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Tuesday morning early we all took a private shuttle from Granada to San Juan del Sur (which is on the southwest coast of Nicaragua on the Pacific side). Although it was hot and muggy in Managua and Granada, the heat was not oppressive. Well San Juan del Sur was a good bit warmer and muggier. Fortunately there were breezes from the ocean at times, but at other times there was no wind and it was pretty damn hot.
After checking into the hotel we walked around town a bit and then down to the town beach to check it out - beautiful scenery for certain, although not many people were on the beach or in the water there. Most people venture to beaches north or south of town where the water is a bit cleaner. Not to say the town beach water was dirty looking, but we did read it is not the cleanest for getting into. The town is charming and quaint - definitely a surf and fishing town - very laid back.
There was dark, black smoke coming from the port building. It got worse and worse and we saw flames shooting out of it. Nobody around
seemed too concerned... no fire trucks, no people scrambling... not quite the same response you'd see in the US. At any rate...
We had an amazing lobster dinner ($13!!!) that night and watched the picturesque sunset from a restaurant deck right on the beach.
We were all worn out from the Granada debacle, so we crashed early that night.
Wednesday Rob and I took a surf lesson with a great crew from Nicaragua Surf Report to Madera Beach just north of town. The waves were fantastic and the instructor was great. We have both surfed a few times before and rode several nice waves throughout the day. I was tempted to just stay in San Juan del Sur and surf for the rest of the trip... not a lot of great surfing in Colorado!!!
Wednesday night things got ugly again... 2 for 1 happy hour at Pelican Eyes Resort... and somehow we still ran up a $100+ (in American money, mind you) bar tab!!! I'll be a bit vague here but I think still get the point across... the evening at Pelican Eyes ended with a cannonball in the infiniti pool, which was surrounded by people
Hungover
Kevin says "PLEASE SOMEBODY TELL ME WHAT IS GOING ON HERE AND FINISH THIS UP SO I CAN GET BACK ON THE BUS!!!!"dressed very nicely having candlelit dinners (they all laughed after getting over the initial shock). There was also some moonlit midnight swimming right outside a bar on San Juan del Sur beach. How old are we? I guess only as old as we feel or act?
Thursday morning Jon, Kevin, and I had to catch a 7:30 AM Tica bus from San Juan del Sur to Liberia, Costa Rica, where we planned to pick up a rental car and drive to Monteverde, Costa Rica up in the mountain rainforests (for ziplining on Friday). Rob is flying back out of Managua so we parted ways then (with Rob still sleeping). To say Jon, Kevin, and I felt bad and hungover is an understatement... we were the walking dead.
We took a tiny cab that had no AC in it to a town about 15 minutes away to wait for the Tica bus. The window handles in the back seat were missing so we couldn´t roll the windows down. We got dropped off at the bus stop in the middle of a dirty looking little town. The sun was beaming down and it was already hot. I had to sit
down before I fell down at one point. Kevin sat down in the shade and leaned against a wall and moaned while I sat on an old, overturned refrigerator in front of a refrigerator repair shop. Jon stood still with shades and a hat on and didn´t move or say a word. There were people burning piles of garbage around. **UGH!!!**
So I learned from Jon that the bus would arrive at ¨7.30-ish¨- we arrived at 7:15 to be safe. The bus finally arrived close to 8:00 AM.
Kevin described the experience well: ¨this is one of those moments where you ask yourself ´why am i doing this again?´¨
We finally got on the air conditioned bus (it was packed). Crossing the border was a fiasco and my own personal hangover hell. First we got off the bus for 45 minutes at the Nicaraguan border and stood in the hot sun while the bus crew had our Nicaraguan exit stamps placed on our passports. Then we got back on the bus and drove 100 feet across the border and got off the bus again. Then we stood in a line for a couple of hours in the
hot sun while we waited to get into a building where one woman was working to review all of our paperwork and stamp our passports with a Costa Rican entry stamp. Then we had to pull our luggage off the bus for customs inspection. After waiting for another 45 minutes a customs guy came by and looked at a few bags (none of ours) and then we finally got back on the bus. Super hot... super muggy... terrible hangover with all the great symptoms... wow.
At any rate, we finally made it to Liberia and got our rental car and headed to Monteverde.
Going from Nicaragua to Costa Rica was like checking out of a 2 star hotel into a 5 star hotel. Much cleaner, much better infrastructure, much friendlier people.
Well that is it for now, thanks once again for playing.
Reporting next from Monteverde.
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