The journey continues - San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua
San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua
We woke up at 5am to the sound of a coconut falling on the corrugated metal roof of our bungalow. It might be the loudest thing I've ever heard in my life EVER! I never thought I could wake up and loose bodily functions all in the same second. God I hope I never have to wake up like that again. I suppose this coconut alarm clock was a good thing because we had to be out the door by 5:45 AM to walk across the island to catch the 6:30 AM panga to Big Corn.
We slung our bags into a wheelbarrow just as we did a few days ago, and began our hike back to where we started. We bought our panga passes and waited. After about 20-30 minutes, a boat arrived and docked. It was quite a bit smaller than the one we came in on, and there looked to be just as many people. They stowed our luggage inside the hull and we climbed in.
Fortunately, the water was considerably calmer than our previous ride. It was nice to watch Little Corn Island disappear behind us, and disappointing in a way too. Little Corn was like a vacation within a vacation. We arrived in the harbor at Big Corn Island and found ourselves back in a rickety cab en route to the airport. We got to the airport just in time for our somewhat late flight (always on "island time") and fell asleep right at take off. At this point we were exhausted to say the least.
When we arrived back at the Managua airport, Juan Carlos, our driver from VaPues was right there waiting for us to take us to San Juan del Sur. Juan Carlos asked if we would be willing to stop in Managua at the VaPues office. He said VaPues wanted to take our picture for their next travel brochure! They said they wanted to use us because we were always smiling. So be on the lookout for yours truly!! Once we were done with our photo shoot, we began the long drive to San Juan Del Sur. It wasn't 15 minutes into the drive and we were both passed out. We then slept most of the 2 1/2 hour drive to San Juan del Sur.
We woke up right in front of La Posada Azul, our hotel here, which is a restored colonial home and beautiful building all around. We checked into our room, dropped our bags, grabbed some water, changed quickly into our swimsuits and headed right to the beach (a 3 minute walk down the street). The main part of town is about 8-10 square blocks. All of the main hotels, stores, and restaurants are within that area.
We made our way to the ATM and did the "currency conversion" dance that we've done so many times on this trip. One US dollar equals roughly 24 Cordoba. They gave you the option to get money in US dollars or Cordobas. Almost every business we've patronized in this country accepts both dollars and Cords. But you have to be careful...if you pay in dollars, you are almost guaranteed to get change in Cords. This was becoming problematic as we were at the end of our trip and we couldn't covert any remaining Cordobas back to dollars. So we tried to anticipate how much we would need and only draw out that much.
This town is so easy to navigate. We easily found the Iguana Bar, owned by Henry who is a friend of Pete (one of Chris's family friends from Texarkana). Small, small world. We asked for Henry and the girl had to call him on her cell phone. After about 10 minutes, Henry showed up at the bar. It's a two-story bar with a very large upper deck overlooking the beach. We hung out there for a bit, had a beer with Henry, played in the waves, then came back to get cleaned up for dinner at El Colibri, a very quaint restaurant a few blocks away that sells beautiful mosaic mirrors (and of course delicious food). We crashed early that night after a long day of traveling to rest up for surf lessons the next morning!