoyed in the afternoons...

Yup that's a bar behind those hammock seats!