Days 605-611! In this blog post I’ll be crossing into FOUR different countries. Time to fill up the passport!

We start off our week with another wild travel day (well the travel day itself wasn’t anything crazy, but one part of it was).

Today, I was heading from Antigua, Guatemala to Ataco, El Salvador. This was the start of my journey all the way to El Tránsito, Nicaragua to start volunteering at the Free Spirit Hostel.

If you don’t remember from last week, my volunteering in Honduras “fell through” and I found a new opportunity volunteering and doing the social media/events at a surf hostel in Nicaragua.

I woke up at 7am for the hostel’s free breakfast. Usually these are rather small, but I was surprised to have a full meal given to me. Honestly, Maya Papaya hostel in Antigua was a great find! While I was eating I chatted with two travelers from Norway, Guard and Yuva (I probably butchered the spellings). They were actually taking classes from the same Spanish school I had, but not staying in a homestay I guess.

I then went and finished packing up my things and then checked out of the hostel. I stood out on the sidewalk, waiting for my van which showed up just before the end of the 45 minute window they gave me. When I opened the door, to my surprise a familiar face was inside. A German traveler, named Janny, was there just as surprised to see me as I was to see him.

He of course asked me immediately why I was back in Antigua. And I shared my little travel story with him.

There was also an older American who has been living in Oaxaca, Mexico for a long time. He was running low on days left in Central America, while visiting friends, and was attempting to do a border run.

The key word is attempting, but more on that soon…

On the drive, I was doing a bit of research into the currency exchange from Quetzales to the El Salvadorian currency. And to my surprise, I found out that El Salvador uses US dollar and bitcoin. It’s one of the only countries without its own currency!

It took a few hours to drive to the border and we ended up crossing at a border neither Janny and I were expecting. We crossed further west at La Hachadura, El Salvador… when crossing at the Aduana Frontera would’ve put us a short drive away.

Oh well.

But that wasn’t the only exciting thing! For some reason it was taking the older gentleman a longer time to get stamped out and into El Salvador. There was a lot of discourse happening between him and the border control officers. Well it turns out, he had only 3 days left on his visa. He assumed that if he went into El Salvador it would be enough to extend his Central America visa, that allows you to go into Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua on the same visa.

He obviously did not do any form of research before booking this trip.

And because he only had 3 days left on his visa, they turned him away at the border. Not what you want to happen AT ALL when traveling to another country. Now not only was he stranded at the border, he also lost out on his van later in the day that was going to take him back to Guatemala. Visa information is VERY important!

So… our van left him and continued on.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t the only excitement on this travel day. Our drive started to take suspiciously long and we were going wayyyy out of the way for Altaco and Santa Ana (where Janny was going). I finally asked the driver, in Spanish, hey why are we going this way? The driver responded saying a road was closed in the mountains so we were going around.

Okay… but we’re well past Altaco now! Confused, we trusted the process and eventually came to a rest area where we were waiting for another van. One to take Janny to Santa Ana and one to take me to Altaco.

Or so I thought!

The second van showed up and my driver said okay that car is for Santa Ana and this car is for El Tunco… I said no, I’m going to Altaco. The drivers face dropped and he said “… no El Tunco…” I pulled out my phone, showed him my ticket, and said no, Ataco!

We were very far away from Ataco. The two drivers started talking to each other and I stood there and thought about it. I was planning on going to El Tunco tomorrow anyways… so what’s the matter with missing a town I don’t really know anything about. My only reason for picking it was so I didn’t spend all day in a van, and I already had!

The only problem was I had already booked a stay in Ataco and I had no stay in El Tunco. So, in Spanish, I said “screw it, let’s go to El Tunco, I’ll book accommodation along the way.”

So off to El Tunco I went!

Views of volcanos on our ride:

I found a hostel in El Tunco and tried to reach out to the place I booked to plead to them to cancel my booking for me so I wasn’t charged for it… but I think I was just out of $15 which sucks but isn’t the end of the world.

There were three nice reasons for why heading to El Tunco now was actually great! The first is I’d be near the beach already, the second is I was a day earlier than I thought I’d be which means I could get to the new volunteer opportunity quicker (which means no more paying for hostels and busses), and the third was my friends Maya and Jakob were actually in El Tunco currently!

