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Published: February 2nd 2007
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Travelblog by Jacqui:
The great thing about travel in Nicaragua is that sometime during the 1980's somebody led a major smuggling ring focused on two major products: American 80's music and old American yellow schoolbuses. The entire country is oiled on Cyndi Lauper, Banarama, a few classic rock hits, and some Depeche Mode, delivered 24 hours a day via rusting diesel-spewing schoolbuses with seats built for 4-foot tall passengers. Our 1 1/2 hour 'bus' ride to Rivas costs us $1.25 each, and then we catch a connector to San Juan del Sur for 90 cents each.
We arrive in San Juan Del Sur ready for some beach time. The town boasts a long curving beach, calm on the south end and waves good enough for surfing on the north. We make it our goal to taste-test the ceviche at every beachfront palm-thatched restaurant by the time our stay is over, and Lucas is in continuous awe of the marketing tactics of the government-owned brewery, which provide the beer fridges with red LED temperature indicators that state the degreees below freezing in which the beers inside happily reside. If the indicator says 5 degrees below zero (celcius), you can go
SJDS Beach
from the South End to the almost identical restaurant next door that is displaying 8 or 9 degrees below.
After a night at Nina's hostel we check into our 2nd floor 'penthouse' apartment courtesy of our Nicaraguense 'host' family, part of our 5 day Spanish course through Rosa de Silva Spanish school. For around $90 each, we get 7 nights accomodation, 3 meals a day, and 5 days of Spanish instruction (4 hours a day - 2 hours vocab/grammer; 2 hours conversational). My teacher, Francisco is amused by my blank looks and inability to communicate with him at all so he slows down ever so slightly. He quickly abandons the first 2 hours of conversational spanish for more basic vocab teachings on most days. Lucas, the maestro, advances quickly with his spanish teacher Karla.
After a few days of unsuccessful attempts to visit the renowned outlying beaches by bus, we rented bikes and rode the muddy, pot-holed 8 km road from San Juan del Sur to Playa Maderas, a world destination surf spot with one ramshackle restaurant and hospedaje. The ride was beautiful, the roads framed by lush green countrysides, local families and small villages. We beach-hopped to Playal Ocatal and Bahia
SJDS Daily Exercise
Lift the beer, shovel the ceviche Majagual - extremely beautiful untouched beaches with the best body surfing waves we have seen in the Americas.
Plans to celebrate our momentous ride were cut short when we realized that we had no beer - the national election meant no alcohol from noon Saturday until the results on Monday at 2 pm for the ENTIRE country... a pivotal election for the historical Sandanistas (Reagan's old friend Danial Ortega, 16 years later) vs. a Harvard-educated pro-capitalism Eduardo Montealegre. The alcohol ban can be viewed from a couple of angles:
1. advantageous as it keeps the country safe and calm
2. alarming for us because we didn't buy enough beer to last til Monday, let alone a celebratory post-ride beer
3. does this mean that even without alcohol there could be unrest, obviously someone thinks there could be...
4. a nightmare as we can't seem to occupy our Sat night without beer
But seriously, it was very cool to be in Nica during the elections and Ortega's victory. The people are fiercely proud and fiercely political - Karla's husband was a Sandanista who fought in some of the skirmishes along with his 11 siblings - and she was
Our local family's house
We have a penthouse apartment out back! staunchly for Montealegre - made for some interesting discussions on their porch. Ortega claims he will be more capitalism-friendly this time around, and give a little more respect to property rights. This part of the world seems to really want to give Socialism another chance - we have our doubts but 'the people' have spoken and Ortega is back in power (and quite peacefully, we believe, despite the all-night firecrackers that sound like gunshots and next day canon-firing).
Recommendations in San Juan del Sur:
Avoid Dona Rosa Silva Spanish School - she is very nice but more focused (and distracted) on gaining new students rather than teaching existing. Go direct to Karla (who contracts to Dona Rosa sometimes), who teaches out of her nicer home and can guarantee a much better immersion experience than the somewhat jaded 'host' families that don't speak any english nor seem to want to try. Karla is at Karlacruzsjds@yahoo.com (and she is cheaper)
Hike up to the northern lookout (huge cross) for a great view of town
Get yourself to Playa Maderas, then 2 beaches up to Playa Ocatal - the nicest bodysurfing beach we have ever seen and home to
a famous Ecolodge
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