San Juan del Sur - Small beach town

Chicken Bus
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Saturday 22nd September – Isla de Ometepe – San Juan del Sur

The best thing about island transport is that it runs at reasonable hours. We got up at 8.30am to catch the 9.15am bus and as it stops anywhere we could just wait outside our hotel. Almost on time the bus rolled up the hill and we were off. The trip took about 1.5 hours but as always there was never a dull moment with the locals coming and going and the bus stopping every 10m getting loaded with produce, TV's, anything that needed transport. We were right on time for the 11.45am boat and thankfully this time there was no casket on board. Slow as ever we made the trip over in one piece and were greeted at the dock by the usual touts and taxi drivers. We intended to catch a cab up to the Bus Station in Rivas and transfer to a local bus but Leigh managed to do what he does best and haggled a poor 18 year driver down to $10US for the 1hr ride. We hoped in a car that would be illegal in any other country, with barely visable tread and a smashed up windscreen that was all but enough for the driver to see.  Not phased we pressed on.

Jo relaxing on the balcony
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As with most taxi rides here the drivers look for other fares heading in the same direction, so our man grabbed another traveller and the 3 of us finally set off for San Juan del Sur. The road was fine for the first half but the second was your usual rough bit paved road so we would fly along dodging pot holes then hit the brakes at the next change in the seal. We got to San Juan in one piece and were dropped off at Nina's Hospdaje. She was a rather hard bargainer, but we got a room with an ensuite for $15US. To our delight San Juan is a tiny very safe surfing village with 2 main roads so we set out for a little exploring and hit the beach feeling very relaxed. Sea snobs we have become, we were a little put off with the brown coloured water and agreed that the Caribbean Sea is much better than the Pacific. Anyway, we had a great time enjoying the rather large surf! Leigh being his usual crazy self took a on few waves that were a little too big and was soon reminded with a severe dunk to the ocean floor that he should be a little more careful. Jo on the other hand was happy with the waves breaking a little closer to the shallows and had some long rides into the shore. It was a great way to spend a few hours, although in the end we were both a little muddy but the waves were great fun and we also enjoyed a nice lie on the beach watching yet another storm brew! We popped home and showered up in our cold shower (day #4 without a hot shower) and had a few beers on the rocking chairs on the front porch of our accommodation, right on the main street, which was a hype of activity.

Man Chilling Out
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We eventually headed out and enjoyed dinner overlooking the beach. We both ordered some of the freshest sea food ever. It was a grilled fish fillet with the best garlic sauce, even Leigh was satisfied and maybe agreed that it was better than hamburgers! We were accompanied by the usual thunder storm, so made a mad dash home in the torrential rain. In the evening while Leigh was reading a book in the lounge, Jo had the best Spanglish conversation with some of the locals and the little girl who lived at the hostel. It went on for hours and we each learnt a little of the other ones language.

Jo playing cards with la nina
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Sunday 23rd September – San Juan del Sur

We started the day full of energy with Jo hitting the beach for a run and Leigh doing more body surfing. Surprisingly the beach had cleaned up from the previous nights storm. Jo ran for about 30 mins but was very unimpressed with her fitness levels. We headed home for a cold shower before going out for brunch. Leigh had eyed up a Subway sign on the way into San Juan, so we went directly there. While we were sitting inside the restaurant enjoying our cheap subs, Leigh eyed up a man who entered with a stack of DVD's. Without hesitation he asked to have a look and spent the next hour with the Subway manager and the DVD seller playing them on the Subway computer to work out which ones were copies and which were hand held at the movie theatre. After haggling hard as per usual, we ended up with 3 more DVD's. Very proud of himself we left and headed over to another hostel to find out about turtle watching. There are some good things and some bad things about travelling in the low season. The good thing is you don't need to book accommodation in advance, you just rock up and there is always a room. But the bad is if you want to do an activity like turtle watching they always need a group and 2 people isn't enough to justify it. So we had to miss out much to Jo's dismay. We got the bus timetables for our travels the next day, then headed back to our hostel for more rocking chair action, watching everyone busy with their day to day lives (i.e. Rocking on their chairs also.... island life!).  There is only so much of island life you can take so we went for a big walk along the beach.