I knew I’d be one day behind them throughout my journey to Nicaragua. So I just assumed I’d potentially see them in Leon, Nicaragua. But now it meant I’d get to hang out with them tonight! Silver linings in the chaos of traveling.

As we got closer and closer I started getting glimpses of the ocean! The waves were looking pretty big so I was excited to see some surfers in action later in the day.

I got to my hostel and checked in. The front desk attendant was super helpful and wanted to tell me every detail about the hostel. She didn’t realize how tired and ready I was to plop down… but after telling her I was going to practice Spanish instead of using English with her, she did the whole spiel in Spanish. I caught about 75% of it, but I was ready to be in my room.

The tour was finally over and I thanked her. I unfortunately didn’t have a ton of time to sit and not think… I had travels to plan. The first thing was filling out a form for crossing into Nicaragua. I’m not sure why Nicaragua makes you fill out a form ahead of time, but my friend Maya gave me the heads up so I made sure to do it. They also warned me it was a pain in the butt to do on the phone, so I whipped out my laptop, sat on my shared room’s balcony overlooking the last rows of buildings and the beach, and got to work.

It took me around a half hour to finish up the form, but then I was good to go. The issue was the website liked to switch back and forth between English and Spanish, which would sometimes reset your form. It also had a drop down for your profession, which wasn’t in alphabetical order and some poor intern had to input every single profession imaginable… it was a nightmare to find engineer (the country drop down was bad too and for some reason the USA was under the Vatican… I guess they’re both religious states? Just kidding).

The last page of the form asked for a person of contact in Nicaragua… I put all the information I could about the contact I had at the hostel. But then it asked for an ID number, Reddit told me to fill out it in a specific format and put random numbers. So, fingers crossed the helpful online travel community is correct about that!

I sat in the AC dorm room for a bit waiting to meet up with Maya and Jakob. They suggested a bar overlooking the ocean for sunset and I was very game for that. Now my hostel was 10 minutes out from the city center. The host had told me there was a bus that would take you into town for $0.25 and I went to the street to find it. It took about 10 minutes but a school bus finally showed up and I handed the driver a dollar coin… and he accidentally gave me a dollar back in tiny change (but I didn’t realize this till I was paying for the beer I had later).

This chicken bus was full of school kids funnily enough and it was a ruckus of a bus ride. Lots of yelling and screaming… but I made my way to El Tunco cheaply and quickly.

I walked on the boardwalk along the beach and made my way to where my friends were at!

We had surfers on both sides of the beach to watch and 1m to 2m waves that the surfers were crushing! An interesting thing though was that the beach wasn’t sand, it was very very rocky… not really ideal for a beach day!

I caught them up on my travel stories and I heard all about what they had been up to in the past week since I last saw them. We also dove into some deep chatter about life, politics, and the like. It’s really nice seeing familiar faces again and even though I really haven’t known them long, it felt like reconnecting with old friends.

I hadn’t had anything to eat since breakfast and was VERY hungry by this point. But when I’m traveling I don’t drink much water or eat much because I’d rather not have to hold anything in while on these long rides. Not the healthiest, but it works!

The picture above doesn’t show all the food we got. We each also got 2-3 pupusas, the national dish of El Salvador! I also got a gringas which was a quesadilla with no cheese and lots of meat and onions marinated in a delicious sauce. For all three items, it was $6.50 for each of us. Pupusas are $1 each in most places!

While we were eating a torrential downpour rolled through. We waited for it to die down and then called it a night. Maya and Jakob waited for my uber to arrive (it cost $2?!), I didn’t want to wait in the dark and rain on the side of the road for a bus that might not come.

They also had a bus at 3am and I had one, or so I thought, to catch at 9am… but it can’t be easy for me in Central America, can it?

I got back to the hostel and ended up playing a game of pool with a couple German guys. Then I actually called it a night.

I woke up on Friday, August 29th at 3am. My stomach hasn’t been doing the best lately, but that was the least of my worries this morning.

I checked my email to see if my van ride had confirmed (I had bought it around 6:30pm the day before after I found out what hostel Maya and Jakob were staying at). And… it wasn’t. In fact it had failed for some reason!

So at the wee hour in the morning, I got to work scrambling to find a company I could book through. It took me a while, but I finally found one, and with one last ditch effort, I booked it and hoped! Thankfully I was able to fall back asleep even though I was a bit stressed.

