Day 7: Oh John...walking tour (Esteli)

If you're already pretty familiar with my travel habits, you'll know that there's nothing I love more than a walking tour.

My best friend Shane and I even have a long running top-five tour ranking system (sorry for taking you down with me there, Shane!)

My current top five includes a three hour tour of Munich which I undertook with a gang of friends when we were severely hungover from Oktoberfest and a five hour tour of Berlin which was so intense one of my sandal straps gave up the will to live half way round.

Esteli is a small town, so we're not in top five territory here, but I did have an excellent afternoon with a lovely guy called Axell who's a guide with Highland Tours.

Big shout out to Highland Tours which is run by Brit Michelle who's been living in Nicaragua for the past 11 years. She's a woman on a mission to get more visitors to northern Nicaragua and Esteli in particular - go Michelle!

So, to the 'John' of the title. John is a lovely Canadian man in his fifties and a true gent, however, he is also Canada's embarrassing dad.

John was to be my companion for the tour and in some ways, my nemesis.

Every time I'd ask Axell a question about Nicarguan culture, history etc, John would interject with pearlers along the lines of:

"Axell, can you tell me more about the municipal water system in Esteli?"

Or:

"Do they use paving stones on the street to create easy access to pipe work?"

He was obsessed with the pipes!

Axell was a trooper and handled every question like a pro.

To be fair to John, I now know the approximate square footage of Esteli, and it's not like I could have gone on Wikipedia to look that up or anything. 

His 'unique' line of questioning did make for an amusing trip, so I bid you a fond 'adios' John, you crazy pipe lover you.

Travel tips

1. My 2.5 hr tour cost $10 (great value) and took in Esteli's murals, other art and fabulous market. Axell had great English, knows his history and it was great to chat with him about life in Nicaragua. 

2. Find out about this and other tours further afield at www.nicahighlandtours.com