Guate to Nica

Central America Caribbean » Nicaragua » Southern Pacific Coast » Rivas
March 11th 2013

Published: April 18th 2013

March 11 guate to nicaragua
Alright so today's tip started out being transferred from the hostel to the bus station around 5:30am and having to wait till 7am. Even though I checked yesterday to see if the bus left at 6:15. Anyway during my wait I realized I left my favorite travel towel I had bought years ago in New Zealand. It had been all over with me. I decided to run back to the hostel. I wasn't really sure where it was but thought I'd give it a shot. It was about 6:45 when I asked the guys working there if I could leave my bags with them and run back. Wow full sprint in the direction I thought it was I asked a few people but they directed me else where because the hostel was near a Burger King but there was another Burger King in the opposite direction. Anyway I managed to find the hostel ran in didn't grabbed the towel and raced back. It was at least 6:55 and I couldn't figure out where the bus station was. I normally have decent sense of direction but I ran out in a flurry. I wound up asking tons of people mid sprint and ended up back at the Hard Rock Cafe finally a guard pointed me in the right direction about 4 blocks back. Luckily The bus workers were in the street looking for me. I grabbed my bags and hopped on the bus and we were off. Great 20ish hour bus ride and I'm already sweating like a pig. This should be fun. Haha Anyway the rest of the bus ride went pretty smooth. There were only about 5 other passengers. I don't know how the company actually made money because the tickets were only 80 bucks and we got at least 3 meals, pretty good meals too. All of the borders went pretty smooth, with these "direct" buses they pretty much do everything for you so it's really fast and smooth. We did wind up stopping in San Salvador for a couple hours and picked up more passengers. We finally made it to Managua around 12:45am. I split a taxi with a local guy I was talking with in el sal. Jamie, a jersey girl teaching English in Managua, was patiently awaiting my arrival. She has a very simple apartment on the school campus. She had to be up for work by 5am so she set me up with the hammock and went to bed. The next day I walked to the mall to check it out and buy a local SIM card. I also found the hostel the guys would be crashing at the first night. That night jamie and I went to dinner and kicked a couple bottles of wine during which i had convinced her to come with me down to popoyo she was going to take Thursday and friday off and we'd go down after class Wednesday. Well turns out her boss wouldn't let her take Friday off so I wound up heading down solo Wednesday after she got out of class. I took a bus from Managua to la salinas. That was one of the bumpiest and dustiest rides I had been on in ages probably since Africa. Luckily I did a bunch if research about popoyo, you can't take a bus right into town but there are 2 places on the other side of the river much closer to the bus stop so I decided to walk there. I read another guys blog about getting off the bus at the meditating pink panther then walking down a dirt road to an estuary crossing the estuary hopefully at low tide then crossing a river to the main popoyo strip. The other way around would take probably 3 hours to walk or more though you probably could hitch if anyone was driving by. HahaAnyway I make it to Nica waves which is a group of houses owned by a south Carolina guy. It was a decent place in the country side but pretty far away from the wave and further from "town" I stayed their Wednesday to Saturday. I walked barefoot everywhere but my feet were killing me one day because they weren't tough enough yet so I decided to wear my flops to the beach one surf sesh and then bury them in the bushes. Well sure enough some local prick stole them. I pooped in the woods before I went out I should have pooped on my flops. The reason my feet were really killing me though was I tried finding the hostel the guys and I were going to be staying at the next week. Well I walked right past it when I was on the beach then walked ages down this dirt street. As for the wave it was pretty fun but man the water was chilly. I could only handle about 45 mins before I got to cold and would walk into town for breaky to warm up. Saturday came I surfed early in the am then went back and packed up and waited for my transfer to Dave's place at playgrounds. Two local guys showed up in a sweet knock off land cruise truck a dahandria or something. They packed my board up and we were off, we stopped of in the main popoyo town to rent a guitar for jay. Then it was an hour or so ride off roading pretty hard stuff too. It as funny the driver Freddie didn't really know the way, I later learned the other guy was Dave's father in law and he only came because he knew the way. Dave was a super cool chill guy. He showed me his place and we got to talking and having some beers. We then went up to check see the surf I was super tempted to go out but the sun was setting it wouldn't have really been worth it. I did however go out for a sun set body surf. That night we had shrimp BBQ skewers. They were pretty delicious dave and I