To be completely fair, I didn’t have to go to Leon, Nicaragua tomorrow. But I did want to make my way to El Tránsito as soon as I could and get the volunteering show on the road.

I woke up to my alarm at 7am, this was the time the companies should’ve been opening to receive communications through WhatsApp. I sent a message to the company, because I still had no confirmation, and I got ready for my day with the assumption I’d be heading out still.

I sat and stressed and waited… and 20 minutes later I heard back! It took a lot of back and forth in Spanish, but I finally found out there was in fact a seat for me!! I was elated! Until the price of the ride, every few messages, would go up by a dollar or two. At this point I was asking the lady at the front desk for help and she was like “this is absurd they’re changing the price.”

But the person on the other end threatened to cancel the booking if I wasn’t okay with the $3 more… so I said okay and confirmed that I was good to go. Unfortunate…

I had to head back into El Tunco for an atm, so I set out to the main road to catch the bus. This time it was a mini bus and I walked out just as it was pulling up!

I met a nice German traveler from my hostel on the bus and chatted with them as I walked to the ATM and they walked to their surf lesson. I hope it was fun for her, she was a bit nervous!

I got my cash and headed back to catch the bus back to my hostel. When I got back, I sat down at a pupusa restaurant that was on the corner and got 2 pupusas for $1! Not a bad breakfast.

I then waited in the AC of my room until 9, waited on the couch until 9:30 (which was allegedly the earliest the van would arrive), and then waited at a table overlooking the car entrance to the hostel for the next half our. The van finally arrived a few minutes after 10am! I was getting stressed it wasn’t going to show up.

I paid the driver and expected to get into a very packed van… why else would the van cancel? But nope! It was just me and one other traveler. I have no idea why I had so much difficulties.

But I was in the van and on my way to Nicaragua, with a smile on my face I should add!

We passed by more volcanoes on the way and for the first leg of the journey I slept, listened to music, and read a bit.

The journey today was from El Salvador, crossing into Honduras (again), and then exiting Honduras to enter Nicaragua! The first leg took around 5 hours.

We arrived in El Amatillo to cross the border into Honduras. At first a border officer came over and took a look at our passports and signed a form from the driver. I thought that was it! But nope. We then had to get out of the car and get a piece of paper filled out with our body temperatures on it… we then walked a couple minutes to the under construction immigration office and had to pay $3 to get our passports stamped and enter the country.

But after that, we were back on our way for the second leg of the journey!

This leg took us through Honduras and to the border of Guasaule, Honduras. It took around another 3 hours (probably a bit more).

We got a beautiful sunset on the way too!

Each time, so far, I’ve been in a shuttle that crosses the border in Central America there’s a two lane road leading to the immigration office. The right lane is ALWAYS filled with semi trucks and the driver of our van goes into the oncoming traffic lane to bypass all of them. Usually every now and then we’d have to pull back in or onto the shoulder to let the oncoming traffic pass and it was fine. This one was a bit sketchier.

At one point we were driving on the sidewalk and another point we were squeezing through the smallest gaps between the semi trucks.

The icing on the cake though was the Nicaraguan border immigration… it was intense!

But before that, we for some reason had to switch vans post immigration. The drivers didn’t seem to know what was going on or why… but another driver had met us and was sorting it all out, I guess he was their boss. So we walked in the drizzling rain to immigration.

The first question I got, at the desk outside of immigration, was if I had the yellow fever vaccine. They weren’t happy when I said no, I’m not sure why. From my understanding Nicaragua isn’t a high risk country for it AND I haven’t traveled to South America or Africa, so I shouldn’t be concerned about it yet. I was a little afraid I was going to end up like the expat from the day before and left at the border… but after a little discussion with my drivers, I was fine.

Or so I thought…

(This seems like a constant trend in Central America for some reason)

We got into the immigration office and had to fill out a paper version of the form I had submitted online. It was honestly much easier by paper. One of the drivers took my passport, presumably to expedite the process of getting through immigration, while I filled out my form. The driver tried asking me when I entered the country and to where and what I’ve been up to… I told him, he went back to the immigration officer, and then when I finished my form he told me to come with him.

