Breakdown of an eight hour journey

4.10am. The alarm goes off. Cold showers. We finish packing and make our way to our private bus. An extra two people board our bus – a couple travelling ‘independently’ and who clearly haven’t done their research. We voted to decide whether to give them a lift all the way; free ride! We leave at 5:06am. You wouldn’t know how early it is considering the loud chit-chat going on. The journey takes under an hour. Our last moments in El Salvador; a country we knew little about and an unexpected highlight of the trip so far.

6:14am. ‘Technical stop’ at a petrol station. We drive a little further to the immigration office. Dennis goes off with our passports. There is an issue with one of the guys in our group; he has a fairly common name and there is someone with that name working illegally in Guatemala, so he goes in with extra identification papers. Eventually, we’re free to go and continue on to the ferry ‘terminal’.

7.19am. We walk along the pontoon with our bags, board our boat and put on our life jackets. We have a two-hour boat ride ahead of us. It is pretty uneventful until we stop almost half way through to look at some rocks in the distance. This is where El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua meet. Fishermen in dug-out canoes. Gulls diving in for fish. Small islands with even smaller communities on them.

9:10am. We land in Potosi. This is a wet landing; it’s less than a metre to land, but the water is full of jellyfish. We collect our bags and await the signal from border control before loading them into the bus. This is a tiny border crossing and until recently, they were left alone. But Intrepid recently changed the trip itinerary, and every two weeks or so, they have a whole bus-load to process. We have to be on our best behaviour, and after an hour or so, we’re in. Welcome to Nicaragua!

10.19am. We’re on the road. It is extremely rural. The tarmac road is bumpy, and covered in sandy dust. In the distance, we see a smoking volcano. We turn on to NIC-12. The road is instantly much better.

11.14am. We pass small communities. All river beds are more or less dried up. When they’re not, there’s only a small trickle of water which is either full of rubbish or looking contaminated. Later on, we pass communities with signs with a blue and white logo I recognise well.

12.27pm. We make a ‘technical’ stop in Chinandega. We get out of the bus and the heat hits us. The final stretch. We’re on the Pan-American Highway. We pass big agricultural fields. With less trees by the side of the road, we have open views for once. The traffic slows us down but we arrive in León in time for lunch. It is 34c. No breeze, no humidity, just pure heat. I have a feeling that the little chap with the moustache above is a celebrity; as a stereotype Central American man, I guess the products he advertises appeal to the masses.

We’re both excited to be in León. The first impressions are good. The town has awe-inspiring churches, is renowned for its culture, has an edgy feel and all this against a background of crumbling colonial buildings.

We walk the streets, randomly at first, and then go in the Cathedral. It is the largest cathedral in Central America and is one of Nicaragua’s cultural landmarks. We go round the building until we find the ticket office, pay $3 each and walk all the way round again until we find a small door, and make our way up to the roof. We’re told to take our shoes off, and not to walk on the domes or we’ll go straight through. We’re also told not to climb on the railings. We witnessed a youth doing so, and promptly being escorted out by the guards, along with his mates (they were told off for not stopping him). We’re rewarded with bird’s eye views of the town, and the surrounding countryside.

We come across the martyr monument, the poets’ square and the museum of the revolution – all this we’ll explore in detail tomorrow. We also come across the Church of la Recolección which looks stunning with the late afternoon sun glowing on it.

6pm. Back to our hotel for a rest and to read up about the Sandinista National Liberation Front, as this is what tomorrow morning is all about.