So after South Beach sunning, we hit Granada running, checking out a big bad ass volcano crater  

filled with rain forest  

before making some amigos but at The Monkey with Neil (pronounced Neo locally) from Boston, Matty T from somewhere near the Canadian Frontera & Joe from London town. We hit the town on Friday night after a pretty mellow night in on Thursday, and as those who read my group email will already know, I was pretty much feeling like the living dead on Saturday so we spent those hours watching Futbool, a 40 Year Old Virgin and feeling sorry for myself.  

The BIG game on Sunday saw us in for the morning (have I mentioned how hard it is to travel when the World Cup is on) but after the referee decided to ruin Australia on ground and Harry Kewell told him where to go off the ground, we headed to the Bearded Monkey�s second abode, The Monkey Hut, about 25min out of town on Laguna Apoyo.  

We weren�t planning to get there until Monday but after sweltering away for the last few days in Granada with little energy for sightseeing, we decided it was time to get wet! Our amigos followed, joining an already established Scottish crew at The Hut.
 

The place was beautiful, crystal clear, very warm & deep volcanic lake waters, plenty of sun, tubes to lounge around in, a floating platoon, a fridge full of beer and plenty of Scrabble, Trivial Pursuit & Basketball to keep us occupied in the shady times.  

Sunday night saw plenty of BBQ�ing, drinking, swimming and watching of the moon rise and bats flock around the light on the lake, before a much mellower day and night to follow as some of our party departed but replaced with fresher travelers on Monday.  

Tuesday we headed back to Monkey (the Bearded one) to grab our gear and head South.  

Our original plans were to head to Isla de Ometepe, a twin Volcano Island in the middle of the biggest lake in Central America, filled with Fresh Water sharks and all sorts of other goodies, but we found out that TV�s on the island are rare, and with the biggest game of them all coming up tomorrow, we quickly changed plans (did I mention how hard it is traveling with the World Cup on) and headed for San Juan del Sur, a small surfing/fishing village South near the Costa Rican border. Neo followed us South with the US�s do or die game on tomorrow also. Lilla & I headed out for dinner & drinks last night to celebrate our 4 year anniversary  

and we�re gonna spend the day today checking out a few sights before spending before Neo & I spend all of tomorrow at the Pub in front of the big screen and probably off to check out some more beaches on Friday, across to Ometepe from there and eventually shoot North, Tegucigalpa bound!  

Back 2 Roughin'it

So Alberto eventually blew past us and we were able to head down to the Keys on Tuesday for the day. The Keys were nice enough, beaches weren’t fantastic, but the drive down there in the Seabring was well worth the wait. It was just cool to drive along the numerous causeways that you see get blown up in so many movies!

Had a very quiet night on Tuesday and spent Wednesday back down in the scorching sun on the beach and tying up a few loose ends before heading back to Michelle´s to start getting our things together and back down to SB for one last dinner out, which was by far our best meal in Miami in a cute little restaurant called `A Fish Called Avalon´. All in all we were a little disappointed with the food in Miami, we did have some good food, but we also had pretty similar food to what we have had served up to us in South America but with an extra 2 x 0´s on the end of the bill, plus 7% Tax & 15-20% Gratuity (Tip) on top of that. I guess we are just so spoilt in Melbourne!

Miami was a cool city, an interesting cross of cultures from all over Latin America & the World. It was odd however to find that all those crazy, illogical things we sometimes questioned and pondered upon in South America, seem to have originated from the US. I can’t really explain what I’m talking about; you’ll just have to check it out for yourselves.

So we finished up our holiday from our extended holiday on Thursday by watching a bit more Copa Mundial and getting the rest of the packing sorted, before we were off to Miami International and another crappy AA flight to Managua, Nicaragua and oh so close to Motherland I can almost smell Tegucigalpa from here! After spending the first 15 minutes of our time in Nicaragua (I really missed this crazy shit in the States), we finally agreed on $20 for the hour long cab ride to Granada, a volcanic lake surrounded city with loads to do, & The Bearded Monkey, the hostel that has been raved about all over South America. Warming up for Sundays match after picking up an Australian T-shirt in Miami by watching Argentina slaughter Serbia this morning before heading out to get ourselves acquainted with the town and back into the groove of 3rd World living, give me this chaos over the US any day!

Photos below.....

You can walk 4 miles in these shallow waters 

Old meets New 

Man Made meets Natural Beauty 

Usually Blown Up in Movies 

Kruisin 2 The Keys 

Our Wheels around Town 

Ocean Drive, South Beach by Night 

Wet & Wild 

Gettin Around Town in The Glades 

Everglade's Alligator: Chompy 

South Beach Chillin 

Our Host: Michelle 

Miami Style Hummer 

The Tyrona Crew 

Our Pagoda: Home away from Home