Last beach weekend adventure...Part 1: SJDS

Last Friday, I met up with Ann after work and we traveled via chicken bus to San Juan del Sur.  She doesn't speak any English, so communication is only in Spanish.  Great practice!  I was planning on going to straight into Playa Coco, but decided it would be fun to hang out with her. We had no plans, no hostel reservations, no guidebook. Sans everything... After we got off the bus we walked to the one hostel I know, Casa Oro.  They were booked.  Some hippie, dredded young men from SoCal were also looking for a place to stay.  They told us to follow them.  Why not?  So they walked us to this place on the south end of town called the Surfing Donkey.  Unfortunately, his place did not have power and they were closed.  The Hippie-boys told us everyplace they had gone too was booked up.  They looked exhausted from walking around. After much deliberation, of 5 seconds, I asked "well if we stay here, can you cut the price in half?" He looked around. Looked at us. Looked at his feet, the sky. Then, "Si, si, si!! We take care of you!"  $4 a person for a private room and bathroom is hard to beat.  For the rest of the day we walked around town looking for choco-bananos...no luck.  

We watched a heated match of Volleyball. There's an organization in SJDS that gets kids involved with the sport.  They are all really good. 

Then, we heard form Etienne.  He was in Nandaime at a rodeo.  He and Ann are in a really sweet 8-20 person band, and both play the trumpet.  So he took his and played with the locals during this bull fighting, rodeo fiesta.  Montar de Toro. While, we waited for him, we grabbed a drink at one of the restaurants on the beach.  They clouds finally parted and we saw a really nice sunset and enjoyed a nice Nica dinner. 

We showed Etienne the place we were staying. He said, "Wow, nice going ladies". Oops. It really wasn't that bad. Then we went to find a bar with some live music. We ended up at the Black Whale for a reggae and rock band.  We played an endlessly horrible game of pool. Drank a couple of cocktails.  Decided SJDS was a little too much for us. And went back to the hostel.

We sat on the roof porch and enjoyed the lights of SJDS.  Then we enjoyed a concierto of Roosters from all over the town.  It was hilarious.  We laughed so hard, we were gasping for air.  This ruckus of roosters went on for 20 minutes.  Caw caw doodle do!!  1 mile away.. caw caw caw caawww.  All over the place. All of us were really tired so we retired to our room via flash light. Our room was hot. Only one window. The mattresses were less comfortable than the floor. It was bad.  We all started to drift off, when an AWFUL dog started barking outside our window.  This cascaded into every other dog in SJDS to start barking.  Then the roosters.  Then the chickens.  No sleep for the whole night. Terrible. $4 though. 

We got up at 6:30. Packed and paid. And went out in search of a breakfast.  We found Cafetin Angelica, by the market.  We all got breakfast for c$50, which is 2 bucks USD. 

Dios mio we were tired.  We walked to the beach and found some chairs and slept. SJDS beach is not the best place in the world.  It is kind of pretty.  There are better.  But it was a nice way to start the morning. We took a couple of dips.  Drank more coffee.  I convinced Frenchies that Playa Coco is better.  Etienne wanted to learn how to surf so he and Ann agreed to come with me for the day.

Todd met us at the market and we 4wd'ed it to the best place in the world. We had to tie Etienne's $10USD rented board in the most unreliable way ever. But it made it without falling off from those bumpy roads. 

Part 2 coming...