A little bit o' León

Having recovered from our bizarre night time adventures (and Matt having got rid of his cigar headache, see here) we jumped in a suitably crowded collectivos type van for the two hour hop to León, another of Nicaragua's northern revolutionary strongholds and an ex-capital city. We were staying in a fab hotel/hostel with an enormous high ceilinged bar at the front which was always busy day and night with locals shooting pool and foreigners enjoying delicious cocktails.

So we joined them! Matt with a margarita

Later on another type of local turned up - the dancing kind!

Proper Latin-American dancing

Strictly Come Dancing's professionals would have had a run for their money - it was great fun watching (I just couldn't quite persuade Matt that our wedding dance skills would be good enough to compete!)

A touristy day followed...

The impressive cathedral - bathed in sun

Thankfully a bit cooler inside

Six mannequins being carried by one Nica!

A highlight (or low light depending on how you look at it) was the Museum of Myths and Legends, housed in the old prison. The museum was a collection of papier mache figures representing a selection of Nicaragua's most famous people and some of its weirdest stories. I've decided not to include the bare chested lady in here - you should thank me!

One of the scarier stories

Walking the perimeter of the prison

Feeling a bit confused we thought we'd try another Lonely Planet recommendation - the art gallery. This one was a good one - a huge gallery housed in a traditional colonial style house, with a special Picasso exhibition and lots of modern artworks from Latin America's finest. Very impressive!

Feeling cultured

Both Leon and Esteli are famous for murals around town so we rounded off the day with admiring these more accessible artworks.

Depicting Nicaragua's future

León is one of the hottest places we've ever been to so we were relieved to get back to the cool courtyard at our hotel for some chill time. We were joined by this dude who was an expert in snoozing!

A bit evil looking

Time to relax

Cactus

The next day we headed over to the botanic gardens and Matt decided to continue his wildlife selfie exploits...

Derek the Deer

The rest of the day was spent wandering the streets some more and some time spent back at the hotel for Matt to prepare for a Skype interview the next morning.

Crumbling but elegant León

School's out time in front of the Cathedral

Interview completed the next morning we jumped on another cramped minibus followed by a public bus to take us to Granada - the rival ex-capital city on the shore of Lake Nicaragua.

Our bags taking pride of place on the bus

On arrival in Granada and a quick check of the emails we found out that Matt's interview went well, more details to follow soon. This of course called for a bit of a celebration!

Nachos and mojitos - what better way?

Matt, still in the best interview outfit
he could muster out of the backpack!