Leon

We are getting ready right now to leave Leon where we have spent the last couple days. After spending six days in Granada, I was not too excited about spending more time in a city, but we really enjoyed our time here.

We arrived to the dusty hot bus lot in the Leon Wednesday afternoon. We decided to walk the mile and a half to the hostel. The area surrounding the bus stop was hot hot hot, dusty, reeked of rotten fruit and garbage and had about as much charm as a dentist office. Fortunately as we neared the city center beautiful historic churches and colonial buildings started to appear...

We managed to find a nice, clean, quiet hostel with a POOL that was only 20 bucks. Serious score.

We spent our first afternoon walking around to get our bearings on the city... much bigger than Granada -- almost twice as big, in fact. The city is pretty dingy, lots of garbage and the old buildings could use a serious scrub down, but interestingly, hardly any street dogs. Oh, and they seem to favor pizza rather than hot dogs in Leon.

Despite being rough around the edges, the city is very charming, filled with cultural, and a ton of students.

After eating pizza for dinner... pineapple and ham... pretty good actually, we headed back to our hostel to make a plan for the next day. We could head to a nearby volcano to sandboard... just like it sounds, snowboarding except on sand... or we could stay in town and check out museums and churches. We opted for the latter. A few years ago I would have jumped at the opportunity to do something like sand boarding, but to us it just sounded like a hot, expensive, and potentially dangerous endeavor. Why not hit some nice museums for a couple bucks.

Yesterday morning we visited the Centro de Arte, which houses an impressive collection of art including Pre-Columbian pottery, European classic pieces dating back to the 15th century, a selection of Picassos, and a large variety of contemporary Latin American art work, all surrounded by lush gardens ands flowing fountains. The museum was impressive by any standards, and for a dollar, an absolute steal.

In the afternoon, after retreating to our pool for a few hours, we decided to hit a couple more musuems.

First we visited the Ruben Dario museum. I might embarrass Chris and myself, but neither of us know much about Reuben Dario... I think we probably should. From our guide book we learned he is a revolutionary poet who is an important figure in Nicaraguan history.

The museum is housed in Dario"s former home. It"s laid out quite nicely and is well maintained, but because the exhibits are in Spanish, we had a difficult time understanding what each exhibit meant. We did understand that he is one of the most beloved heroes in Nicaragua. I honestly have never heard of a hero poet, so go Nicaragua.

The museum was free, which was nice. Chris and I are planning on reading up on Mr. Dario more. I would love to read some of his revolutionary poetry... almost forgot... his writing style changed the way people in Nicaragua speak and write... very interesting.

After the Dario museum we visited a museum dedicated to the heroes who fought for the Sandinistas during the civil war dating from the early 1900s up until the mid 1980s. Our tour guide Benito, spoke only Spanish, which was really hard at first, but surprisingly Chris and I caught on. The history of the Sandinistas is complicated, bloody, sad, and very interesting. The exhibits themselves featured graphic photos of FSLN soldiers who were killed in the war. Most of them were just kids. Most of the pictures in the museum were taken in Leon, and were easily recognizable to us. Crazy that 30 years ago the bustling city was a bloody war zone.

At the end of our tour our guide showed us a small laminated wanted poster. It was in Spanish, but we could understand that the kid in the picture was a FSLN soldier wanted by Somoza, the opposition leader. The person in the picture was a young kid in military fatigues. It was our guide, Benito. He explained to us how he was tortured... electrecuted, teeth pulled out... so horrible but he managed to survive and escape.

We surprisingly were allowed to take pictures in the musuem. I have a couple pics of homemade weapons created by Sandinista soldiers, and a few shots of a mural of FSLN heroes. They also have a whole wall dedicated to Che... Che is big here. OH, it is also election time in Nicaragua and every day there has been a huge FSLN political rally in the plaza. Really interesting. I cannot wait to read more about Nicaraguan history.

We capped off last night with a Toña on a roof top bar where we watched the sunset and then we headed back to the hostel for one last dip in the pool.

What a perfect day filled with learning and relaxing.

Today we are off to Las Peñitas beach, just north and west of Leon. We will spend a couple days there and then we are heading further north to an area called Los Zorros beach. So excited. Life could not be better.