Nicaragua

We ventured up to Nicaragua by bus arriving at night in a town called San Juan Del Sur. This was a weird one because they have some issues with power. So the place is really dark with the buzzing of generators to power the restaurants and houses. Its a cool spot, another fishing port, but with nice yachts and other pleasure craft mored in the bay next to town. It had a good vibe as everyone was friendly and easy going.

Sensing that we had been followed again by a guy that we met south america after seeing him in numerous towns along the way, we checked our email to find out that he was staying around the corner from us. Strange the places that we seemed to bump into each other. We hooked up in the morning and set off for a beach just out of town, playa madera.

There's a nice beach at the bottom of a steep dirt road that the taxi driver wouldn't negotiate. One building stands next to the car park, on the edge of the sand, which is a small lunchtime restaurant downstairs and 4 small rooms upstairs. We claimed a room and darted for the water because it was starting to heat up. Some nice waves broke straight out the front of the pad. There is a big lake just inland that makes the wind along this coastline offshore all day, so there were perfect conditions all the time. The bonus about staying on the beach was that you could surf morning and afternoon almost to yourself, as the others had to make the journey from town. We were lucky on one day a river flooded and only a handfull of people made it through so the beach was more or less ours for the day. During the middle of the day there was a board repair and hire shop set up under a tree, their office was a small tent.

The days consisted of surfing, kicking back on the balcony overlooking the beach, swimming, eating and fishing in the arvo, fires on the beach some nights to cook dinner and watch the stars or the thunder storms out over the ocean. I could have easily lived there being a surf bum. We spent most of the day in the water until we turned into prunes. It wouldve been a nice area to explore but we didnt have the time or a car so we just hang out there the whole time with all we needed right in front of us.

Gotta love the warm water!!!!

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