hung out and played pool but nicked of to bed early. We got up around 5:30/6 the next morning where coffee and fresh fruit awaited me. It was amazing. Dave and I then got sorted and went out for a surf. It was a bit fat but still got some nice ones. When we got back I had a breaky burrito waiting for me, unbelievable. While I was eating the truck pulled up and out popped Jay, Wida, Germain and Jen. Super stoked. They unpacked a bit then we checked the surf. The tide was too low so we hung out a bit then went out for a sunset sesh. The next couple of days were the same up super early for a surf then chill most of the day in hammocks playing pool or ping pong then another sunset sesh. Andrew and Christopher flew in to Managua wed night I had to set them up with the same hostel the others stayed at to spend the night because dave doesn't like having his driver drive at night, basically hard core 4 wheeling. If something happened it wouldn't be probably till the next day that the could get some help. So Thursday we all went for an early surf then Jen and jay headed back to the house to get out of he sun and rest. When jay got there he made the Stutz boys eat super quick and sent them up to the beach. It was about a 5 min walk from the jungle house to the beach then another 20 mins down the beach to the main break. Where Wida Germain and I were chilling in hammocks waiting for them to paddle out. We had a fun little sesh. I still couldn't believe both my lil bros were here. Haha that night instead of surfing we went for a body surf which was some of the heaviest bodysurfing I have ever done especially without fins. I was dropping into at least 6 foot barrels getting super shacked to the point where my body was airborne sideways in the barrel. It was nuts then you would get completely destroyed and forget about it if you hit a massive backwash wave. It was super gnarly. Hg n Bz I should mention the food at Dave's was amazing fresh fish one day, full BBQ 1/2 chicken for each, lobster soup with a lobster pasta and filet mignon another night. It was awesome. Friday was similar early surf chill in the avo then a crazy body surf. The Stutzs and I went for a jungle walk to check things out before we all body surfed. Well we found some monkeys and started taking pictures I noticed one started peeing and i yelled "RUNN he is going to through it at us." So we all tried scrambling away but sadly I felt this warm liquid on my back. At first I thought man that beer get quick fast but quickly realized it wasn't beer. 😞 Haha Saturday the big boy group left and the Stutzs and I had one more night at Dave's. Dave had a new group coming that day some guys from Texas. They seemed aright a bit cooky though. Sunday we got up and had an am surf then Dave's driver transferred us back to popoyo, with in a half hour joe showed up in his taxi. We had lunch then went for a body surf because the surf shop was closed on Sunday the boys couldn't get their boards. So we surfed the next 2/3 days same thing lots of hanging out killing time waiting for the tide. We went out to the hot springs one afternoon but that was a huge bust. It was basically a heated shitty pool. We did however have some nice sunset happy hours at Mag rock. Which was one of the places on the other side of the river but up on a cliff it was very posh but had beautiful views and sunsets. So Andrew had to fly out wed and joe on Thursday. Joe and Christopher wanted to do some market shopping and do a zip cord canopy tour in managua. So we all split a taxi back to Managua dropped Andrew off at the airport then the boys and I went to some markets. They bought some souvenirs and such. I wanted to go to the mercado oriental but when we got in a taxi the driver wouldn't take us there he said it's the biggest in Central America and way to dangerous. He said we would get robbed. Haha so he took us to another market. Afterwards we tried doing the zip cord but it was semana Santa aka Easter week and the place was closed, oddly I thought that would be a vacation thing people would do when there off but apparently almost everyone is off for Easter week. Haha. So we wound up hanging out in a coffe shop in the mall then saw a 3d cartoon movie in spanish. I enjoyed it because I understood most of it but I don't know how much the guys got from it haha. It was only about 5 bucks though, so it was a good time killer. Then I wanted to take them to a traditional local dinner a place that was in the lonely planet. Well when we got there it was closed so I found another one in the book we started to walk to it but it as down a super dark sketch alley at that moment a guy and his girlfriend rode up on a motor bike and said we shouldnt be waking around that neighbor hood at night we should take a taxi. So we quickly walked back to the bus station we passed and took a taxi back across town to the posh upper end side of town and had dinner at a placed called woodies wings. It wasnt authentic but it was much safer haha. The next day we sent joe off in a taxi to head home and Christopher and I caught a bus back down south. When we got to Rivas there were no busses headed to la salinas because it was Black Friday so we had to split a taxi. Well during the taxi ride I accidentally