I was then brought into a separate room for questioning with one of the immigration officers. And it was all in Spanish. I’m so thankful I took my Spanish classes! I would’ve been in trouble if I hadn’t and I would’ve had no clue what was going on.

They questioned me about how I entered Central America, what date, from where, where I’d been, my profession, etc. I’m not sure what triggered being pulled out and questioned but I have a hunch it’s because I flew into a country, then have passed many borders by land in a short amount of time… but still that doesn’t really make sense.

They deemed my answers acceptable and I went to the regular immigration officer to get my picture taken, pay to enter, etc. But of course the picture machine wouldn’t work for me! It can’t be easy, can it?!

The officer (again all in Spanish) asked me about my profession again, my plans in Nicaragua, where I’m going, and how long I’m planning on staying in the country. When I was trying to explain for the remainder of my visa, the driver butted in and just said 30 days… so I’m HOPING that doesn’t bite me in the butt when I leave the country longer than 30 days.

I believe I’ll be okay since I won’t overstay my visa.

I guess there was still things the officer had to do and the drivers told me to move along, which meant leaving my passport with the immigration officer and trust that the driver was going to sort whatever needed to be sorted out. The reason I got moved along was because in the next room was a bag scanner and we needed to get that done to move on.

We got our bags scanned and then a few minutes later the driver was back with my passport! I had my tourist entry paper, and another paper that in total cost $18… so $21 extra dollars for the borders on this trip. I’m actually not sure that they stamped my passport, so I’m assuming the tourist entry paper is a must hang on to.

I texted my friends Maya and Jakob about their travel (they had to avoid Honduras with a boat ride because the UK and Honduras have changed their laws). Apparently they didn’t get an exit stamp from El Salvador but did get an entry stamp in their passport AND the tourist card when they entered Nicaragua… this whole process was very strange.

But, the stress was over and I was in the country!

We had a few minute walk to our new van and on our walk… it of course started to torrentially down pour!! Why not, right? The weather just had to lend a hand and just add one more “complication” for the day. We got in the van and continued on our way.

The last leg of the travel day flew by and we were just outside of Leon before I knew it! The local that was traveling along with me chatted with me a bit throughout the ride and wanted to exchange contact info before they got out. She was around my age and was finishing up pharmacy school. This was actually super helpful because she gave me good recommendations for where to eat dinner once I arrived, meals the following day, and told me that the city is safe to walk around at night especially where I was staying.

I got to the hostel around 9:45pm and thanked my drivers profusely! They made sure I got into the country when I wasn’t too sure I was going to be able to. When I walked in, I was met with a live band playing for a full restaurant. It reminded me of the hostel in Noosa, Australia where my room was by the dining room of the restaurant.

I saw my friends, said hello, and then went out into the city to find dinner. I was told there was cheap street food outside of the church at Central Park. So that’s where I went! I got a big piece of chicken (with super tasty seasoning), a small salad, a tortilla, and the national dish Gallo Pinto, a mix of rice and beans. All of this for 160 Córdoba ($4.35).

I walked back, said goodnight to my friends, who were also hitting the hay, took a shower, and finally could stretch out and relax after a long and semi-stressful day!

As Cage the Elephant says, “there ain’t no rest for the wicked” and I was up at 7am, on Saturday, August 30th, to go to an ATM and to get ready for my adventure for the day!

Where I’m heading in Nicaragua to volunteer, there’s no ATM. So I needed to pull out enough money to get by the next couple months. I didn’t need a lot, but it was still a wad of cash in the local currency.

While walking back to my hostel, I ran into a familiar face. While I was at immigration the day before, a very friendly German traveler struck up a conversation with me. He watched me as I went through my stressful immigration and when I was leaving shouted across the room that he’d see me in Leon… and sure enough, we just did!

His name is Benno and he’s traveling around Central America with his mother! Pretty crazy I ran into him, especially so soon after immigration. He wasn’t even staying near where I ran into him, but it was one of the few spots that had an ATM. He was also joining in on my morning activity through my hostel, which was…

Volcano boarding!

What is this you ask? Well, there’s an inactive (used to be active) volcano that has a bunch of loose small stones down the side of it. And for the sake of tourism, volcano boarding was born (I believe by an Australian, which would add up).

I ate a cheap breakfast at the hostel with my friends Maya and Jakob and then got ready for the adventurous day.

