Caught Up in a Whirlwind

I got pretty bad at keeping up with the blog while on my visa run, probably becuase we were constantly moving.

View of San Juan del Sur while zip lining

On Friday morning, Dad, Miya, and I went zip lining. We took about a 15 minute drive from our hotel down the dirt road to the main office, from there we took about another 5 minute drive up the mountain, it was quite the bumpy road Miya and I were waiting for a boulder to come rolling towards us then after falling into a pit of snakes. Up at the top of the mountain we got an amazing view of San Juan del Sur and the whole bay! Dad, Miya, and I also had the luxury of being the only ones, unlike the massive group that I went with when Courtney and I zip lined in Arenal last year. Because it was just the three of us with our two guides we weren't able to take that many pictures because we were constantly swinging from one line to the next. But because it was just the three of us Miya and I were able to go down one of the last lines upside down, with our guides of course.

Miya and I before we started

After that we met up with Mom who waited at the office, and the truck took us into town. San Juan del Sur is a cute little touristy town, far more populated than where I live so I was in a HUGE city! We made a stop by a pharmacy so I could see if they had a wrist brace for Mom, no such luck though. We headed over to a bar that was on the beach that our friend had recommended to us called Iguana, we were all so thirsy that we got drinks and some nachos to share. While sitting at the bar on the beach we were visited by many people walking by trying to sell us things, the only time I showed any interest was when the guys came by selling Nicaraguan vases, which I eneded up buying one from a street vendor instead.

Mom, Miya and I enjoying cold drinks and nachos on the beach

There's Jesus on a cliff

After leaving the bar we walked around town exploring the little nooks and cranny's of the colorful town seeing what they had to offer. I never realized that San Juan del Sur seems to be a gathering place for people all over the world. We met a guy from Argentina, who was nomad traveling the world making jewelry, he seemed pretty cool and nice to talk to, probably because he wanted to sell you some jewelry. By the afternoon we were about ready to head back up to the hotel, and luckily saw the hotel owner driving the panga into town and were able to get a ride back with him.

Guys walking the streets selling beans

We spent the afternoon in the pool relaxing, but in retrospeck Miya and I would have rather traded in our time in town for more time at the beach at Playa Maderas. We did stay in the pool until we got too cold, meaning the sun went down, and headed back to the condo to shower up for dinner. We took our usual table in the restuarant and I ordered my last fish meal of my vacation, fish and chips. Miya made sure to save enough room for desert, carrot cake and ice cream.

A storm came in Dad and I had already headed back to the room, Miya and Mom stayed in the restaurant with the wifi waiting for the storm to pass to get the laptop back without water damage. We packed up as most we could that night since the driver was going to be by at about 8:30 to take us back to the boarder.

Mr Bear had to renew his visa too

The boarder crossing into Costa Rica was much more strict than getting into Nicaragua. When we got to Costa Rica we stood in a line that lead to another line, I felt like I was at Disneyland, but it took us less than an hour to get through the whole process. We were all holding our breathes to see if our rental car would be in the dirt lot that we left it in, luckily it was there waiting for us.

From there we began our journey back down to Costa de Oro, the drive took us a little over four hours. The most enjoyable part might have been watching a group of Costa Ricans trying to get a semi out of a mud puddle in the street, it wasn't just any old semi either it was loaded with wooden logs and stuck there for at least a half an hour. From there I went to Laugna Mar with Mom, Dad, and Miya for dinner, so Miya could experience Pablo's fine cooking. She also enjoyed his desert sampler platter that I believe was intended for the whole table to share but she fought off our forks. Mom, Dad, and Miya patrolled with me a little later that night after we all took naps, unfortunately the only momma turtle they saw had a poacher sitting with her so we just kept walking.

It was sad to see them go the next morning, but even weirder to think that I will be home in a little over a month! I can see the season starting to change with fewer turtles coming up these past few nights. But we have been getitng rain for the past three days, Santos said because it didn't rain that much in October it will rain more in November, we will see if this theory is true.

 

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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. 

Buenas Dias from San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua!

Yesterday afternoon we made it to San Juan del Sur, and boy was it a fun adventure crossing "no man's land" from Costa Rica to Nicaragua.

We left Costa de Oro about 10 AM and drove by San Miguel real quick to drop off a present my parents brought down for Maddie, though she new exactly what it was since she had ordered it for herself. We made it up to Liberia in time for lunch about 1 PM and stopped off at this nice little restaurant called Cafe Cristina, where is enjoyed my first latte in months! From Liberia we had about an hour left to go to the border, and I think Dad and I spent most of that time making sure that we were following the GPS correctly (she eventually threw a fit about where we were going and stopped giving directions).

Leaving the car in the dirt at the boarder

We made it to the border about 2:30 and parked our car in a sweet dirt lot, since it was a rental it couldn't leave the country, we gathered all our belongs that we cared about and started our trip across the border. We walked the 1Km of "no man's land" only to get to Nicaragua and find out that we had to go through the immigration building in Costa Rica first to get our passport stamped. So, we walked back to Costa Rica and filled out our paperwork just to walk all the way back to Nicaragua, Miya and Mom looked quite sweaty after. Eventually, we made it through the three different stops of immigration to get to Nicaragua and found our driver that was taking us up to the hotel.

San Juan del Sur is about 40 minutes north of the border and it was a really pretty drive. I love how green Nicaragua is, and the flat paved road wasn't to hard to love either. We had to go into town first because our driver needed to go to his boss' house to exchange his car for a 4x4 to make it up the hill to Mango Rosa (home for the next few days). On our way up the hill I was admiring the lush green, rainforesty hills and it dawned on me that there might actually be sloths here since it was rainy and cold like Monteverde. I asked our driver if they had sloths in San Juan del Sur, and Miya picked up what I was asking, and sure enough Miya and I will be sloth hunting in the hills of San Juan del Sur over the next few days.

Costa Rican boarder

Our hotel is very nice, it is more of a condo with two bedrooms and a fully stocked kitchen. We went to the restaurant at the hotel for dinner last night and I enjoyed a some amazing fish soft tacos and a pina colada made with my favorite nicaraguan rum, flor de cana. After dinner, Miya and I decided to go and find the hammock hang out, a lani filled with hammocks and wifi. Well, we found it and only stayed for about 10 minutes before starting to feel the bugs crawl on us and retreated home where I enjoyed my first hot shower in months.

I tired to stay awake for as long as possible to watch the World Series but I ended up asleep in one of the chairs and decided to call it a night.

Mom crossing "no man's land"

 

Dad getting to the first step of Nicaragua boarder crossing

 

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