told the driver the wrong beach and we had to back track a bit and he claimed he didn't have enough gas to take us all the way to popoyo. So he dropped us off in la salinas where then immediately hitched into a pick up truck that was headed toward the Mag rock we tipped them and then walked along the beach and across the river back to popoyo. Sadly the surf wasnt really working so the next day we went on a walking hiking adventure. Across the river through the estuary but made a wrong turn as had to cross a bunch of salt flats. Then we hitch hiked to Rancho Santana because I heard there's a decent beach break there and good food. But when we got to the gate the guy wouldn't let us in so we walked a couple miles to the back entrance and they still wouldn't let us in the guards showed us a road to the beach and after hours of tracking around we popped out just on the other side of Mag rock. It was so sad. Anyway we grabbed lunch then walked out around Rancho Santana which is a mega posh resort. The beach break was small and crappy but they place we found around the head lands was absolutely beautiful it was truely a magical place. There was a reflecting pool that was so shallow it looked like we were waking on water. I have never taken some many photos especially of myself or someone else we felt like models. Ill have to post them on FB we nicknamed that place "whispering waters proposal rock." Because no girl could say no given the chance and the water had this babbling brook noise that I have never heard from an ocean. Sadly We found out it only took an hour to walk there on the beach from popoyo. Since there still wasnt surf I was trying to figure out what to the next few days. I thought about taking Chris to San Juan De Sur but I had a friend Mike, that I met in Antigua, was in Granada and had heard that was a cool touristy town so we decided to head up there. Sadly it was Easter Sunday so we couldn't go on Sunday but we figured out the path that we need to go across the river then the estuary then a rickety log bridge then the dirt path to the road. So the next morning we woke up around 5 packed up and hit the "trail" to the bus stop 45 mins later we arrived at the main road. I failed to mention we had to carry our stuff on our heads because the water was chest high an I had to make 2 trips to get my surfboard. haha It was an adventure. When the bus came we weren't even allowed inside we had to climb up on top. For a stop or 2 then the driver came out and told us we all had to get inside. That was one of the fullest busses I have ever seen, everyone was trying to get back from the holiday week. I couldn't even see Chris even though he was a mere foot or 2 from me. We eventually ended up in Rivas where I bought us some street food for breakfast then waited for the next bus to Granada. We finally made it to Granada checked in to the hostel and walked about the city. We went down to the lake front which was sadly polluted to hell and the touristy area was pretty gnarly as well. Later that night we caught up with mike for dinner and some drinks. Then the next day we rented a motor bike from some random dude. Rather sketchy but we made it out to masaya which was where there was a huge artisan market. Christ bought some more presents and I bought a bunch of crappy CDs. This guys had a beautiful voice singing solo in the market but his CDs were crap haha. Any way we made it back in time for our isletas tour which means tiny islands. There are apparently 365 one for every day of the year. There were some beautiful house out on those tiny islands some terrible small fishing ones as well but it as very pretty and ended with a nice dinner on the lake. That night we went back to the outdoor Irish pub and just talked about life. It was pretty solid.We did have to go back and get my driver license from the bike owner though he wasn't there when we tried returning the bike so we kept the keys until I got my license back. Which I did with out a problem. The next day we rented push peddle bikes and biked around the city we stopped and checked out the local market. Then went to a cigar rolling factory and tried a hand rolled cigar. Neither of us liked it at all though. Then we had a local dish called vigaron which is fried pig skin like pork rines it wasn't that good. Then we went to the chocolate factory and just muched around a bit before we called it for for the day. We went out for wings and tacos I think that night then ended up at the same out door Irish pub taking to the local deaf kid all night some how Chris wound up arm wrestling him a few times. It got pretty heated there for a bit. Haha The next day we caught a bus up to Managua where I put chirstopher in a taxi to go to the airport and I headed across town to another bus station to catch a bus up north to surf up there. I set the price for Chris at 100 cords but he told me later the driver demanded 150. HahaTo be continued. ...I will say I really enjoyed being a guide to the guys begin the only one who speaks spanish it was fun setting it all up and organizing everything. It was satisfying for me that I could provide them with I trip that probably wouldn't have happened with out me.

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