San Juan del Sur: Surfing Finally!

Michal needed to get to Costa Rica (more on that in a bit), so from the Corn Islands we went to San Juan del Sur, a surf town on the Pacific coast just this side of the border.  In all honesty, San Juan del Sur is pretty gringo-fied.  It's the development pressure growing up the coast from Costa Rica.  There's sand, sun and beautiful waves and you can't throw a hat without hitting a gated community.  What's not to love?

Well..

This is hardly the forum to tackle such a complicated set of issues, but this piece does a pretty good job of capturing the inevitable conflict that arises amid such breakneck development.  It's long, but I highly recommend it.

Anyway.  If you can manage to wake up in San Juan del Sur without a hangover (harder than it sounds, trust me), a popular day trip is the 45 minute 4x4 ride out to Playa Maderas (the beach in town isn't all that nice).

There's a very nice beach, when the tide is out.  And a lovely little restaurant/board rental.  What more could you ask for? (click to view full sized goodness)

We surfers really are useless.  Stick us in front of an ocean and all we do is stare at it.  Good luck trying to maintain a conversation at that point.  We just go "mhmm, mhmm, mhmm" and you realize we haven't heard a word you've said since the set started.

I borrowed a board from another fellow and had a fun little time.  Nothing incredible, but it was good to be back in the water after so long.  Packing up that afternoon for the ride back into town, though, Michal pointed out something that had completely escaped my notice: "You realize that this isn't just a restaurant, right?  It's a hostel too."

Now this is what I call fortuitous timing, cuz, ya see, I needed something to do for about a week.  Michal was going to be meeting her parents in Costa Rica (by prior arrangement).  We both thought it much simpler for me to make myself scarce while they were doing their own thing.  What better way to spend that time than living right on the beach and surfing my brains out?   

I don't know.

 So that's pretty much it.

For the next five or six days I went surfing two or three times per day.  The rest of the time I pretty much just sat on the balcony staring at the ocean.

It was really right there.  The waves would come all the way up to the terrace at high tide.  That's my hammock on the second floor, there, right in front of my window, alongside my balcony.

One of my more artistic brethren had decorated the interior of my room.

Every now and again I'd get ambitious and take some photos.  I don't remember what I was going for here, but I like how it turned out.

But mostly it was just surfing and watching other people surf.  We really are a useless lot, we surfers.

No kidding: I prefer the ocean to television.

The waves weren't incredible, but they were pretty consistent.  Even good, at times.

There wasn't a whole lot to do after dark as I was usually the only guest and the restaurant staff cleared out around 5pm, so I got to waking up at dawn.  It was usually the sound of the waves that woke me up:

"Hmm, those sound like good waves."
*walks to window, surveys ocean*
"Those are good waves."
*goes surfing*

Outrageous.

The sunsets weren't half bad either.

So why aren't I still there?  Well, first of all, I needed to meet Michal again in Costa Rica once her parents had left.  But more to the point, I kinda broke the surfboard I'd rented.  In my defense...

In my defense, I say, the board had already been repaired once: there were cracks on both rails.  Furthermore, it being an epoxy board, it should have been stronger than normal boards.  If the surf wasn't big enough to be breaking normal boards (it wasn't), there is no way in hell an epoxy board should break.  Unless, of course, it was already weakened from prior trauma.  Finally, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I draw your attention to the fact that the board broke precisely between the points on the rails that had been previously repaired!

Ah ha!

Strangely, the proprietor didn't see things my way.  This lead to an interesting negotiation, of sorts:

Him: "Rompiste la tabla.  Me debes $350."
Me: "Ya fue roto.  No voy a pagarte nada."
Him: "Bueno, bueno.  Dame $200."
Me: "Creo que no me entiendes: la tabla fue débil porque ya fue roto y no voy a pagarte nada."
Him: "Entonces, aceptaré $100."
Me: "Me voy."

And so I got the hell outta Nicaragua.