Donde Esta la Playa?

Saturday, December 22.

After spending a few hours in our still favourite little café, we left just as they were closing. Walking out the door, we saw our friends Nathan and Liz across the street!  We were pretty excited, as we didn't expect to see them again.  We went for a nice walk, caught up on Nicaraguan events, and made it down to the ferry dock just in time to catch a picturesque sunset.

It was short lived, but that was fine with us, as a day of blogging and emailing had left us pretty hungry, and we also had to get ready for our big redemption at round two of the end'o'the'world music fest.  As we were walking back, Nathan and Liz informed us that they were staying at "Yogi's place", which happened to be the same hostel that our Savior, Chad, told us he was staying at.  We decided we should follow them back there, and thank Chad for all his services from the night before.

There were a few people chilling at Yogi's, and the two guys asleep on hammocks (at 5:30 pm) were clearly nursing hangovers, but there was one person who clearly stuck out; Glen.  Imagine a 30 something year old Aussie child, suffering from ADHD, with shoulder length dirty blond hair, and a tan that looked like he has never worn a shirt.  Now imagine this person on crack.  That's Glenn.   He was pounding back drinks, and would light one large cigar with the lit butt of the one he had just finished. He would run around doing the chicken dance, make up his own mumbled Aussie lyrics to songs, and give every one kisses on the forehead! 

When Chad got out of the shower, he was very happy to see us, and we gave him big "thank you" hugs, and told him if he is ever drunk to the point of no return, to look us up.  We spent an hour or so, chitchatting and watching Glenn do his ADHD thing, when we realised we still hadn't eaten anything.

We walked a half block down the street, where the "chicken lady" had her nightly barbecue fiesta going on her front lawn.  We took the chicken with beans, rice, and coleslaw, (for the all time low price of 60 Cords, or $2.25) back to Yogi's, and it was on the top 5 list of best barbecue we've ever had.   In true-to-Glenn form, he was waiting, cigar in mouth, for us to finish, when he cleaned everyone's plates (and bones) of food.

Now that we had filled our bellies, we showered, changed, and made our way back to the music fest.  This time we managed to last until 2:00 a.m., and actually remembered what it was all about.   There were a few hundred people listing to house music on the beach, most of whom were very drunk, and all of whom were being entertained by Glenn, who's craziness had caught many people's attention.  He was doing his chicken dance in the lake (no bathing suit), and even managed to get the camera crew, who were filming the event, to follow him for a solid 15 minutes.

 

 

Sunday, December 23.

 

Sunday was a travel day.  Even though it was a late night, we set our travel alarm (graciously donated by Natalie and Dan) for 7:30, to make sure we were on the 9:00 a.m. ferry off the island.  We packed up our bags, and were down at the ferry dock for 8:30.  We met other travellers, from Holland,  who were also waiting for the ferry, and we traded stories, and accepted some tips from them.  9:00 rolled around, and there was no ferry in sight.  10:00 came and went, and it was not until 11:00 that the ferry finally arrived.  By that time, all those who wanted to be on the 9:00 ferry combined with all those who wanted to be on the 10:00 ferry, which made for a sardine-like situation, and we ended up on the top deck, sitting on a pile of backpacks.  We watched as the security guards from the night before pounded back two large bottles of rum, and made attempts at speaking English, although we shouldn't judge, as their broken English was far superior to our broken Spanish.

 

A quick cab ride from the ferry got us back to the chicken bus terminal in Rivas, where we waited for the bus to San Juan Del Sur. As we waited, in true chicken bus style, local merchants would walk up and down the aisle and try to sell anything from a meal in a plastic bag, to flashlights or bandannas.  We ended up going for a "taco de pollo" each, after the woman yelled "taco de pollo, pollo, taco" at least 50 times.  Unfortunately our buying of the two tacos didn't stop her from deeming it necessary to keep yelling.  They were great, though, and they only cost us 30 Cords for the two ($1.20 or so).

 

We finally arrived in San Juan Del Sur around 3:00 p.m., and checked into our new abode, "Hostel Brisas Y Olas". The accommodations were nothing more than a bed and a bathroom, but that's okay, as it is what we have come to expect. 

 

As we had been craving some beach time since we had first landed in Managua, we immediately threw our bags down, put on bathing suits, and went to the beach.  We were excited as we walked down to the beach with our travelling buddy Huw, from New Zealand, but were sorely disappointed when we got there.  It was rather large, but deserted, had hard packed sand, and lots of rocks.  We were also the subject of about 30 different offerings of new sunglasses, which was annoying, but on the bright side, inspired Huw to teach us to say "Ya Tengo, Gracias" which means "thanks, but I have some already".  We were also the subject of a group of younger locals sitting pretty much on top of us, and we can only assume making fun of us, in Spanish.

