Advertisement
Published: September 13th 2009
Edit Blog Post
The next day we woke up, ate breakfast, packed up our things and were off to catch a bus to San Juan Del Sur. We caught one bus to Rivas and then a second to San Juan. A few hours in total.
Once we arrived in San Juan, we searched out a few different hotels/hostels and decided on one called Hotel Azul. It was really nice. It was a little more pricey but the rooms were clean, had A/C and would fit 3 of us in one room and 2 in the other, until the last night when Kallie left (she had to be back early as her boyfriend was flying into Tegus and then they were leaving for Roatan on Saturday) and then the 4 of us would all fit in one room. Breakfast was again included which means beans and rice, toast, and eggs every morning.
We walked around the city for a bit. Not too big so it was easy to see most of it in about 15 minutes. We went to Casa de Oro, which is a hostel that offers so many things to do. We saw that the turtle excursion was $30 and decided
Flor de Cana
Made in Nicaragua! not to do it afterall since we had JUST been to see the turtles in Honduras the weekend prior. We did decide to sign up for surfing lessons for the next day though. It's one of the things on my "life list/bucket list" so I was pumped!
We went down to the beach where we enjoyed lunch at a restaurant on the beach and soaked up a few rays on the sand. After showers in the hotel, we then watched the sunset on the beach and walked around the beach a little bit until we found a place called "Iguanas". Happy Hour here is from 5-8pm so we enjoyed many beers for the equivalent of 75 cents each and ate some amazing food. We discovered their amazing onion rings, curly fries, and burgers, and ended up eating dinner here every night for our 3 nights in town. After a few drinks here, we discovered a place called Tsunami's across the street where we had one more drink before turning in for the night.
The next day was surfing day so we were up, had breakfast and were on the bus by 10am and heading to the beach. When
we arrived, we were so happy with the beach. It was more or less abandoned except for a small surf hut and a guy selling fish tacos under a tent, plus lots of surfers.
We paid for a one hour lesson with a man named Alfredo from Peru. He was amazing. He gave us 45 minutes of instruction on the beach first and then took turns with each of us in the water. Our one hour lesson ended up being about 3 and totally worth every penny of the $20 I paid. It was really tricky at first but Alfredo helped us catch the wave by pulling us into it, and then giving us notes on what we were doing. My biggest problem was that I was over thinking everything (big shocker) and taking too much time to get up. Once I focused on grabbing balance and standing as quick as I could, it was a ton of fun and I stood up quite a few times! Later in the afternoon I attempted catching the waves on my own and I only managed to catch a few but never managed to stand up on one that I caught myself.
Nevertheless, Alfredo told us that this was our first and last surfing lesson ever. He said you should never have to pay more than once for a lesson, as it's purely practice after that. So there it is, I've learned how to surf!
By 5pm when the bus came to get us, we were all so tired. Between the surfing, the crazy waves, and the sun, our bodies had taken a bit of a beating.
Once the bus got back from surfing, we rushed to our hotel to all get showered and ready for the game. Honduras was playing Mexico in the second last game to qualify for the World Cup. After the last game we were ranking first and only the top 3 teams move on. We had all packed our Honduras jerseys so we put them on and headed to Iguana's, where our new friend Daniel the server promised to try to find it for us on the screen. Unfortunately the only thing we could find was a program showing a bunch of Mexicans watching the game, but not the game itself. At least we had a score thing in the bottom but it was sad
to see Honduras lose 1-0 to Mexico. We did later see highlights of the game and Honduras played a GREAT game. The only goal scored was on a foul shot that was given to Mexico on a "handball" call when the ball was kicked into the hand of a Honduran player (which couldn't be helped). Honduras is now in 3rd place and the final game isn't until November again USA. Yikes.
We met up with a few of our other teaching friends that night. Mike and Mavis, and Elisa and Colin were also traveling in Nicaragua and we knew they'd be in San Juan at the same time and they weren't hard to find. We all sat and enjoyed a few drinks before they called it a night and we moved on to a bar just down the road called "The Pier". They have a nightly bonfire and this particular night were celebrating 09-09-09 (Sept. 9/09) with Beatles music and raffles. We stayed for a drink then called it a night. I do LOVE a good campfire though!
The next day was very chill. Kallie had left in the morning and the 4 of us just spent the
Hang Ten!
Me and my surf board :) day chilling on the beach. We had had so much sun the past couple days that we decided to pay the $7.50 total to rent an umbrella and chairs to stay shaded all day. We read our books, caught some Zs, ate some lunch, and just enjoyed our last day in Nicaragua.
For dinner we went back to Iguanas and were joined by a new friend we met surfing - Dave from Australia. A few drinks at Iguanas and then we moved down the road to a bar called "Coquitos" which I had heard about from my friend Kari that I had worked with in Comayagua. She had met this guy James while traveling and he only recently opened up a bar in San Juan. I went and found his bar and him and introduced myself. He's from some small town between St. Catherine's and Niagara Falls but lived in Montreal for a long time and then now lives in Nicaragua. Small world. We enjoyed one drink at his bar then moved down to The Pier for a drink by the fire then called it a night.
The next day was an early morning and a whole lot
Getting Up...
Trying to find my balance of buses. Our first bus was about 2.5 hours from San Juan Del Sur to Managua. Once there we took a taxi to the station where our fancy bus was coming. We had to wait just over an hour for the bus to arrive, as it was late coming from Costa Rica. We got on and traveled about 4 hours until the boarder of Nicaragua and Honduras. Once over the boarder, it was another couple hours to where we had to switch buses. The bus we were then supposed to switch to was one coming from El Salvador and apparently they had been held up too so we waited 1.5 hours for this one to arrive. Once on this one it was a LONG ride home. It should have been about 2 hours but it took longer, as it was stormy and there were many accidents. We arrived at the bus station in Tegus around 10:30 so I wasn't home until about 11pm. LONG day. I took a shower, did a bunch on the computer and was off to bed.
It was a GREAT trip but felt great to sleep in my own bed. Today I did laundry, cleaned
my apt, and caught up on episode of So You Think You Can Dance (both Canadian and American versions). Tomorrow Sarah and Jimmy are picking me up at 8am and we're driving to Comayagua. I'm really looking forward to spending a couple days with Walt. No school til Thursday - trying to enjoy what's left of my vacation.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.277s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 18; qc: 76; dbt: 0.175s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Kari
non-member comment
James' bar
So glad you got to see his bar... he was just looking for a location and such when we met. Had a great time with him. Was his girlfriend with him?