The generosity of strangers

Well, our planned visit to the Flor de Cana factory on Wednesday would have been fantastic had we not chosen the town´s annual fiesta day to visit, when the factory was shut....my timing has always been fantastic! The little security guard was really sweet, however and took pity on us, taking us to see the bottling bit, but kept imploring us to come back the day after when everyone would be working. Unfortunately we definately wanted to be on our way to Masaya so that wasn´t a possibilty.....but we took our photos there and thats the most important thing about travelling surely! Then just to make the day even worse, we had the bus journey from hell to Masaya so will skip joyfully over this!

Next day (Thurs) was far better though and one of those lovely random days that makes travelling/being on holiday so much fun. An early start was dictated by rebecca to ensure we weren´t at the volcano in the heat of the midday sun but for some reason we decided to get there by bus and foot rather than the taxi (the road is paved all the way to the top of the volcano) all the way......why do we not learn? Suffice it to say that the 7km walk and 400m height gain was not fun and as it took so long, we ended up doing it in the heat of the sun! Just had to keep thinking thighs, stomach, all that ice cream i ate, etc. And to make matters worse, all the cars were coming the other way so we couldn´t hitch a lift

But then, just as we were going to give up, our knights in shining armour (or a shiny 4x4 at least) came out of no-where and picked us up.....for the literally 2 mins left we had to walk (cunningly just round a bend so we didn´t realise!) Luckily they didn´t think we were mad and we ended up spending the next 24hrs with them. Peter´s brothers both lived in Nica (making a lot of money by the looks of it) so he was visiting with his friend çKevin and took pity on us and our poor backpacker ways so invited us to hang out with them for the day sightseeing.....and we got the luxury version thanks to his brothers wealth! So we got shown around, then taken for a v lovely meal in Granada (all paid for by them much to my horror/delight) and then we went back to his brothers house for a relaxing couple of hours......and this house was gorgeous. High up overlooking the lake with views to die for and acres of glass. It was heaven! And there we were in our sweaty hiking clothes, lowering the tone somewhat.

Anyway, we were then safely deposited back to Masaya for the Thurs fiesta (which in the end wasn´t that great, but an experience as it seemed to be totally for nicaraguans and the dancing was pretty cool) which the guys joined us for. To cut a long story short, they then took pity on us again when they saw our hostel and insisted we stay at their house.....to which we gladly said yes. Was slightly worried about motives at this point but my gut instinct said I would be ok (plus i had their business case to show police!) and in the end they were perfect gentlemen. We had a lovely evening, had the most comfortable bed, a hot shower (bliss) and even got breakfast made for us in the morning which we ate on the huge balcony watching wild howler monkeys play in the trees below. It was all just too amazing to believe. I have to say, my faith in human nature was ratcheted up a couple of notches and was ashamed I had ever thought dubious thoughts! So have promised whatever higher power is out there that when i am rich and famous, and travelling in style, I will similarly treat a couple of random backpackers to free food and hot showers in a pay it forward kind of way.

Now having to adjust back to dorm living and cheap meals after our 24hrs of luxury but to make up for it, we are staying in the most amazing hostel in Granada (www.nicaraguahostel.com) and have swung in hammocks all afternoon! Its a hard life this backpacking malarky