 

Eventually we "threw in the towel", and decided to go get dinner, which consisted of, yet again, chicken, rice, and beans for a very low price.  Thankfully we hadn't gotten sick of it just yet, so it was enjoyable.  We said goodbye to Huw, and spent the rest of the night reading, and catching up on sleep.

 

Monday, December 24.

 

As we had already discovered that the main beach in San Juan Del Sur was not exactly to our liking, we did some research and discovered that there were two much nicer beaches about a half hour away.  We were told that there were shuttles leaving from a hostel called "Pacha Mamma's", which also happened to be the hostel our friend Huw was staying at.  It was about a 15 minute walk, being on the other side of town. We stopped at the Canadian owned "El Gato Negro" café for breakfast, where we had bagels with egg, cheese, and either avocado and tomato, or ham, depending on whose bagel you looked at.  We also had the best cup of coffee that we'd had to that point.  We were ready for the beach.

 

We arrived at Pacha Mamma's and quickly decided it was the coolest hostel we'd seen thus far, as it had a huge bar, a pool, and an open concept common area, which was half indoors and half out. The staff was very nice, and they immediately invited us to their Christmas Eve pot luck dinner later that evening.  We accepted the invitation graciously. 

 

 

 

The "shuttle" was actually a pick up truck, and we rode in the back, in true Nica fashion.  We got to the beach after several mouthfuls of sand courtesy of the pickup trucks ahead of us, and saw that it was indeed much nicer than the main beach in San Juan Del Sur.  We parked ourselves in a spot, and enjoyed a long awaited beach day.  We played volleyball, went for a long walk, tanned, and were harassed by the exact same group of kids who had been harassing us the day before!  It didn't bother us as much the second day, though.

 

We left around 5:00, and stopped at the local market to grab some food for our contribution to the pot luck, which was a bean salad consisting of chick peas, corn, beans, and onion.  We quickly showered, and were off to our first Christmas dinner!

 

 

 

The mood was naturally festive, and we didn't hide the fact that we were Jewish, and hadn't had a Christmas dinner before.  Everyone was very welcoming though.  The main dish was a large sea bass that was prepared by the hostel staff, and it was an amazing meal!  After dinner we drank homemade (hostelmade) eggnog, and took swings at a snowman pinata, that we soon found out was full of candy, gum, and cigarettes.  Then arrived a group of 30 or so pub crawlers, which consisted of our Savior Chad, who we gave, as always, big hugs.  He introduced us to his travelling companion, Paul, who when introduced leaned over to Alice and whispered in an English accent, "Is that guy's name Chad?".  We thought this was pretty funny, as Chad had just told us that they'd spent the last week or so travelling together.  And that was Christmas Eve.

 

 

 

Tuesday, December 25.

 

We woke up early, and headed over to Pacha Mamma's both to say hi to our new friends, and to catch the pickup to the nicer beach.  We had planned on going to the Canadian café again for breakfast, but it was unfortunately closed for Christmas.  We settled on a local joint, called the Barrio café, which met our needs well, although it took quite awhile to get the bill.  We have become accustomed to this, though. 

 

We had another nice relaxing day at the beach, and will spare the details, other than to say that we finally were not harassed by any local children, which was pleasant.  It is noteworthy though, that the waves at this beach were particularly impressive, and we have a new found respect for the sport of surfing.

 

 

 

We spent the night finishing our books (The hobbit, and Catching fire; the second of the hunger games trilogy), and attempted to book a hostel in the town of Tamarindo, as our first destination in Costa Rica.  Unfortunately, we were unable to find any accommodations. We were contemplating just "winging it", as was the advice of Huw, when we received a facebook message from an old friend of Alice's.  Apparently, Alice has some old friends, in high places, as this particular friend owns a loft condo in the very ritzy Playa del Coco, just 10 minutes away from Tamarindo.  Adios Nicaragua, Hola Costa Rica!

 

 

 

*a note to our friends* 

We have had several people email us, saying they've been having trouble posting comments. It appears you may need a "google account" to add a comment.  We think that signing in with a gmail address would suffice.  However, we are okay if you don't post comments, given this trouble, we just want you read along and enjoy with us.