Last weekend we visited San Juan del Sur. This is the most famous beach on the West Coast of Nicaragua, and has received a lot of attention by developers in the last five years. Of course the boom became a bust two years ago. You can see the reasons for its popularity. It has a beautiful sandy beach and the ocean water is warm. There is a main drag of bars and inexpensive hotels and hostels relatively untouched by the influence of big business. The town gives you more the feeling of a community of residents than a resort overrun by tourists. That may be due to the time of year or the real estate bust.
We made the journey with our friends R and S in their SUV. The trip was about 90 minutes, and the roads are very good the entire way. The first thing we did when we arrived was to drive up the surrounding hillside (some stretches were at a 40 degree angle) to the statue of Jesus (Cristo de Misericordia) at the top. It reminds you of the famous statue overlooking the water in Bolivia. We hiked up the final 40 yards to the statue and paid the Nica price of 10 cords per person (50 cents), though by the raise of his eyebrow I’m sure he suspected we were not natives – perhaps the grade school level of our Spanish gave it away.
The view was tremendous. The ocean was somewhat tamed by projections of land to the north and south. The stretch of foamy white water flowing to and from the shore was uniform throughout the entire stretch of beach. From there I drove the SUV back down the steep hillside. R was in the front seat but refused to look out the window because of the sharp angle. I told her what my father used to tell me: “Do what I do if you get scared, just close your eyes.” We drove through some unpaved side roads to check out the mansions that had been built by rich Nicaraguans, then drove back up a steep hillside to the Pelican Eyes, which is the restaurant that is part of the Piedras y Olas resort.
We ate lunch by the poolside. Sophia and S and I walked up the steep paved rock walkway to look at the cottages that were part of the resort. This is one of the resorts built during the height of the boom, and now appeared almost totally unoccupied. At the very top of the walk is another large swimming pool open to all the guests (also vacant), with an area of sun chairs that looked out over a view of the ocean. The beautiful S posed for us as we took pictures of everything.
We drove back to the main street and parked. Astrid and R walked along the beach, while the kids (S, Sophia and Paul) played in the waves. Sophia learned to swim under the crests and emerge after they had passed by. The consistency of the waves make this an ideal place to learn to swim, boogie board or surf. We played until the sun went down, which it does quite quickly. One minute there is a full circle of sun, and in two minutes it is pitch dark.
We had ice cream afterwards and I met a paisano from Italy. My group took pictures of us because we both had striking Italian good looks, similar glasses and were handsomely pelon (bald). My friend had moved to Nicaragua 25 years ago, and ran a restaurant in town. We exchanged restaurant stories, heritage location and contact information and I promised to have dinner in his restaurant (El Colibri) the next time we visited the beach.
We ran into a little trouble when it was time to leave. The gearshift error lights in the panel of the SUV would not go off, which meant that it was stuck in a low gear. R just waved over bystanders and asked them for help. People told us how to fix it (go in reverse then in drive) and when that didn’t work, they called their friends for help. All in all, there were probably 15 people involved either around the car or by cell. Finally the warning light went out and we headed home.
It’s a little disconcerting driving the highway at night. In some stretches you’ll hit a town without warning, where the people are congregated on both sides of the street in a little fiesta. Or there are motorcycles without lights and people walking next to the highway, again without lights. The most interesting/harrowing experience was a boy lying perpendicular to the road, with his head actually in the roadway, just resting and playing with his dog. I saw him in time to move to the left, and as I drove by he didn’t adjust his position.
This reinforced the impression that Nicas aren’t as concerned about safety as their paranoid American counterparts. Whole families including bambinos ride on a single bicycle; cars move through the city very aggressively, even with kids playing beisbol in the street; the sidewalks have so many holes (from missing manhole covers to the dug-out area where the water turn-off valves are) that people often walk only in the streets at night. I can’t help but think that the statistics (if they existed) would show that there were substantially more pothole and traffic-related injury/death per capita than in the states. Nicaraguans take it in stride; it’s what they know.
All in all, a very fun time, and we hope to return to San Juan del Sur several times during our stay here.
-- Paul
Sophia finished her second week at school. Well, the second week was only four days long since Nicaraguans also observe All Saints Day and therefore no school was in session on Friday. What we have learned during these two weeks is that they have PE twice a week which requires the kids to come to school in their PE uniform, they wear regular uniform twice a week and on Fridays it’s free dress.
They went around the neighborhood for about 2 hours. Sophia came home all hot and dirty. They had gone to several of the kids’ houses to get water and to hold puppies. And at one house, the abuela had to use an alcohol swipe to disinfect Sophia’s scratch on her upper arm (an area of about 3”x3”) that she had sustained while falling into a hole. The bike didn’t get hurt, though. Thank goodness.
