Surfing and partying in Nicaragua

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I decided to go to Nicaragua. The two french guys, Cochisse and Max, and the Spaniard, Cesar, were leaving Santa Teresa Wednesday morning for the ferry to Puntarenas and offered me a ride. I decided to go with them, but went to Casa Zen before leaving to use the internet and lost track of time. When I realized it was getting late, I started running back to the hostel and ran into the guys driving away. I was really lucky to catch them. They took me back to the hostel, I grabbed my stuff and hopped in the little rental car. We were running late to catch the ferry, so Cochisse was driving like a maniac at about 100km per hour in a 40km zone. We made the ferry just in time and arrived on the other side of the bay about an hour later. We walked around the fish market in Puntarenas where they had all kinds of fish… huge yellow fin tuna, dolphin(mahi), red fish, marlin, etc. We had some mahi ceviche and the guys dropped me off at the bus stop just in time to catch the 12:20pm bus to Liberia. The bus ride took about 4 hours. In Liberia, I took another bus to Santa Cruz, and then another bus to Josh´s town, Veinte Siete. In all, I think I traveled for about 10 hours that day.

The next day Josh and I surfed Avellanas again. I hit the front of my board on some rocks, resulting in a big gash and couldn’t surf any longer because I didn’t want the board to take on water. We were planning to leave the next day for Nicaragua so I didn’t have time to have the board repaired. I was able to trade my board for a really nice epoxy 6´0” fish. Epoxy will be better for me to travel with as its much more durable than fiberglass. The board was used, but its really nice. The price was $395, but the guy gave me $125 for my board, so I paid $270.

Friday, Josh and I met his old roommate Mark and headed out in Mark´s truck on our Nicaraguan adventure. Mark has a construction degree from Ga Tech and works for the resort community that Josh´s foundation is apart of. He went to St. Pius so its funny talking about knowing some of the same people…small world.
Crossing the border was a bit of a fiasco. When we pulled up, there were a bunch of guys trying to help us pass the long line to exit Costa Rica, for a small fee. We were aprehensive, but decided to let a guy help us thru, and paid him 10 bucks or so. Worked out well, so we used the help of some other guys to help us cut the line into Nicaragua. We cross the border and we´re off into Nicaragua….wait, not so fast. After paying to enter ourselves and the vehicle, we are stopped again by some guys saying we had to pay 3 more dollars for the municipality. We paid, but turns out this is not a requirement, just an optional, friendly contribution …oh well.

Driving along Lake Nicargua was really cool. There are two huge volcanoes out in the middle of the lake that were visible from the road. We arrived in San Juan Del Sur an hour or so later. Went to a bar called Big Wave Dave´s and asked around for places to stay. We decided to go surfng for a couple of hours before picking a place to lay our heads and took off for Playa Maderas. The water was cold and the waves were big.

When we returned to town, we spent at least an hour looking for a place because we found so many run down, gross places. Mark and I ended up finding a nice hotel room for $20 and Josh stayed in another place with a friend of his from Veinte Siete that is staying here this weekend.

Last night was nuts!! We went to a place called Iguana Bar where cocktails were only a little over a dollar, therefore, we proceeded to get hammered. After getting good and drunk we went to some discoteca and danced all night. Finally passed out at 4:30 and awoke too early due to the incessant screeching of roosters.

We headed back to Playa Maderas around noon today and surfed on and off until 4. We had a pretty good lunch of pan fried pargo (red fish). They leave the head and the fins on!! Maderas is a really chill surf spot. There is nothing there except for a concrete, open building with a crappy restaurant on the bottom floor and the second floor is one room used as a hostel. The waves were really good today, but the water is much colder here than in Costa Rica…I could have used a wet suit.

I really like what I´ve seen of Nicaragua. Its definitely a more poor country than CR, but the people are friendly, and its not gringo-ized yet. San Juan Sel Sur is a laid back, fun town, and the waves nearby have been really good.

Tonight we are going to a music festival here in San Juan Del Sur. Tomorrow we head back to Costa Rica, and Monday I am taking a bus to Boccas Del Toro, Panama to meet Cochisse, Max, and Cesar.

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