For those who travel to Nicaragua as tourists, the two places that you can not miss are Granada for its colonial history (oldest colonial city in all of America mind you) and to San Juan Del Sur for world class surfing, beautiful beaches, and to party. On Friday, we set off from Managua in style, riding in the back of someone's friends pickup, for the three-ish hour drive to San Juan. We stopped in a few places along way to snap some pictures of the Nica countryside, which is very pretty, while passing by four different volcanoes. We arrived in San Juan and found a hostel about one hundred yards from the beach for the ridiculous price of $8 a night. The town sits inside a crescent-shaped beach with two points on either side. On the northern point, there was a 50 foot tall statue of Jesus overlooking the beach (Nicaragua's attempt at copying Rio de Janeiro). San Juan Del Sur is very small too, which was a nice relief from the chaos that Managua can be sometimes, and doesn't give off the whole Cancun/Cabo vibe like many tourist cities can. The beach in town was awesome, but the best beaches in this area are north and south of San Juan. We piled into the truck again and tore through some gnarly dirt roads about 5km north to a beach called Playa Maderas. The beach had only three amenities: a hostel that rents surf boards, a taco stand, and a bar. And let's not forget howler monkeys in the jungle. I may never leave. The place was full of the chillest of bros; long haired surfers (who make up about half of the population of San Juan Del Sur) that have begun to colonize this area for its amazing surfing.
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| View from Jesus Statue |
That night, we went to one of the happening bars/discos in town called Iguanas. The place was probably 90% foreigners. Although I thought this would bother me, it turns out that not very many of them were in fact American. It was mostly Europeans and Aussies with a few Canadiens here and there, so this made for some interesting conversations. Spanish with a French or Danish accent is very amusing to listen to. After Iguanas, we decided to go night swimming in the beach, which was a terrible idea. It resulted in the thievery of the girls' shorts, a shirt, and a pair of already broken flip-flops (thankfully no money) but still forced them to go back to Managua on Saturday instead of the original Sunday afternoon plan as they had no pants or shoes (don't go to the beach late at night!). Our group of seven was then cut to three as Xela, a friend Armando, and I decided to stay another day. This might have been one of the best decision I have ever made. On Saturday, we went to the beach in town and body-surfed in the huge waves. Xela and Armando and I sort of split ways that evening, so I went walking around the town and sat and watched the heat lightning over the ocean. I met this guy (ironically named 'Guy') who lived in the hostel and had his own tattoo parlor next door. Guy was South African and Israeli, a combination of nationalities that I don't think anyone can top (and the strangest of all accents when speaking Spanish). He had been traveling the world for 10 years (since he was 17), opening a tattoo parlor anywhere he went in order to make money so that he could go surfing. The guy (pun intended) loved nothing more in the world than surfing. He invited me out for some drinks at this cool hostel called the Naked Tiger. Since I had no plans, I told him "sure" and we headed out.
A short cab ride up into the hills of San Juan and seemingly in the middle of nowhere was the Naked Tiger, and it was like nothing I've ever seen before. It used to a huge mansion but today serves as a hostel that is only advertised through word of mouth. It had a nice pool out in front and was full of the happiest, long-haired (and least sober) Aussie, Brit and German surfer bros and bras partying and diving into the pool. The employees running the place were other backpackers that decided that they were not ready to leave quite yet. So we mingled and talked and whatnot for a little while when the music stopped all of the sudden. The bartender then picked up her bullhorn from behind the bar, let out a loud BWAAAA! sound and then yelled "EVERYONE GO TO PELICAN EYES!" The group cheered and shuffled out the door. I noticed Guy heading out as well so I followed suit. A shuttle had arrived out front and we all piled into it Nica style (which includes people on the roof obviously) and headed off for some place called 'Pelican Eyes' which thankfully ended up being back in town. It turned out to be a hotel with an awesome bar that had a DJ with a light show and a fog machine. The place was absolutely packed with, you guessed it, more Aussies and Europeans going absolutely crazy. At first, I just stood there and shook my head smiling. "No way," I thought to myself. Here I was in an awesome beach town in Nicaragua with a South African/Israeli dude I had just met a few hours before, hanging out with a bunch of hilarious Aussi and Euro surfers, partying in this awesome bar. Then that got me thinking, if some of our groups' stuff had never gotten robbed the night before, then none of this would have probably happened. Weird how the universe works.
First visit to San Juan Del Sur: Huge Success. Next time, I'm going to try to surf.
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