San Juan del sur

15.4.08

We arrive in a town called Rivas, then share a cab the rest of the way with two Americans that are having a break from their border town temporary home. They are working there helping with aids issues while avoiding the regular street gun battles that occur in this shady outpost, brave pair.

After navigating round huge piles of sand blocking the road (put out to encourage tourism) 40mins later and 3 English pounds lighter we arrive at san Juan del sur and all head to a beachy hotel that’s been in action since the 30's. Here’s the side of it…..


Here’s the front…..




windows like the eyes of Marvin the paranoid android


Here’s our balcony, it cost 10pounds a night (v pricey for these parts!).

After eating seafood chowder we chill on the balcony looking out at the boats at anchor and try (unsuccessfully) to imagine living on one in a few weeks time. Not sure we mentioned there’s a strike at the panama canal and delays because if it, so our trip has slid back a little giving us time to squeeze in a couple more places. This may be a bonus stroke of luck as the owners might not have time to do the canal now leaving an opening for the Jonckels.

This is the only village on the coast around here and the hub for the surf beaches.

The water is flat and shallow, the bay undramatic but still a beach view never looses its appeal, the wound up travel tension unravels and slips through the balcony railings into the warm breeze.

In the coconut trees a squadron of squabbling green parrots wake us in the morning. They must be are the most vocally obnoxious of all our flighty friends but its always a thrill to see them in large numbers regardless of the din. All the restaurants seem to have one in a cage, it must be so frustrating for them to see and hear their wild comrades. Our nearest beach restaurant has a really nice parrot that you can hear calling "Ola! Ola" when bored-which is fairly often.

Family sand fight

The waters f-f-frrreeezing! Same sea as Mexico which was lovely and warm, plus we are nearer the equator. Dope! its that pesky Humboldt current.

We went for nice beach walk the following day, mysteriously lots of little moray eels had been washed up. I threw a few back for the frigget birds to scoop up;their wings are so long beach fishing is problematic.

mystery beaching.

There’s a couple of dubious blokes hanging around our front so at supper time we head up to the unlit quiet end of the beach to a posh bistro with burning torches in the sand & free wi fi. Thus we escape the touristy menus every other restaurant along the beach seems to be sporting; ironically we order burgers......posh ones though.

Surf day!
Boards & rash vests sorted we head over to meet the crew going out for the day.

The gang equals us, 3 of the surf shop staff and the young bandanna wearing wealthy Californians; the latter bless em they look like a bunch of tools but are really rather sweet. They rave about all the wild location snowboarding they've done while the ram shackled van makes its merry way up and down tiny dusty roads to the edge of no-where and surfsville.

The troop

The beach (el yanke) is deserted and we get straight to it. There's Regular breaks, some shoulder height, perfect for us, though it is much harder to stand up and they are unnervingly fast when you do.. I go nose down and smack into many a wave before the day is through, the board is a bit short for me. After an hour and a half Dave breaks a fin so I semi-reluctantly give up my board and potter swimming and beach combing. Dave’s looking like a pro standing up loads. I cut a walk short as locals woof whistle, later our troop leader tells everyone not to go out of sight as its bandit turf and being robbed by machete isn't uncommon, mmmm perhaps he should have told us this on arrival? Less time showing off more time on life saving tips please!

the awesome blender

Everyone should get one of these hand cranked blenders, vodka, ice and fresh fruit is the only thing that will coax Dave out of the water.

The following day we decide to get the boat ferry round to the other surf beach but they don’t have enough people to make the trip. Instead we find a couple of lads (with large rucksacks) who have found a fisherman who will take us for 5 dollars each. When his boat turns up there’s no way I’m getting in it, it’s a manky rusty tin can row boat with small engine, which really shouldn't hold more than 2 people. I’m really not sure it would make the distance and don’t trust him even if the boat could. The others are game but Dave takes note of my massive alarm bell and we shurk certain death for another day.

While taking stock and pondering our next move at the café Derrick appears on the beach. We met him diving in Utilla, its a very nice surprise. In the end we all get cabs to the beach and they arrange to pick us up at the end of the day. It’s a 3 beach day, the first (Majashal) is almost deserted and has powerful breakers, Derrick and Dave go quite a way out and body surf .

