North to South

In the last week of February, I got to spend time in a town found in southern Nicaragua, known as San Juan Del Sur.  Actually, this is a very well known place, and a prime spot for tourism and surfers.  You can say it's like the Nicaraguan version of Tamarindo, but it's half as costly and double the adventure.  This was my last "vacation" here in Nicaragua, before my final two months I have now, here in Esteli.  It's weird, because for people coming off the plane, from previous cold weather, to go to the nice, warm coast of Nicaragua, would definitely consider it a vacation... but what is only a bus ride away from my home, it doesn't feel the same.  But it's still cool.  Nonetheless, going from the mountains to the ocean is always gonna be a great trip.

Better yet, I got to enjoy that week with my brother and sister-n-law, Jonny and Nikki, along with Casey and Jarod Goulart from Rhode Island.  When I saw them at the Managua airport, they were all white and wintery.  I could tell that Northeastern winter has taken its toll on them.  But that was about to change...

Lets take a look at some pics from the latest excursion:

  I like this pic.  Here we have the top half of Jonny's face looking out at the cove of San Juan Del Sur, which you can see from his glasses.

On the way down to San Juan, you can't help but check out some of the landscape.  On the road, you end up passing by the immense Lake Nicaragua and an active volcano from the island of Ometepe.

La Percha: This is the name of the place we stayed at for the week.  An incredible view, built right on the cliff.  It wasn't the easiest getting to the place, but its location was amazing.

And of course, with such an epic view, came great sunsets... The second one kind of gives you a sense of the view from the inside through the window... good stuff

These two dogs lived at the house.  And under the house is where the caretakers lived.  It wasn't a problem as far as worrying about safety at La Percha.  These dogs were massive though, like great danes or something, the picture doesn't show how big they really were.  The first night we were there, walking to the house the dogs came running over barking in the pitch black.  I seriously thought I was gonna die.  Turns out these dogs were as friendly as can be and followed us everywhere and even led the way to the beaches.

Here are a couple pics to give you a brief idea of the town of San Juan Del Sur.  Huge amount of foreigners and visitors, it's no ordinary Nicaraguan town.  All the boats were stationed on the outskirts of the cove.  A lot of fishing and surf tours make up some of the town's attractions.

And we did get to surf.  This picture was taken by my brother on the first day we got there.  It was the day we didn't have surf boards.  My brother freaked out when he saw these epic waves coming in on high tide on the cove just south of our place of La Percha.  It was within walking distance.  The funny thing is, the next few days after when we got the boards the waves weren't that good...

The next cove south of this beach is called Playa Hermosa, which you can see in the distance.  That's where they filmed the two seasons of the show Survivor, which they stopped filming like six months ago they said.  We ended up surfing there on one of our last days and it ended up having some of the best waves.

They say the waves here are better and more consistent than farther down south in Costa Rica.  The wind comes over Lake Nicaragua and provides constant off-shore wind 360 days a year.  So the waves were always clean, it just depended on the tides basically...

Jonny and Nikki

Staying at La Percha, renting a truck was necessary.  The place was 20 minutes away on a dirt road and San Juan was the only place you could get food at the supermarket to bring back to cook.  Just one reason why in Nicaragua is more of an adventure I guess, compared to a much more accommodating Tamarindo, Costa Rica.  But this super-old, sketchy Toyota Landcruiser was great and got the job done, besides that flat tire you see... O and it almost killed Jarod while he was driving, when a thick, solid metal bar broke off the roof and hit him straight on the cranium... While he had to stop the car for a bit, we thought he was gonna pass out or something from a concussion. Then he was fine and kept driving...

Surf Safari: We walked to the spots on a trail from our place, accompanied by the two dogs.  Their names were Bicho(beach-o) and Cardinal(car-dean-al).

