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Published: October 30th 2008
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First Day
Here is the beach at San Juan Del Sur bay during high tide. Well it turns out that you can´t stay in one country for more than 90 days without having to pay some sort of a fine. So to get around this Steve, Ali, and I all took a long weekend to travel to neighbooring Nicaragua for a few days so we could renew our visas and then come back to Costa Rica with a fresh 90 days. We decided to go to a small fishing community called San Juan Del Sur that is becoming known for its beautiful beaches and its great surfing. We caught a taxi on Thursday from our house to San Jose at 3:00 in the morning so we could make it to the bus stop for our 5:00am departure. The buses that we were taking were run by a company called Transnica and were actually pretty nice. They were charter buses with pretty decent seats and a bathroom onboard. The trip lasted about 7 hours total, which included a short stop for breakfast. We arrived in Rivas, Nicaragua where we caught a half hour long taxi ride to San Juan Del Sur. We had already found a hostel online that looked appealing so we had our driver stop
there in hopes that there were rooms available. The place was called Casa Oro and they luckily had rooms available for three of us for three nights. After settling in to our rooms we took off to explore the town. We had a nice walk along the beach and then went in search for a market. I thought I had seen one on our way in but wasn´t sure so I decided to put my spanish to use and ask one of the locals. They were extremely nice and and gave us directions to the supermarket that we had passed on our way to the hostel. Our plan was to buy food for the weekend at the market and then cook ourselves to cut back on expenses. We each spent $5 on food and that lasted us from Thursday night to Sunday morning, excluding one restaurant, which I thought was pretty cheap. Traveling in Nicaragua is much less expensive than in Costa Rica. From the market we went back to the hostel to make food, enjoy some Toña, and meet some other great travelers.
On Friday morning we rented some surfboards and took the hostel´s shuttle to a nearby
beach called Remanso. It wasn´t the type of beach where you could lie on the sand and get a good tan due to all of the rocks but there was an area where Ali camped out to read a book and get some sun. Steve and I spent most of the day in the water. There were both a left and right beach break that were breaking on the inside and outside, which gave us a few options to choose from. The waves were a pretty good size on the outside, at about head high or a few feet overhead. They were big enough to let you know who was boss but definitely a lot of fun. After a full day at the beach, we caught the shuttle back to the hostel where we returned our boards and Steve ended up having to pay an extra $30 for a pretty bad ding in his board. We made ourselves some food and then watched a movie at the hostel before going to bed.
On Sunday we had planned on taking a hike through a nature reserve nearby but after Steve´s expensive surfboard rental the hike was out of our budget.
Instead, we decided to take a hike close to town to the top of a bluff that overlooked the bay. The hike was great. We started out along the beach until we ran into a river where we were ferried across in a wooden boat that looked like its last voyage was rapidly approaching. The guys who were running the ferry were great. Once we were across, we started making our way to the top of the bluff. Every time we made a wrong turn, there seemed to be a helpful local willing to chat and give us directions. The hike was actually pretty tough but the views from the top were phenomenal. You could see the entire bay. It was gorgeous. Once our memory cards were about full we decided to make our way back down and head to the hostel. We grabbed a bite to eat at a place called Casa Blanca where we enjoyed some drinks and Steve and I had an enormous pan of tasty paella. A good end to the hike. The rest of the day and evening were spent relaxing and taking in every last breath of Nicaragua that we could.
Sunday morning
started early with a taxi back to Rivas where we caught our bus to San Jose, Costa Rica. The trip was amazing and luckily everything worked out how we had wanted it to. We are now working on our next 90 days in Costa Rica but well before it is over I will be back in Minnesota catching up with all of you and your exciting tales of the homeland. Just a quick reminder, November 4th is quickly approaching which means its time to get out there and vote. Be well and make WISE decisions.
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