We meet a couple who point out a make shift camp site, where poachers lay in wait till night fall to steal turtle eggs. The guy who runs the only hostel on the beach races to dig them up first so he can burry them on his land to hatch safely. He has about 300 in the sand behind his building at the moment. It’s such a poor country the locals have seen an opportunity and are cashing in on it, so glad there’s someone here to put up a fight for them, even if its only one man.

Derrick the budding photographer (cabbies in the background having a rest).

On the way to beach 2 (maderas) there are millions of tiny hermit crabs, the beach is alive with the little cuties scuttling & beavering about.

beach 2

Single hermit's journey

Dave Edna at the beach bar

red dots indicate surf beaches.

At beach 3 (los playones) we meet up with the surf school, after the last two wonderfully deserted beaches this one is buzzing, there’s some real pros out here and the breaks are large! Our troop leader gives us the willies about how the bandits hide round the rocks we just walked from, it’s our only way back to meet the cabbies (there isn't a spare lift or anything else out here) so it will be a brisk walk back I expect.

We hang out and watch the expert surfers make it look so easy, then make a move back before dusk. We stick together and pick up beers on the way (to go with the glorious sunset). Happily the first other humans we come into contact with are our cabbies. They grin like Cheshire cats to see us, and not surprisingly; it’s a half an hour drive to come get us and they are very pleased we kept our end of the bargain.

Later we three dine at a lively beach deck restaurant. Derrick uses up the last of his energy fighting his shell clad clam spaghetti.

At 5am the loudest amp you every did hear wakes us with a sound check a couple of hundred meters away from our balcony. Its jolly African type music and we go downstairs and peer down the road with the landlady, pondering what imminent festival was in the making.
After a bracing early morning dip we go and get kitted out with larger boards and head back the original beach and catch nearly every wave (still white water though). Often Dave and I are surfing in together, it’s ace.

“now we’re surfin!”

I must add Dave does also hang out with the big boys and catches some proper waves as well as white water ones.

(This isn’t one of them)

Too much waiting around for waves in the deeper water for my liking.

We keep our strength up with cashews bought from the locals in huge bags and the magic blender provides rum punch with fresh pineapple, happy days!

I white out a few times and get some fine bruises. The surf day ends with the usual coaxing Dave out of the water session.

not a good look

Back at base that night we check out the music stage for a while but are dog tied so hit the hay. Only to be roused at 1.30 by "born slippy" which wakes us up smart and we nip back to the gig and dance for the last few tracks of the night and find some water. The dj was really good, his last track is a jolly Spanish number and he jumps down to join the last revelers and bounces around. We try and buy water but they are out of tickets so cant sell us any and we watch parched as they pack all the lovely liquid away. At Josephine's bar we find drinks and the locals relaxed and sweetly smooching to karaoke.

The Ola bird

We found a meditation book in the hostel, ironically its 8 minuet mediation for those people with very busy lives. The following morning we try a section where you are meant to allow all sounds in but not identify them. It was all going fine until the parrot started saying ‘Ola, Ola, Ola”…. after a pause he almost whispers “Ola” and we can suppress the giggles no longer.

This guy climbed this palm and got coconuts so fast, I almost didn't get a picture. Below the picture is the roof of the restaurant to give you an idea of scale. We went over and bought some of his booty and the Ola bird was tucking in too.

Its holiday time for the Nicaraguans and the buses keep dropping packets of them off on the Del Sur strip below. Later on we were the strange fish in the sea because we were swimming, everyone else just stands waist high in the water, fully clothed and in their family groups , often shivering. The beach is bustling with football games and families picnicking under the shaded boardwalks of the restaurants, none of them have the money to eat above.

We have ice cold lemonade and watch a frigget bird in an exciting high speed chase with a gull. They twist and turn until the gull finally gives in and drops his fish which is swiftly caught by the imposing black beast.

A boy and girl share a bike, she sits side saddled on the cross bar and steers and the boy holds onto her arms and just pedals, nice technique!

