First time trip to Nicaragua - 7 days to work with

[ppearlh121]

Hi all! My boyfriend and I are taking our first trip together down to Nicaragua in a week, for a week, and we're trying to firm up our plans. We want a pretty relaxed vacation with beach time, but I also want to make sure we get some sense of the country since its our first time there. I'm psyched to find this forum, and any feedback would be appreciated!

Day 1 (Sat, 1/16) - arrive Managua at noon, take bus or taxi to Granada, explore and stay the night
Day 2 (Sun, 1/17) - head to Ometepe in the morning, get to Finca de Magdelena near Volcan Maderas
Day 3 (Mon, 1/18) - hike Volcan Maderas
Day 4 & 5 (Tues/Wed, 1/19-20) - explore Ometepe, kayak...(need ideas here!), stay 3rd night
Day 5 & 6 (Wed/Thurs, 1/20-21 ) - head to San Juan del Sur, stay at Playa Maderas, stay 2 nights
Day 7 (Fri, 1/22) - head to Laguna de Apoyo, hangout on beach, swim
Day 8 (Sat, 1/23) - cab to airport, catch 1:15 pm flight out of Managua

We're not really sure whether to stay 3 nights in Ometepe/2 nights in SJdS or the other way around - 2 nights in Ometepe/3 nights in SJdS. Which has more to do? or better beaches to lounge on?

Also, should we build in more volcano time? We're only seeing Volcan Maderas but it'd be possible to squeeze in Volcan Masaya or Mombacho by shifting things around. We overall want a pretty relaxed trip, with more active stuff in the beginning and beach time for the second half.

We could also do: 2 nights in Granada, 2 nights in Ometepe, 2 nights in SJdS, 1 night in Laguna de Apoyo and head to the airport from there. That way we could do a day trip from Granada to one of the volcanoes. We heard great things about Laguna de Apoyo and wanted to check it out as well - thoughts?

Any thoughts would be great, thanks!

Pam

[Joshua Berman]

I wish I could give you details of the "right" way to do this but fact is, you just can't go wrong. Sounds like  you are flexible enough to make some of these decisions on the fly -- many people get to Granada or Ometepe and don't want to leave. Others would rather stick to the surf and nothing else. Win-win-win situation, have fun.

[kevins]

I guess you're already most of the way through your trip. I hope you're having a fantastic time! I'll still share my answer, hoping it will help other folks in the future.

Looks like a great trip. Ometepe and SJdS are quite different, so hopefully you can figure out which is likely to be more fun for you. If you are more into rural outdoor activities, Ometepe is fantastic. SJdS is more developed and revolves more around the people. We were disappointed by SJdS because it reminded us of some more-developed areas along the Costa Rican coast. SJdS isn't all that developed...it just had some of the same flavor.

You could do a quickie trip to Volcan Masaya in an hour or two from the Managua/Granada/Apoyo area. It's worth it, to stare straight down into the mouth of a steaming, active volcano.