Beach Day in Nicaragua

Yesterday was an adventurous day to the beach day in Nicaragua.  We learned at breakfast, we are pretty much the only ones staying at the hotel, with the exception of a couple from Chicago we met at the pool yesterday.  The hotel owner drove us down to the “surfing beach” Playa Maderas, where there is a hostel and a couple restaurants.  Upon dropping us off Greg also explained that around the point there are a few other little beaches if we want to go explore. 

Tide pools and slippery rocks

Miya slothing it in the shade

Juanita's Kitchen

My attempt at being Clark Little, I don't think he has much to worry about

Well, we went to explore the other beaches around the point, and about a kilometer later we found a sweet almost secluded beach.  It had a shore break that reminded Miya and me of Waimea Bay and sticky sand that was more North Shore like than Ventura or Costa Rican sand.  We took out Dave’s GoPro for a little fun in the water and spent the day going back and forth from the water and the sand. 

About 1PM we started getting a little hungry.  This is where we were lucky that we were not on a completely isolated beach, because we had Juanita’s Kitchen behind us for some lunch on the beach.  Juanita’s was literally a little shack with two women manning the kitchen and a man taking orders, this might have been because he knew English.  We enjoyed sitting in the shade at the “kitchen” and playing a dice game mom brought me. 

About 3 PM we decided to head back over to the parking lot where we were dropped off at, next to the hostel Los Tres Hermanos.  The surf there did look nice; it wasn’t closing out and seemed to be consistent shoulder to head high waves. 

Once we got back to the hotel, it was about 4PM Miya, Dad, and I went for a swim in the pool, where we met the only other people staying at the hotel.  Mom iced her wrist; she took a nasty fall walking on the wet slick rocks at the beach while walking with her slippahs on.  We took turns slowly making our way back to our house to shower and get ready for dinner. 

The fish has been great here in Nicaragua, Mahi Mahi for every meal!  I haven’t had fish since I left the States, so my goal was to try and have fish at least once a day.  This is a goal that has been easily accomplished.  For dinner on my first night I had some fish tacos (not quite Cholo’s status but still delicious!), yesterday for lunch I had a fishplate, and for dinner a fish sandwich.  My other goal of the trip was not to eat rice and beans for the few days that I am away from the project, and besides my fishplate at lunch I have been succeeding in my goal. 

Kind of scruffy like Kai

Not something you see everyday in Carlsbad

This morning Dad, Miya, and I got up early and made our nature hike hoping to see sloths and monkeys, but just got cows, birds, bugs, chickens, ducks, and dogs.  We did make the 1 KM walk to the swimming beach (Playa Marsella), except it was kind of mucky since the river draining the whole valley opened up onto the beach and decided it was probably filled with lots of cow poop and not an ideal swimming beach.  Next up on the list is to go zip lining, Mom is sitting out on it partly because of her wrist and because she just says she doesn’t want to go.  Miya and I tried to convince her and told her she might regret it later if she doesn’t go.  After zip lining it is a short walk into “town” (San Juan del Sur) and we plan on spending the afternoon looking around and seeing what the colorful city has to offer.