Big wave Dave's: free wifi, movies and good chicken. Here we brush up on sailing speak, surfing tips and endeavor to plan our trip over to the Caribbean side of Nicaragua to the highly praised Corn islands and some serious snorkeling. It took Derrick 3 whole days to get there but he said it was worth it.

There are some middle aged sailors at the bar; each of them has a very beautiful, young, bored Polynesian women at their side, perhaps not the glamorous life they expected, tis a sad site.

here’s some pics of san Juan del sur….

Painting for election day

More surfin the next day and we make pinacoladas in the wind up blender. Less waves but we stand up on most we catch. I don’t get total control, Dave says I’m standing too far back.

Ooh too big for me!

Have a very funny video of Dave; he thought he’d caught a big wave as you can see from his triumphant fist in the air. He was very disappointed when he saw the film…..will post it soon, cant find it….

There’s some long boarders here and they do a trick where all three of them come together on a wave and two of them step from their own boards onto the 3rd persons board, very cool cats. The Central American champion junior surfer is also here so it’s obviously the place to be.

After we left the beach last time a group of tourists got robbed on the same road we traveled. They put big rocks in the road so they had to stop and piled out of the bushes with machetes. Luckily we have some local boys working in our surf troop so we don’t get hassled but we did have to give one of them a lift back. You could see this big machete under his shirt; he was very hyper, overly friendly and physical. At one stage he almost dives between Dave's legs.............. and then pulls out some flippers stashed there, we exhale our collectively held breath. The orginisers look tense, they didn’t want to give him a lift but he was very insistent. It felt a bit like being with a ferocious dog who couldn't decide if he was playing or trying to instigate his position as pack leader. He showed us a photograph on his phone of when he was a child, he looked ok then, we were all very pleased when he got out.

We have supper with the troop at big Dave’s wave and head off the next day. Before we leave at breakfast we see a mad woman running backwards along the beach with a parrot on her shoulder, funny little place.

Right time for a quick trip to a volcano in the middle of a lake……

the famished road

We are headed to a little surf spot in Nicaragua, its 600 miles away. This post covers the journey and stop over’s.

Here’s a map of the route since leaving Mexico City, if you are anything like us your Central American geography may be patchy.

Antigua

We decide to visit Antigua on route in Guatemala. Dave has been to Guatemala before and it’s more expensive than many of the countries in Central America so it’s just a quick stop over for us.

Our 9 hour shuttle bus took 15 hours with 3 changes and a delay at the border due to strikes. I pass the time listening to a guy who can’t decide whether he should build himself a house or not as it will all be destroyed in 2012 when planet X messes up our gravitational pull. Apparently our magnetic field will switch round and only those souls that can adapt to the new vibration frequencies will survive, the others will instantly vanish from our dimension, mmm.

A so called chicken bus but they warrant a grander title really.

In a traffic jam we watch a gang of shady looking men jump out of the car in front to take a leak by the roadside. All of them are packing cocked pistols, glinting from the waistbands of their jeans. They look like real jumpy bad guys and we feel like we have victim stickers on our nice touristy van. In the few vunerable minutes my imagination runs through many filmic scenarios, all of which end bloodily. Then we are away and my paranoia gets packed away in its special box for later, though I prefer to call it caution (Dave might beg to differ on occasion). Our little mini bus is diverted to drop most of the travellers off at some old lake, Dave and I travel solo in the last mini bus and bump around hairpin mountain roads for 4 hours, we know the drill but beacuse of the delay we're bloody hank marvin.

We arrive in the dark but know its Antigua as you can feel the cobbled streets under the wheels. Pricey hotel, pricey food, mmmm very nice bed and lovely sleepy.

wooden arches of our muffin breakfast square

Antigua’s a top tourist destination, famous for its spanish mudejar-influenced Baroque architecture the and the proximity of three large volcanoes that dominate the horizon in every direction you look.
Hunapú or Volcan de Agua (Volcano of Water), 3766 meters high.
Acatenango, last erupted in 1972, is 3976 meters high.
The Volcan de Fuegi (Volcano of Fire), is 3763 meters high. "Fuego" is famous for being almost constantly active at a low level, smoke rises from top daily. We climbed none of the above.