A big group of Nicaraguan tourists were on the adventure today and there were only 6 of us (out of the maybe 60 of us) who were foreigners. But that made for more chances to practice my Spanish with all the friendly people on the excursion.

After a briefing, we hopped on a chicken bus and headed 45 minutes away to the volcano! We were supplied long yellow outfits, snowboarding goggles, and a board. Once we got situated, it was time for a hike… I honestly didn’t think about it before hand, but we had to hike up the volcano while carrying our boards, which were pretty heavy. You could pay $5 for a porter to carry it, but I was determined this hike to do it myself.

We were told this hike would take 40-50 minutes, but it really only took about 30 minutes with stops. It was MUCH easier than Acatenango. Nowhere near as steep, but most of the hike was on loose rock. The views up the hike and at the top were incredible! There was even a view into the volcano crater which was super cool.

After the hike, it was time to get to the main event, the volcano boarding! To be honest, it’s more like volcano sledding, more than boarding. We got instructed in Spanish, and they told us we’d get instruction in English, but it never happened… so I watched as everyone went down the very steep volcano, geared up hoping that no dust and rocks got on them.

They had us sit on the furthest back point of the sled with our feet on the ground to the sides of the board. This was for stability I guess. Some people went really fast, some went slow, some lost their boards and had to walk the rest of the way down… but when it was finally my turn, I went flying!

(I don’t have the pictures or videos yet from the tour but when I do I’ll add them)

The experience was a mixed one… it was a thrilling ride, I hit a point where I couldn’t slow down any more and I felt like I was going really really fast, I just trusted the process and really hoped I didn’t roll off the board. And thankfully I didn’t!

But I got a bunch of dust in my mouth, even with wearing a bandana over it. I had a bunch of rocks flying into my face and body, and I had plenty stuck into my hair… but I did have a blast! When I rounded out at the bottom I went over a bump and actually caught a bit of air!

All and all, it was a good experience. I think it was a bit overpriced for one ride ($35 USD in total), but I had a fun time.

I got dirty with small pebbles deep in my hair, but I lucked out compared to my friends Benno and Jakob.

When we got back, I took a nice shower, but I couldn’t get all the volcano out of my hair. I then headed a few store fronts down from the hostel and had one of the best, and cheapest, lunches I’ve had in Central America (70 Córdoba).

I met back up with Maya and Jakob and we set out on our second adventure of the day. Leon had a museum about their history and the revolution. I knew nothing about Nicaragua’s history, so I was very interested in what I was about to learn.

We paid 200 cordobas each for a tour with a local guide. We joined a French traveler and did the tour all together, she was already on the second room. So we did the entire tour and then did the first room last. Of course, we learned all about how the US messed up the country and the multiple times the revolution had to fight back against the US backed dictatorship.

I don’t know much from the US perspective on this part of history… but I had a feeling this museum was a little subjective (of course). But I don’t doubt the US meddled heavily with the country for its own benefit.

After the tour was over we wandered through town for a cafe. Maya, Jakob, and I chatted for a bit about all sorts of topics, mainly pretty heavy and deep topics pertaining to politics, schooling, and life. I always love these types of civil discourse with new friends. It’s nice listening to new perspectives and see what we agree and disagree on!

We wandered back towards the hostel as the sun was setting.

Jakob and I got dinner at the same food stand I had ate at the night before. We even ran into Benno again, who was also eating here after playing basketball with some locals.

Maya wanted dinner at a burger restaurant, so we had a beer and joined her while she ate. After dinner, I was craving a sweet treat. So we went and wandered for one but couldn’t find anything open besides ice cream. I didn’t want to add to my stomach issues, so that was a no go for me. We kept searching and searching and by this point it was pouring down rain, but we weren’t giving up.

We tried a place near our hostel, closed, the hostel across from us, but it was just a party, we went down the road to an open restaurant, but they only had expensive cakes… we had one more attempt, the grocery store. Duh!

We found a very cheap cake and brought it back to the hostel to share with other hostel goers.

We made a new friend, Simon from France, while we enjoyed our cake. But I eventually called it a night since I was going to wake up early for (hopefully) my last travel day for a while.

I woke up on Sunday, August 31st (another month flying by!!) at 7am. I ordered another breakfast at the hostel and once I ate I set out to buy some last minute necessities for living in El Tránsito, Nicaragua.

