TRAVEL: The Cruise Diaries - Corinto & Leon, Nicaragua

Welcome to the sixth installment of The Cruise Diaries - make sure to read previous installments here first! Follow my journey from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to the Caribbean Islands, through the Panama Canal, up through the countries of Central America, and finishing in San Diego, California. New installments coming every few days so make sure to stay tuned on the blog and Twitter @CiarasCountry - on with the trip!

Day 10

Nicaragua had by far the warmest welcome. As we pulled into the port, we could hear the faint sound of a marimba band playing and more and more colourful people lining the dock to welcome us in. The third deck promenade filled quickly with people aching to see the dancers in their beautiful outfits, as well as 10feet tall figures juxtaposed with 2feet tall ones - what a welcome!

We didn't have much time to engage with the locals welcoming us in as we were swept onto a bus to begin our tour. From the port of Corinto, we drove past looming volcanoes spitting clouds of gas into the atmosphere, low bungalows side by side where most of the population live, and plantations of coffee, sugarcane and peanuts; all the while being told about Nicaragua's tumultuous recent history including a civil war which our guide fought in, and violent protests which occurred only earlier this year.

Our first destination was Old Leon, where again we were greeted by colourful dancers - I'd love to be followed round by them wherever I go! Old Leon is a ruined city, and to be honest there wasn't too much to see aside from the low walls that had been excavated, but we were shown some interesting gourds which grow directly from the trunk of the trees, and a pleasant view of the volcanoes and lake.

Lunch was served at a restaurant here, and included the standard rice and beans, various meats, plantain and salad; as well as handmade sweet of condensed milk, coconut and even more beans. The weather was astonishingly hot in spite of the fact that this is their cold season, so it was pleasant to see in the covered area for a while before getting back onto the (thankfully air conditioned) bus.

Having learnt about the early history of the first capital city of Nicaragua, it was then time to head to what could have been the present capital had it not been for conflict for the role with the nearby town of Granada, leading to officials to pick neither and choose Managua instead.

Present day 'colonial' Leon was significantly more interesting with its Spanish colonial architecture, including a huge sparkling white Cathedral with a beautifully ornate Nativity scene inside lit up with fairy lights and with its own flowing stream - they don't do them like that back home!

Those of us who could manage were given the opportunity to climb to the top of the Cathedral to see the view, including of all the nearby Catholic churches which used to be connected by underground tunnels, and beyond that the lush agriculture of Nicaragua. The Cathedral probably looked better than it is actually made, as we were told to be careful not to put any weight on the balustrades surrounding the edges for fear they might collapse!

The Cathedral sits on the edge of a pretty but small square, so we had about a half hour to wander around and check out the stalls. The national sport of Nicaragua is baseball, so I picked up a Leon baseball shirt for a significantly cheaper price than my Toronto Blue Jays as a memory of my time in the friendly country.

As we drove back, our guide kept getting worried calls from the Volendam - "Where are you? Will you be back on time?" - and we arrived back at port with a minute to spare before the official All Aboard time when the ship is due to depart. Luckily for us, as the tours are organised in conjunction with Holland America, they can't leave without us, so at least we had that reassurance!

I had just enough time to get into my gym gear for another gruelling session of Total Body Conditioning, but admittedly I felt it quite necessary given that I'd eaten more in my week on the ship than I had for the rest of 2018... We headed down to dinner and once again requested a shared table, for which I was thankful as we ended up sat with an interesting couple who were friends with Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary and had retired to the beautiful big island of Hawaii, a must on my bucket list of places to go.

The downside of a shared table is that you are not so much in control of when courses arrive and are cleared, having to wait for the last person to finish. Subsequently, I gobbled down my food in order to run to find a seat before the lights went down on the Mainstage for that night's show.

Entertainment came in the form of magician RanD Shine. I'm either very impressed by magic or not so, and this show was a bit of both. I found the sleight of hand tricks too easy to follow, but was more interested in his more psychological tricks. For instance, he brought two audience members onto the stage, got them to close their eyes, and then tapped only one of them, asking each time who had felt themselves being tapped, to which both audience members said they had. I wasn't sure how the non-tapped audience member had felt the taps, and knew for sure she wasn't a plant as I'd seen her around the ship as a guest before. Can anyone explain?

Another interesting trick was getting three audience members to think of pretty unpredictable things that RanD wouldn't know - the first word of a random page in a book, their birthday, and their parents name. Somehow he was able to predict these correctly, again beyond my understanding - can any magicians help me out? The bar had been set very high for entertainment and RanD would be back for another close up magic show in days to come, giving me even more chance to be impressed.