San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua

From Santa Teresa, Costa Rica we headed north to San Juan del Sur. A town in the south of Nicaragua famous for being close to lots of surf breaks and partying. From Santa Teresa we booked a shuttle to the border. I’ve loved our 2 intense weeks in this beautiful little country but I certainly won’t miss the cost of things here. 
6 hours later we arrived at the border and after paying all the “semi legit” exiting and entering fees, we were in Nicaragua! From here we were heading to San Juan Del Sur on the south pacific coast. We ended up paying a taxi driver to take us, and it only cost $25 and took about 40 minutes for all of us to go from the border to the front door of the hostel.

We stayed at Hostel “Surfing Donkey” which had some really nice staff, and a fun little bar and pool to cool off and relax.

First day in town we didn’t get up to much, just perused through some shops and got smoothies. Oh and then we found the mini local produce markets at “Big Wave Dave’s.” Here we ate about 10 delicious pork and ham rolls with home made coleslaw and chased it down with plenty of equally delicious home baked lemon slices. Needless to say dinner afterwards was pretty small. If you’re in SJDS on a Saturday morning, seriously go check it out!

The next day was Sunday. And in San Juan that means Sunday Funday, which is basically a gigantic pub crawl to several bars and hostels around town, many of which have pools. 

I had woken up early to go for a surf beforehand, but alas there wasn’t much going on at the beach we had planned to go to. Myself and Federico, an Argentinian guy from our hostel, found a group of other travellers from France and the US who had a ute, so we ended up jumping in the tray and what was meant to be a short morning outing turned into a close to 6 hour ordeal. 

We ended up having a fun little surf, but I got absolutely cooked from the sun partly due to forgetting how strong it was due to those fresh offshore breezes this part of the world is known for. I got back to town several hours after the planned time to find Bec worried I had been taken by bandidos, or a shark, or maybe even both, but after we bought our tickets and started drinking with the crew from the hostel the worries were soon forgotten. 

The day turned out to be as advertised, both fun and a Sunday, despite the exxy $30 US entry fee. Whilst some of our friends kicked on into the early hours, the sun and suds caught up with me and Bec and we ended up turning in before the last bar on the tour really got going. 

Next morning we got up and swapped plenty of funny stories with new friends from the night before, and basically spent the day hanging out around town. Many hung smoothies and tacos were consumed by all. That afternoon we shook off the cobwebs by walking up to the big Jesus statue looking over the town. The view from here is awesome and certainly worth the 20 odd minute walk from town.

Whilst the beach that the town is situated on isn’t the best, I can see why plenty of people end up spending a lot of time here due to the abundance of good restaurants and cafes, a fun drinking culture and relatively close proximity to plenty of other nice beaches. For us this time however 4 nights was enough. 

Next stop, Isla Ometepe!