I then went back to the hostel and then said my see you laters to my friends Maya and Jakob! It had been a lovely time chasing them down Central America and hanging out! I can’t wait to see them again and hopefully visit them in England someday soon too.

I was off! It was a sunny and hot day and quickly into my walk to the bus terminal I was drenched in sweat.

Google maps said the walk was 9 minutes, but when I got to where it said… I didn’t feel like I was in the right spot. I asked a local if this was where the bus to Managua was (the bus I needed) and he said no, it was further of a walk. So I took his advice and started walking towards where I thought he wanted me to go.

This took me towards a bustling market and lots of foot and car traffic. I asked another local if I was headed in the right direction and they told me to keep going. I eventually found a bus and asked if it was to Managua. They said yes… so I hopped on. The bus was packed and didn’t feel like it was for Managua… so when another local got on I asked and they said no. So I got off as soon as we made our first stop not far away.

A little frustrated I walked back and asked another local who told me it was even further! So I trusted them and kept walking. I was very very sweaty by this point. It took one more asking of where the bus terminal was to finally find it. There were lots of busses headed everywhere, large chicken busses to small local shuttles. I eventually found the chicken busses to Managua and got settled in for my journey.

It took about 30 minutes for the bus to fill up and head out.

I had to tell the driver I needed to get off at kilometer marker 44 for El Tránsito. It ended up only costing 35 Cordoba (not even a dollar) for the hour or so ride. The drivers assistant was very helpful to make sure I knew where I was getting off.

The bus arrived at the mile marker and I got off at the intersection of the highway. There was a small store that I set up to wait for my next bus. I saw online that the locals were game to help foreigners get to the town because sometimes the bus would not show up or take a while. Unfortunately for me, only one car for the next 2 hours would pull over to even talk to me. They told me they were going to a town before El Transito so I politely declined.

Online said the bus would show up around 12:30pm but that rolled around and there was no bus… I asked the store and they said 1pm. But as that rolled around it still wasn’t there. Weirdly enough some chaos ensued in the street. 3 men were chasing each other around (right next to a police station too) and caused a small motorbike accident and were banging on peoples cars. Thankfully they stayed far away from me. And not long after the bus finally showed up!

The ride was fairly quick and I soon found myself wandering the dusty streets of El Tránsito. Where the bus dropped us off was a baseball field with a game being played! I guess there’s weekly games, so maybe I’ll try and check it out sometime because it seemed like a fun atmosphere. There were lots of spectators!

I had a nice walk to Free Spirit Hostel and when I arrived, I was met with a warm welcome!

One of the hostel managers, Clara, showed me around the entire hostel and explained more of what my role was going to entail. I was MUCH happier with my first gut feeling of where I had ended up.

The hostel is directly on the beach with a beautiful pool overlooking it. After we wrapped up our chat, I asked where I could get some food, I was super hungry. There happened to be a leftover dinner so Clara offered it to me. The hostel provides breakfast and dinner which is very nice.

I then chatted to the other volunteers and the few hostel guests, threw on my swimsuit, and pretty much spent the rest of the afternoon in the pool, chatting, and watching the very large and choppy surf (and the few surfers brave enough to venture out into the waves).

And as beach sunsets go, I was welcomed with a beautiful one for my first night at the hostel!

Let me tell you, I was in high spirits!

The hostel does a “family dinner” every night where all the volunteers and guests eat at the same time. It was a really nice touch and I can tell once the hostel has more guests it’ll be an even more fun time! But for now, I had an equally nice time chatting with the people I’d been chatting with all afternoon.

We finished off the night with a little impromptu movie night! As the events guy, I helped set up the all the necessities for the movie and we watched a surf documentary from the 80s (I believe) called Endless Summer. I relaxed in a hammock, worked on my blog post a bit, and watched the movie.

It was a really great way to finish off the day and get myself back in the swing of hostel volunteering and of course, beachside living.

I woke up pretty early on Monday, September 1st. I had no reason to be up this early and I honestly had no intentions on surfing early in the morning today. I had a long day yesterday and definitely needed to catch up on sleep… but my body said otherwise!