Sky café

We mooch about the town for a day of rest in its quaintness. here’s some pics……

I should have bought the god mask

We found these paintings and got the text on the photographs translated. They were thanking the Virgin of guadalupe and Juesus for protecting Jose Perez and Salvador Morales (the guys who wrote them or had them made for them) for saving them from the distaster of the twin towers.. Salvador Morales was a cleaner in the buildings (I presume Jose perez was too) but they were lucky enough not to be there when they fell so say thanks to the Virgin for keeping them still under her blessed mantle. Though it looks a bit like they think the others were not worth saving.

We arrange a wake up call at 6 for our onward journey but instead of knocking on our door the hotel manager wanders through the whole building at 6.30 waking all their guests yelling ‘ HONDURAS?’ Those crazy latinos. Most annoying bus entertaining yet, its just too early for 80’s pop videos full blast, Leo sayer,Nooooooooooooo!!!! Elton john (actually hes a guilty plesure), but crowded house, Mierda ! We had to change in Copan and it was stinky stinkin hot, finally arrived in Tegucigalpa (the capital of Honduras) at 11pm, on face value the guide might be right about this place the only patch of charm we found was our room, here it is….

A glowing church was the only reference point in a town with no proper centre to it, and we made a bee line for it to get back to our sanctuary after the guide sent us to a café reminiscent of a bogna regis working mens club. Wishing we had the hitch hikers guide and were drinking pan galactic gargle blasters we picked at some greasy food while being subjected to a bontempi entertainer who's cheesy ear splittingly loud croons were not even in time with his not so trusty keyboard. RUN AWAY, RUN AWAY, RUN AWAY!!!!!!!!

This very large varnish spayed sandwich summed up the town. Photo taken while waiting for the bus outta there at 4am the next day

Nicaragua

Up at 3.30 for the next leg (accidentally got up an hour before we needed to like donuts) and we stand in an empty dark street vulnerably waiting for a cab cus the mad receptionist wouldn’t order us one, I unpack and swiftly re-pack my paranoia as a cab arrives.

Arrive in Managua at lunchtime (Capital of Nicaragua) into the driest month of the year, temporarily leaving our perpetual spring behind, shame! On first site the land is dramatically parched and the locals more traditionally dressed. Boy it’s hot, really hot, our room has no windows and the electricity is out so we stagger to a local street café and make ourselves hotter with vegetable soup? must have road lag. A local decides to do an unflattering charicature of dave and we begrudingly gave him some small change, here it is....

It feels a bit like a scruffy Brazilian town but it turns out to be an even worse capital than the last one we were in. Its cluttered sprawl rises above a large lake and could be amazing but the water is so polluted it can’t be used for anything; we are told if you get too near it the smell is very bad so we don’t. They have been dumping waste water and chemicals into it since 1927. We hear Germany is donating large sums for a vast clean up next year, so perhaps we should come back in 10 years time.

made by the barba papas

Apart from hanging out in the air conditioned mall shopping for computer accessories we visit the cities saving grace. The magnificent Cathedral Metropolitana de la Purisima Concepcion, locals call it, La Chichona for its resemblance to women’s breasts.

Every body’s favorite glittery praying room

Time to finally reach a destination we want to go to, next stop San Juan del sur, surfs up people!

mucho touting in the morning from a persistent group of men who really want to get us onto thier particular bus. They are screaming into our faces, I try screaming back to no avail then we make a u turn and decide anyone who wants us that badly? As we walk to their bus we have to smile, even after we have agreed to go with them they continue to babble at close range, I suppose until we are actually on the bus any dazzed tourists are an easy poach. Shame they bullied us onto the non direct bus though. The children selling travel snacks & tat filter in and out of the bus, the last one tumbling off after the bus has picked up a bit of speed, just to chance that last minute sale. I hope this will be the first and last time we have cheesy puffs for breakfast, mmmm teeth covered in furry orange goooo!!!!!