Onward to Nicaragua to Board the Volcano in Leon & got ripped off for bike ride across border!

Wow after our 13 hr bus ride across Honduras we had a short 3 hr ride to the border of Nicaragua. When we got to the Nicaraguan border we were swarmed by guys taking our packs off the roof of the minibus on to these 3 wheel bikes. It all happened so fast with these guys trying to get u to ride their bikes across the border into Nicaragua, money changers plus going to Immigration. We didn't know the distance to across the DMZ area between the 2 borders so we figured we needed to go by bike. As it turned out it was about 1/2 mile which I would have walked. Anyway we got to the immigration and had to pay $7 USD to get into Nicaragua. Jake had no USD so I had to pay his fee. Then had to negotiate an exchange rate for the Honduran Liperias sp to the Nicaragua. It's quite confusing when we go to 5 countries in a space of 2 months. It's hard enough to remember the names of the currency and the exchange rate. I had about $100 Honduran Liperias to exchange plus a little Guatemalan Quenchenatas sp to exchange. So probably lost a bit in the exchange.

But that didn't bother me as much as the 200 Cordobas 10USD that the bike pedders charged us for the 1/2 mile bike ride. Now $10 isn't a lot of money but it's all relative here. For that amount we could ride a bus 8 hrs. The only other time I was pissed at someone was in Utila Island when I was eating a big bag of nachos waiting for a friend. This local guy asked me for a bite. So I handed him the bag and he took 1/2 of bag in 2 handfuls. I yelled, swore and squeamed at the guy telling him most people take a piece or 2 not 2 handfuls of nachos. Of course he didn't know what I was saying. But anyone who knows me can tell when I'm pissed at someone regardless if they understand what I'm saying or not. It's little things like that that make me mad. Heck I misplaced my Exit card leaving Mexico and had to pay 254 Pesos and then later found my card. It was my fault so it didn't piss me off,

Anyway we made it to Leon which is a nice colonial city not far from the Pacific ocean. The big draw here is the Boarding down the Volcano ashes on a tobaggan. This is run by a Dutch guy who works through the Bigfoot Hostel here.
We plan to stay here 3 days as they only have the boarding Mon, Wed and Sat. We couldn't do it when we arrived on Mon. as I had to go to the doctor. My left hand and left evy were both swollen from some bug bite. So with my limited knowledge of Spanish I went to the doctor.
No one at the hospital/clinic knew English so it was a matter of showing them my hand. He managed to explain that I had an allergic reaction to a bite and it wasn't malaria. So I got a cortisone shot plus 2 prescriptions 1 antibiotic and the other anti inflamatory. When I got my coritisone shot I almost threw up on the floor but it passed. The downside of taking the antibiotic is I can't have a drink for 5 days. I'm not a big drinker but staying at a hostel which has a bar, everyone gathers in the bar for a beer in the evening. But hey I can't say a bit of money for the next 5 days. My Dutch travelling partner is a big drinker so he's always in the bar.

So when we're finished the boarfding we'll head to Grenada which is suppose to be a nice Spanish Colonial city south of here. Then we;ll head to this lake which has 2 volcanos to climb. So stay tuned.