I spent the morning relaxing in one of the hostels (many) hammocks, worked on some verb memorization, chatted with the other volunteers and few hostel guests, and then had breakfast!

Breakfast is served from 8-10am and we get to chose from a more traditional Nicaraguan breakfast, pancakes, and a fruit muesli bowl (if you followed along on my SE Asia travels, you know I love a good muesli bowl).

Most of us were up at ‘em already, so we ate together. It’s a very nice group to hang out with and eating meals together is a big plus! One of my volunteer roles is updating the activities board, so after I ate I updated it for the day.

After breakfast, most of the hostel was going out for a surf… the waves were quite choppy and the main set of waves were really big. But I thought, why not, and decided I’d at least practice my pop ups in the white wash (which is very powerful here).

Before that, I walked to the laundromat and attempted to pick up my laundry. But it was still wet. So I was told to come back later.

The surf was fun, even though it was a bit hectic. I tried out a 8ft board, the shortest board I’ve ridden! I had a number of nice rides on the white wash and caught one or two “real waves” that happened to pop up while I was out there.

People started heading back in and I decided to as well, no reason to keep fighting against the strong currents and choppy waves. BUT I was back to surfing!

My afternoon was filled with starting up my social media duties that are a part of my volunteering at the hostel. The first main task is to create a social media campaign to promote how cheap it is for Canadians (specifically people from Quebec) to travel to the hostel, surf, take yoga classes, etc. One of the owners is from Quebec and there’s a huge French Canadian scene at the hostel, especially during high season.

Clara, the manager, went over in more detail what they were hoping for and then I got to work! I spent a lot of my time collecting assets for the text fonts I wanted to use (the hostel doesn’t have a set text font branding) and refreshing my memory on cool text effects with the editing software I use. I really enjoyed getting back into the swing of video editing!

I took a break for lunch and wandered two doors over to a restaurant that serves a cheap lunch. You bring your plate over, tell them what you want, and then return 20-30 minutes later to a plate full of food for 180 Cordobas (not even $5).

After I ate, I continued on working. I eventually had a very rough draft of how I wanted the text to look and pace. When I showed it to Clara, she was very excited! Once I add the videos and a music with the text, I think it’s going to look really cool.

I was also joined by my new trusty work companion, snoop! The hostel dog.

We decided to put off going to the tide pools (if you remember the activity sign) until the following day since a storm rolled in. I was hoping the next day would be sunnier and more enjoyable to walk the 10 minutes to swim in the tide pools.

But once 5:30pm rolled around, it was time for a very goofy activity. Almost everyone participated in our afternoon, beer yoga. A little opposite of what yoga is about, but still a silly and fun time. We all had a beer, doing yoga poses, taking drinks in the posses, and saying “cheers” instead of “ohm.”

Beer yoga was fun, but I think I’d prefer regular yoga. It was quite funny though!

We had family dinner, I let everyone know the plans for the activities the following day, and then after dinner I got into a very heated card game of “cambio” (one of the games I played in Antigua with my friends). We even got to a point where we were keeping track of our score, which I have never done before with this game.

We then spent the remainder of our night hanging out on the beach, chatting, and enjoying the ocean breeze! Such a good first full day at the hostel!

I had a really nice full night of sleep and woke up, on Tuesday, September 2nd, for another full day of activity at the hostel!

When I headed out to check the surf, the hostel dog, snoop, was very excited to see me. He wanted to come out to the beach with me and walk with him, so I didn’t pass up on the opportunity. I decided to pick up trash along the beach, I even found a plastic bag to put all the trash in.

Snoop would run on ahead, then wait for me to catch up, and then continue on. I guess he was just waiting for some company to go out to the beach and use the bathroom. He eventually had enough and wanted to head back to the hostel. The ocean the entire time looked like a lot of fun to surf in, but by the time I got ready and paddled out, the waves were big again.

I still spent about 30 minutes or so paddling around. I tried to push myself to get past the break of the surf and attempt some of the regular waves. But I think I’ve lost my surf muscles from Australia, I was struggling! I also took out a bigger board thinking it’d be a smaller surf day. I almost made it out early in my session, but then a big wave came and I just caught the white wash back in.

I surfed the white wash a bit and then attempted to break past the wave break again. This time I was one wave away from doing it, but my arms didn’t want to budge anymore. So I caught the wave all the way back in and called it a morning.

