Swimming in a crater lake- a good way to spend Christmas

Up at 530 to see the sunrise. Yeah you know that bump in our tent? Well it was felt. I felt like I had a small bend in my back the whole night and couldn't sleep on my side. Whatever, the sunrise was magnificent. The horizon was all the colors of the rainbow and as the set rose you could see sunbeams across the sky. Off in the distance was Momotumbo and right below us was Ass__ that we would swim beside today. This was one of the most beautiful mornings I've ever seen. After some oats w/ bananas we packed our tents and our slightly lighter load for the 5-6 hour hike that was ahead of us. My knee was doing well and I wasn't sore from the day before, I was just glad that we were done w/ our uphill hikes. El Hoyo was only 3k ft but it felt much more after the day we had yesterday.

The hike down from El Hoyo was difficult. It was again more volcanic gravel that was easy to slip on. Sometimes you would step on a large rock and it would break because the rocks were pumice or another rock that crumbles easily. I made it down w/o injuring myself and Andy was one of the first ones down again. We were so excited to get in that water. This was likely the dirtiest I've been possibly ever. The trails are so dusty and full of thorny shrubs my legs are caked in dirt and scratches. Again the hike was almost more of a run. After we were off the volcano the hike was relatively flat around the other volcano and lake to where we could jump in.

The water was so refreshing, it's just what we needed after the two sweaty dirty days we had just had. It was very warm. Andy made jokes about leaches (there were none). Lunch consisted of cold veggie tacos, not the most delicious thing but we would eat anything by this point. We made it to the water in record time. It usually takes 5 hrs and we made it in less than 3. We could hang with those 20 year olds! The hike out was 10 min up a steep incline then a dirt road out. Just what we needed to dirty ourselves again after washing off in the lake.

Not sure if they planned for someone to pick us up but no one showed. We ended up hitchhiking back to a main road. We fit 15 of us in the back of the truck w/ all our bags, it was scary. Andy sat on top of the cab w/ nothing bracing him if the truck braked hard. The first turn the truck turned way too fast and I thought we were done for, all I could imagine was the truck turning over all all the luggage and people falling on top of me or me being catapulted from it. After that he slowed down. We made it to the main road, we offered him money and he wouldn't take it. That was so amazing that he packed in 15 people and all our luggage and wouldn't take anything for the 30 min ride he provided. We finally took a chicken bus back to Leon and hoofed it back to QT. It felt so good to be back.

We packed our stuff, grabbed our free t-shirts (Andy got a second one and good thing because his one and only was done for) said goodbye and headed back out for the bus to Managua. We headed to Granada w/ three other girls, two from Holland and one from Switzerland. The trip from Leon to Managua to Granada was fast and uneventful. A much needed shower was taken at the hostel. No hot water but I didn't want any at this point, lukewarm was perfect. We had only eaten the veggie lunch and a crappy bun filled w/ some meat so we were starving by this point. We headed to the main street w/ restaurants and all of them were still open. I guess they don't close down like we were told/though for Christmas. Andy and I tried to explain the difference between tacos and burittos to the Swiss girl but she wasn't getting it. After a long debate we finally got our quesadillas and chicken fajitas, damn they were good. The street was quite lively, boys were selling gum and palms for money and musicians were out trying to make a buck as well. Back to the hostel after some ice cream and we tried to pass out in the heat. The room we were in had 30 people, that's a lot of people breathing hot air and the ceiling fans didn't seem to help much. The middle of the hostel had a nice grassy area w/ turtles. Apparently there are also rats there, we were told to lock our bags tight. It was a good day.