Blogs from San Juan del Sur, Southern Pacific Coast, Nicaragua, Central America Caribbean - page 17

Arrival It has been a few weeks since I arrived in Nicaragua. After a long flight delay in Miami on Halloween I made it to Managua late at night with only the little amount of Spanish I learned in high school, and a little from watching the Spanish soap operas on the Telemundo channel in Seattle. I had no idea what to do because I didn’t have a ride. I had two huge bags and the word “gringo” written all over me. I crossed the street from the airport and started walking down the street. There were many young dudes staring at my backpack and I had a bad feeling, so I went to the nearest hotel. It was expensive and had mice in the wall, but hey that’s better than getting robbed. I got some ... read more

Well, we are now in the land of Nica, and i have never seen rain like this. To call it hurricane like would probably be a gross overstatement and an insult to those who experience actual hurricanes, but man alive it is wet here. We are hunkering down in a rotting wooden hotel that seem like an old pirate"s haunt. Except the only things haunting it seem to be mosquitos and candle carrying travellers. In order to save electricity there is a mandatory no power window for a few hours every night. Our spanish doesn{t extend to "black out" so we kind of pawed our way around last night before ffiguring out that no outlets worked, and that lightening can offer necessary light. Our day of travels was pretty drawn out yesterday. It seems like all ... read more

We crossed the border from Honduras to Nicaragua on a much more comfortable mode of transport - the 1st class tourist bus. Feels like cheating a bit, but they have air conditioning and reclining seats and TVs and there is only so much time you can spend on a chicken bus! First stop was Granada, a colonial town on the edge of Lake Nicaragua. It was quite pretty but not as nice as Antigua in Guatemala, so we didn’t stay long. The hostel we stayed in was also a bit of a let down..no water between 7am and 5pm..Surly staff..and a book exchange where you book had to ´be approved´ before you could change it. Our books were ´declined´, apparently not quite good enough....For anyone heading that way DON´T stay at the Bearded Monkey, they have ... read more

We ventured up to Nicaragua by bus arriving at night in a town called San Juan Del Sur. This was a weird one because they have some issues with power. So the place is really dark with the buzzing of generators to power the restaurants and houses. Its a cool spot, another fishing port, but with nice yachts and other pleasure craft mored in the bay next to town. It had a good vibe as everyone was friendly and easy going. Sensing that we had been followed again by a guy that we met south america after seeing him in numerous towns along the way, we checked our email to find out that he was staying around the corner from us. Strange the places that we seemed to bump into each other. We hooked up in ... read more

I'm having trouble coming up with titles for these things anymore, so forgive me. Alright after the island I came to San Juan Del Sur. I'd head from so many people that it is the biggest tourist destination in Nicaragua and super crowed with gringos, so I wasn't sure what I was going to think about it. So it was a nice little surprize when I get here, run into a friend I met in Granada who is living here, go to a bar on the beach and count 4 people in total on the beach! I knew I was going to like it here and am going on my my 5th day. It is a big surf town, though the beach here is not good for surfing as it is a horse shoe bay, ... read more