Vagabond and Beyond: "Why settle for a pine tree when you can have a palm tree?"

We have left the humidity of city life in Leon and Granada and are back to the refreshing coastal breezes of the beach life. In the beach town of San Juan Del Sur we stayed in the newly opened Buena Onda (Good Vibe) hostel set up by Baba from France. Situated a couple of minutes’ walk up a hill on one side of the town means the hostels open planned common area (and with some luck our room too) had the best views of San Juan Del Sur and their version of Rio De Janeiro Christ’s statue.

San Juan Del Sur from our hostel

It was Valentine’s Day the next day so we decided to buy a few massive steaks and have a BBQ in the hostel along with some Flor De Cana, as you do.

Only 1 of the marinated steaks, it cost about 50 cent!

At the hostel one of the young Canadian guys showed us a few stitches he just got in that day as the doctor had just cut and taken out a bot fly egg that had embedded itself under his arm for a few weeks and was growing bigger by the day. Just Google it, it’s absolutely disgusting and terrifying!! It was the next night that we were out with a few of the guys from the hostel when Mortiz (Swiss guy we knew from El Salvador) explained his pine/palm tree analogy of European women dancing like pine trees (rigid, up/down) while Latin American women dance like a palm tree (sway hypothetically side to side). And this is why he would only chat up the local women, because "why settle for a pine tree when you can have a palm tree?” (funnier when you hear it in a Swiss German accent). As he acted out the dances he had us all in stitches. Wise words though that can be applied to many other situations.

I’d like to list out all the things we did in San Juan but to be honest we didn’t do much (sometimes you need to take a week off from the stress of travel!). One of the days we went to a resort on the hill slopes called Pelican Eyes where we lounged by the pool and checked out the views from one of their many infinity pools.

Sarah looking out from the inifinity pool in Pelican Eyes

Our plans to teach a local kid to swim really just turned into jumping into the deep end with her and then making sure she kept her head above water as her dad (married to the hotels accountant) strutted around in his boxers, belly out (as is the style among the local men) to the embarrasement of his wife. The next day we decided to do something with our time here so hiked along the beach and up the other side of the bay to the Christ statue that overlooks the town.

El Senor looking over San Juan

We felt that we had accomplished so much during this hike that we slipped back into the Pelican Eyes resort after for another day of free 5 star luxuries.

Living the good life for free

The main beaches of San Juan are actually located just outside the town so we got a shuttle to Maderas Beach and watched some surfers and yoga enthusiasts. A few of us tried to do some bodysurfing in the crazy waves and after an hour of getting hit by massive wave after wave we were all wrecked or injured so decided to call it a day on moving around doing things. Sadly we learned that a young surfer (who was meant to be very good) had died the day before at this beach. I can’t really say much else about San Juan except that if you happen to ever be there you need to go to the Colibri restaurant, definitely one of the best restaurants we have tried, it's a 2 mintue walk from the Buena Onda hostel.

A yoga enthusiast on the beach

As a bit of a follow up to San Juan Del Sur we have a story from our friends Emily and Andrew from England whom we have met many times along the way in Central America who were in San Juan Del Sur about a month after us. We have heard many horror mugging, hijack stories from friends of ours but this is probably the worst of them. Crazy story but we have to say that we found it really safe so like anything it can depend on your experience, theirs not being a good one! Here is an extract of what happened to them while they were there waiting to go to the Costa Rican border:

“We have just been robbed, tied up, blindfolded and dumped at the end of a dirt road this afternoon. I seriously thought we were dead. We had just been to San Juan in Nicaragua and were waiting for the bus on the main road. We got talking to a pregnant woman and another guy and 15 minutes later they were getting into a car and offered us a lift. With the border being not far away we accepted the offer, ANNOYINGLY something we have NEVER done. Typical. 5 minutes later they picked another guy up and did a 3 point turn. They said they had to take the pregnant woman to hospital. 30 minutes in the car and then woman jumped on me and grabbed my hair. The other guy tied both of us up and put my jumped over my head. They took all our stuff (camera, itouch, money) and demanded our pin numbers. They stopped, took all the money out, took pictures of us and threatened us if we went to the police and about 20 minutes later dumped us down a long alley and told us to keep our eyes shut for 10 minutes and then walk to get a taxi. They even gave us $24 to get a taxi having robbed about $1000 from 4 cards that we had on us. In all seriousness, this was so scary but we are so thankful to be alive. I have never been so scared in my life.”

Crazy scary warning story out of the way we caught a ferry to the island of Ometepe that has 2 volcanoes connected by a thin stretch of land, incredible looking. Our plan was to travel to the other side of the island in a couple of days and to get a ferry towards the Costa Rican border where we would catch another boat to cross the border by river. Neither of us happened to do much research on this and found out that the ferry was a 14+ hour night ferry across most of Lake Nicaragua (clearly massive). As the lake waters were far from calm for our 1 hour ferry from San Jorge we decided that 14+ hours would be a terrible idea so we spent 3 nights on Ometepe before staying overnight in Rivas before another border day.

Ometepe Island and it's twin volcanoes

With not much time to explore the island we opted to rent a couple of scooters between the 3 of us, Moritz still with us for entertainment until the border. It was my first time on a scooter so I had to be a quick learner (not a very good one) as all the staff of the scooter rental place watched me take off to see if I would wreck the thing. Everything was all good except for the hidden unsigned ramps that appeared in the most random of places! Twice I was lucky to stay on as I hit them at close to full throttle before realising there was a ramp there. We scootered our way across the island (the parts with paved roads anyway) and enjoyed the weather and views.

Scooter (cycle) diaries on the roads of Ometepe

The next day we caught the slow bumpy chicken buses to the other side of the island and stayed in Hacienda Merida. A place where a bunch of volunteers pay to pretend to do work (like build a house) as all the locals do the actual hard work. It was on this journey that we saw a guy on a motorbike get on the back of a chicken bus, the ultimate trump item we have seen on a chicken bus on our travels.

Sarah hitching a ride on a chicken bus

The next day we hiked out to the San Ramon Waterfalls, an enjoyable 2/3 hour hike where we were rewarded with a beautiful waterfall that we could cool down in and pretty much had to ourselves.

San Ramon waterfalls

The best thing about a lot of the hikes we have been on so far is that not very many people do them so you can get the place to yourself and enjoy them in peace. I'm sure that will change gradually but we are taking full advantage while we can.

San Ramon waterfalls

The following day we had a few more chicken buses and a ferry before we made it to the town of Rivas that was close enough to the border to ensure a smooth crossing and connection the next day until we hit the city of Liberia in Costa Rica. Costa Rica is all about the cloud forests and wildlife (sloths for Sarah) for us so we hope to catch a few hikes on our way towards Panama and have a few videos and photos of them in our next blog.