It was time for breakfast at this point. I put my name down for some pancakes and then got to work updating the activity board!

After I ate, I grabbed a guitar and played while I watched the surfers out in the lineup.

My friend Samira (the yoga instructor) got some pics of me playing too! Very nice of her.

At 10am, I went to the yoga deck for today’s yoga session! My plan is to go to as many (if not all) of the yoga sessions that I can while I’m here! Hopefully by the time I’m done I’ll be more flexible than I ever have been. And might as well take advantage of the free yoga!

It was just one other volunteer and I at yoga today, but it was much better than beer yoga. Beer yoga was goofy, but I wanted to actually focus on the yoga, the flow, etc. I really enjoyed it today!

I also felt much better, since I was pretty exhausted after my surf session.

After yoga, I got out my laptop and continued to work on the short video for the hostel’s ad campaign. And while working on that, I helped make sure the pizza Tuesday was flowing smoothly.

Every Tuesday the hostel sells pizza, which were very tasty. The hostel even has a brick oven! We all ate our pizzas pretty much at the same time and then I got back to work. Today I sourced the music I wanted to use and got the video ready to just plop in footage of the hostel and the hostel activities and call it good.

4pm rolled around and it was time to go to the tide pools with the hostel guests. We actually got 2 more today, so we had a nice little group to hang out with at the tide pools.

There were two tide pools to go to, but one was getting pummeled by the waves hitting the rocks. So we went to the smaller, calmer one, and hug out in the water for around an hour. There were a handful of fish stuck in the tide pool too, so it felt like I was swimming in an aquarium.

We got back and hung out watching the sunset. Then it was time for dinner. At dinner I gave the update on the events the following day and then we chowed down on a very delicious and healthy dinner (rice, beans, vegetables, avocado, rice, and chips).

After dinner I helped another volunteer with digging and setting up a fire pit in the sand, just in front of the hostel.

And that’s how we finished off our night! Hanging out by the fire, swimming in the swimming pool, playing some guitar, and chatting with this group of people from all around the world.

I woke up on Wednesday, September 3rd, threw my rash guard on and went out for a morning surf. The winds today were softer, meaning nicer waves for the long board… but of course as I started paddling out, big sets of waves started rolling in.

But, I still had a fun surf session. I tried paddling through the wave break, I got closer this time, but when I thought I had finally broke through… one more wave came hurtling at me. I think in a week or so, I’ll have built my surfing muscles back up to be able to do it!

I ate breakfast, relaxed, and then it was time for yoga!

I felt great after yoga! It was a more core based yoga session but still had plenty of stretching involved. It’s honestly perfect for after a surf session to help relax all my sore muscles.

After yoga, I FaceTimed my parents! Today was their anniversary!!

I caught them up on everything going on over the past week, how I’m really enjoying my time in Nicaragua so far, and we chatted about their plans and what they’ve been up to. It’s nice we’re pretty much on the same time zone! It makes calling much easier.

I peppered a volleyball a bit with one of the hostel guests and then had my first meal of ceviche since coming to Central America. Ceviche is fish (and other seafood), vegetables, and seasoning. It was really tasty, but not the most filling.

I spent the majority of the afternoon working on the advertisement and other social media duties. I even got into filming parts of the hostel for the advertisements video… but a huge thunderstorm rolled in, so I packed up my electronics.

The hostel sat and watched the storm rolled through, there were some impressive lightning strikes. We also danced around in the rain a bit too!

Dinner rolled around and then it was time for hosting my first karaoke night at this hostel! Obviously I’ve had my fair share of karaoke nights at Taco Shack. It was a lot of fun! Definitely a different vibe than Taco Shack since there are wayyyy less guests. But fun nonetheless.

We sang for around 3 hours before we called it quits and I pretty much got everyone to sing at least one song and I sang my fair share and so did all the other hostel volunteers, which made it a very fun night.

Well, it’s safe to say I’m very happy with my decision to come to El Tránsito, Nicaragua! I’m looking forward to seeing how the next few weeks go. But for now, I can already tell I’m going to really enjoy my time here!

I’ll see you next week for some more hostel shenanigans, surf sessions, and plenty of Yoga as well! I’m curious to see if the hostel picks up more… but I guess we’ll have to find out together.

– Elie