Blogs from San Juan del Sur, Southern Pacific Coast, Nicaragua, Central America Caribbean - page 12

It is good to be back in Suan Juan De Sur. It is odd returning to a place yet at the same time it is comforting. Still I always seem to get lost in this village. It must be the fung shui messing with me. So I checked into the Xamily hostel and went for a walk. As I was walking down to the market to buy some surf wax, I almost bailed and slid a few feet almost into a pole. Turns out I just stepped on a giant pile of dog pooh. This mound was unbelievable big and I am suprise these scawny dogs can make such a thing. My forensics skills determine this to be some pretty fresh poop and the culprit probably did not get very far judging by the freshness of ... read more

Well it turns out that you can´t stay in one country for more than 90 days without having to pay some sort of a fine. So to get around this Steve, Ali, and I all took a long weekend to travel to neighbooring Nicaragua for a few days so we could renew our visas and then come back to Costa Rica with a fresh 90 days. We decided to go to a small fishing community called San Juan Del Sur that is becoming known for its beautiful beaches and its great surfing. We caught a taxi on Thursday from our house to San Jose at 3:00 in the morning so we could make it to the bus stop for our 5:00am departure. The buses that we were taking were run by a company called Transnica and ... read more

When my niece left San Juan del Sur, she left behind some furniture, an SUV, a 13 year old American Maltese puppy dog, (that we would take care of for a year before sending him on to Miami to join her), and a Nicaraguan family that worked for her. Shortly after arriving in San Juan, my niece hired Monica, the mother of four children, to be her nanny and help around the house. Before that, Monica's family had gotten along on the little money her husband Juan could make from the odd construction jobs he might find. Monica would also bring in a little extra money by occasionally cleaning houses or doing other people's laundry by hand. The family lived in a ramshackle house on a hill on the back end of town. The house belonged ... read more

I woke up today to the sounds of roosters that would not stop. I looked at my watch and it´s 6am. Time stands still and at times completely forgotten when you travel. So I hit the shower and the water pressure is non existence. The shower head was defective so the only water pressure was spraying against the side of the wall and not straight so I had to hump the wall and balance myself to get the soap off. You gotta love these $5 rooms. So far I have gone from spending $20 a night traveling the first 2 weeks with friends from Vancouver to hitting $5 places with other traveling mates that are on a budget because they are traveling for a year. As a result I got bitten 15 times the first night ... read more

The history of Nicaragua is one of civil wars, political violence and revolutionary unrest. When I told people I was going to Nicaragua, their first question was always, "why?", and the second was, "isn't there a war going on there?" Well, at least I wasn't the only person who knew very little about Nicaragua, even though our own government has been very involved with this small country in the past. During my time in Nicaragua, I decided to learn a little about the country's history. With the help of guide books, biographies, history books, and Wikipedia, this is some of what I learned. Since Christopher Columbus became the first European to reach Nicaragua in 1502, and later explored the Mosquito Coast on Nicaragua's east side, the country has been invaded by those greedy to grab for ... read more