Surfing Playa Remanzo... the sunset sesh

Jonny and the dog... always cool when the dogs accompany you to and from the water. Unfortunately, we have no pictures of anyone actually on the waves... we were all too busy doing the surfing and not the photography, and we even had a water-proof camera! Unforgivable...

Nikki and Casey told us they saw this turtle come up on the beach while we were surfing... Guess it was true, and here's the pic to prove it.  Crazy story though... you can witness the difference between Nicaragua and Costa Rica first-hand.  In Costa Rica, they had protected and preserved beaches just for the turtles and nesting or whatever, and you even had to pay to see them.  In Nicaragua, this turtle came right on the beach by us.  Soon after, some dude came out of the woods, showed up, and grabbed the turtle by its fins and slung it on his back and walked away with it... That's pretty brutal... the girls said it was a dramatic experience watching the turtle, flailing helplessly, while some Nicaraguan walked away with it... goodness...

Told you there were hipsters in Nicaragua... Nica-hipster... This was actually one of the last photos taken before I got rid of my mustache... don't really miss it...

 Jonathan and his matching green chair.

This big group you see just happens to be all witnesses... It started out just a couple of us, and somehow it just kept growing and people just kept showing up... It's cool to find all these instantly warm and friendly people and then just stand around talking forever... definitely not a bunch of introverted backpackers that's for sure... 

Visiting the hall at San Juan for the Watchtower study and public talk.  Here's Casey and Jarod.

Here's our crew in front of the San Juan kingdom hall.  Nikki, Jonny, me, Jarod, Casey, and Sara.  Sara stayed with us for a while in San Juan.  A sister from Bethel who happens to be friends with Arturo and Ajah, the missionaries in my hall back in Esteli.

We did so much on this trip.  We even hung out with Dennis and Michelle and her parents. This was Michelle's parents' last week in Nicaragua, so they rented this really nice place up in a mountain near San Juan.  It was nice getting to see Poppy in his last week here in Nica too... If you don't know who Poppy is, please refer back to the post about the Managua missionary home painting... O and I finally found out his real name is Harold... haha...  This is one of the only pictures I had of this place... it's funny though because it captures us while we are just arriving... it looks like we're just standing around... looks like we are lost or something.

Gorgeous place they had... with a pool and crazy nice patio area...

Making a bonfire... it was a blast... (not saying it exploded, just saying it was a good time).

Here's our group piled into the truck... those two guys are living in San Juan... the one on the left is Luke who is visiting, and the one on the right is Ceddie, who's been a need-greater here for ten months now... They took us out on their boat and dropped us off at Playa Hermosa, which was our best day of surfing we had.  It's a good thing that we went to that spot on the boat and didn't drive there... we learned that just a day earlier, people got robbed of all their stuff and their car driving to Hermosa...

And... one more sunset pic... why not...

And... now it's time for a geography lesson.  Remember how I keep saying what my favorite places are in Nicaragua... well, here is a map of these places and I've circled where they are in the country... Also, you can click on the picture to have a better look...

Green Circle: This is my home and assignment of Esteli.  Clearly in the mountains, as you can see...

Blue Circle: This is the area of the town called Somoto... This is around the place where the canyon is  located.  Even farther up north than Esteli, close to the border of Honduras.

Purple Circle: Laguna de Apoyo... this is where we went with Rob... the big crater lake.

Red Circle: The last place I've been, San Juan Del Sur.  You can see how far south it actually is... very close to the border of Costa Rica...

So these places are the biggest stand-outs in Nicaragua that I've seen so far... All great in their own ways... I've still only seen a tiny fraction of this country... Especially that Caribbean coast... sadly I probably won't get to see it this time around...

And that's it for the San Juan Del Sur Experience... it feels weird not going back with family after you've been with them on a vacation... it was great getting to spend time with them in this country that I've been to for six months now... Kinda felt like a guide almost... ha... but not really 'cuz the place was just as new for me as it was for them.  Anyway, it was a nice 'final' trip, of good times, surfing with broskis, and exploration.

e n j o y !