With the usual games of beach football going on we were forced to take a wider route to the waters edge were we were often victims to the high tide and got caught on several occasions almost up to our knees.  The most exciting part of the walk was a crossing we had to make over an estuary/river. It was moving rapidly with the tide and was also very difficult to judge the depth. There was a boat about 100mtrs up the stream that seemed to be ferrying people across but it was a little far away so we decided to have a shot at crossing it. We watched the wave sequence for a few minutes and worked out our best crossing point. Leigh entered first and was quickly at about waist height while Jo was a little slow. With the notion of another wave about to enter the river and we were about half way Leigh pushed on and quickly made it to the otherside while Jo freaked out and although half way turned back.  Leigh watched on and talked Jo through the other crossing, with a quick run up and perfect timing she hit the river and made a swift crossing. We carried on walking until almost at the edge of the bay where we sat and watched some local kids boogie boarding but they were using polystyrene boards, similar to a chilli bin lid. They were so small but took on theses huge waves and seemed to be very capable on there homemade boards. We headed back and with the receding tide the river crossing was a lot less dramatic. We headed for the internet and Leigh rang Barbs for her birthday. With all the excitement of the river crossings etc our highlight for the day was collecting our washing. It was so fresh and clean, perfectly hand washed with a fresh scent. For the first time in a few days we were not smelly gringos! In the evening and smelling fresh we went to a local bar (directly next door to our hotel) for a few drinks and dinner. Leigh was chuffed as there was some American Football on to enjoy while eating dinner.

Unfortunately after a great day we had almost the worst night ever. Firstly there was another massive storm, and we experienced the most terrifying thunder storm ever. The storm seemed to be passing so we started to relax but all of a sudden there was a flash of lightning and simultaneously an explosion of thunder. Never in our lives have we not been able to count to at least 3 between the lightning and the thunder! It was very scary and sounded like a bomb had exploded on top of our house. We leapt out of bed to collect our thoughts and our lovely host came to check on us. Rather shaken up and with there being no electricity our fan cut out and our room had increased to over 35deg. Imagine trying to sleep in a sauna and not being able to open the windows for fear of malaria invested mosquitos! It was near impossible to sleep. What made it worse was Nina had locked both doors – to the living room and to the outside, so we could not even go outside to cool down.  Although a very difficult night it was one we will not forget!

Monday 24th September – San Juan del Sur – Granada

As we felt so good yesterday getting up and swimming/running, we decided to do the same again. We then headed back to our hostel for a cold shower, (which actually aren't too bad now) grabbed some food for breakfast and jumped on the chicken bus to Rivas. We found the bus was actually faster than our taxi used on our arrival into San Juan as the bus driver just went for it and didn't bother dodging pot holes. As the bus pulled into the small but chaotic Rivas station, we  were hounded by the bus touts who loaded us onto the bus for Granada. Our packs were chucked on the roof and we waited on board for about 30 minutes, sitting in intense heat while the bus got overloaded and there were people constantly walking up and down the isle selling food, medicine etc. We eventually set off and Jo was not happy as a pig had been wrapped up and tied to the  ladder on the back of the bus for transportation. The poor pig was squealing all the way. We made the usual hundred stops but actually got to Granada in good time. In the extreme heat, in fact the hottest we have felt to date, we wandered with our back packs to a hostel called the bearded monkey. We were happy just to have a cleanish room, although roasting hot, there was a hook for the mosquito net and a big fan. We actually wanted to stay at the monkey hut, which is on laguna de apoyo but the transportation only went on Wednesday's and taxis were quite expensive. So we decided on a day trip there on Wednesday instead and that we would just stay at this hostel for a few nights.

The first thing we wanted to sort out is how we were going to get to our next destination, so we wandered for about half an hour before getting to the Tica bus office. We found out there was a direct service that went to the North West part of Honduras, but the bus left at 5am from Managua. We decided to get these tickets which included a private taxi transfer from Granada to Managua. After seeing a funeral procession take place which involved a horse and cart with coffin inside and hundreds of people walking up one of the busiest streets behind it, we made our way back to the hostel. We decided to do a bit of reading up on where we wanted to go next, so hung out at the hostel for the rest of the evening enjoying the food which is pretty good cheap home cooking. We also bought a Mexico travel book from their book exchange for $5, which made Leigh grin as that is the country he wants to visit the most (mainly for the food!) We also enjoyed the happy hour drinks before heading to bed to watch one of our new DVD's.