Days 619-625! I was able to get some surfing in at the beginning of this week… but by the end of it, the waves were wayyyy too big and messy to be out in. So I had a few days off from surfing, which I’m sure my body needed. But it was still a solid week in Nicaragua!

I woke up on Thursday, September 11th at 6am! High tide was bright and early, so it was time for some dawn patrol (surfing at the crack of dawn)…

But, my body wanted more sleep, so after checking the waves, seeing surfers out and about, and seeing that the winds wouldn’t change too much in the next hour, I went back to the volunteer dorm to fall asleep. When I woke back up just before 7am, the ocean was still full of surfers!

I looked for the 6’10” fish-board that I used the day before, but someone had already taken it out (turned out it was one of the managers, Clara). So, I grabbed the next closest one, a 6’8” surfboard… it was a bit smaller than I would’ve liked, but it would have to do!

I was actually able to duck dive a lot better with this board, but I could tell catching waves was going to be a challenge. It was much lighter than I was used to and the swell was pulling everyone out past where we should’ve been lining up for the waves. I was able to catch one successful wave, so it’s good to know I can actually ride this smaller board.

Buttttt, I also got held under by a wave after a big wipeout and decided to call it quits after around an hour. Now that I’m able to get out into the lineup a bit easier, I definitely want to work on getting my surf session times up! Today was a lot of sitting around and waiting for waves, but I still had to paddle around to get into the right spot… so I just need to keep building up the endurance!

After breakfast, I relaxed by the pool hanging out with other volunteers and hostel workers, and of course, my buddy Snoop.

I was asked to finish up the AD video for the hostel today, so I got to work on it. I was pretty close to finishing, but the last piece of the puzzle was one final clip of one of the surf instructors teaching a lesson. So I got a couple volunteers and one of the surf instructors and did a little makeshift lesson video shoot.

I finished up the video and made two versions with some different styles for the management team to choose from. I found out later in the day, but they really liked it! Which made me happy to hear. We’ll see if they want me to do more of them later on, but I’m glad it’s what they were looking for. When it’s posted I’ll share a link to it!

Just before noon, a couple of the volunteers went out for a surf. One came in pretty quickly after going out because he had too long of a board… but I decided to go out and join the other one for a pre-lunch surf! It was low tide and there were some big waves coming through, but I wanted to take a crack at it.

My friend Matt, one of the surf instructors, was out with me and gave me pointers throughout the next hour. But getting out to him was a slog! I half thought about heading back in after getting smacked by a couple waves. But I trusted Matt’s duck diving guidance from a couple days prior and persisted.

I had another couple big nose dives and one okay wave. But eventually some big sets came rolling in and I decided to call it quits before I was too far in over my head.

It was around another hour surf session, so 2 hours of surf already in the day!

The rest of the day I spent relaxing with my hostel friends. I also worked on a trivia for the nights activity… which didn’t end up happening. That’s okay, I’ll have it ready for the next week and maybe the volunteers will be itching to learn more from my trivia game.

When sunset hit, the waves were still going strong. This will be two straight days of no storms and there no signs of that changing. Instead of pushing my body for one final surf, I decided to go for a body surf instead! I flopped around in the ocean a bit, avoiding surfers, and having a blast! I caught some fun and powerful waves, but I’m going to try again at low tide when I can walk all the way to the big waves. I think that’ll be a lot of fun!

I enjoyed the rest of the sunset with the hostel squad and some of the owners friends. And then it was dinner time! Usually our meals are all vegetarian (it’s one of the draws for some travelers to come to our hostel, and I have to assume it’s cheaper too). But since there are so few of us at the hostel right now, they actually cooked us up a meal with chicken in it.

I was exhausted after dinner and I think everyone else was too. We all kind of petered off to different parts of the hostel to relax. I took a look at the sky and saw more stars than I’d seen since arriving to El Tránsito. I went out to the beach to stargaze and took a long exposure picture that captured the Milky Way super well.

I was ready for bed around 9pm and after writing about my day, I passed out dreaming of what the waves would have in store for me in the morning.

Well, I didn’t get much sleep… so surfing in the morning was out of the picture on Friday, September 12th. The volunteer dorm was super hot and I was in and out of sleep pretty much the entire night.

I was too tired for a surf, but the surf looked incredible this morning. Unfortunately it only got worse throughout the rest of the day. I ate breakfast and then dozed off in one of the many comfy outdoor chairs. And then 9:30am rolled around and it was time for an early yoga!

Yoga actually energized me and I was ready to take on the rest of the day. I had one final edit to do for the hostel’s AD campaign so I spent the remainder of the morning wrapping that up. They were really happy with the final product, so I guess that means I’m earning my stay here!

The normal lunch spot was closed, so I got lunch from the restaurant I had lunch with the other volunteers at last week. It was good, but nothing as good as El Ancla.

I started a new book, but didn’t really jive with it… but the hostel had the second book of the Reckoners series by one of my favorite authors, Brandon Sanderson. So I googled a synopsis (with spoilers) of the first book (Steelheart) and started diving into the second one, Firefight.

Before I got too far in, I FaceTimed with my grandparents! It had been a couple weeks since our last catch up. There wasn’t a ton to update them on, but they definitely could tell how much I was enjoying this new spot!

After I finished up the FaceTime, I took the surfboard I rode the day before out into the choppy, onshore wind, waves. In the white wash, I practiced my duck diving and popping up on the shorter board. I also kept working on finding my foot positioning and balance, which is much different than long boarding. Hopefully the following days I’d be able to get out in the calmer morning waves and take a stab at some proper surfing!

As the sun set for the day, I played guitar and then once the sun set, I hung out with the other hostel volunteers and managers as we waited for dinner.

We had dinner and then ended our night hanging on the rooftop of the hostel stargazing. It was another incredibly clear night of stars and we even caught a handful of shooting stars too! It was a really nice way to end the night and hopefully this time I’d be able to sleep through the night and get an early surf in!

My alarm went off at 6:15am on Saturday, September 13th. It was time for another early morning surf, this time I was actually staying up and going out when I woke up (I got a full night sleep which was very nice).

The tide was super far in, so I waited 15 minutes with my friend Theo and then headed out into the surf with him. It was a battle to get out, but once I was out I had a chance to breathe and relax. The waves were strong and starting to get big, over the next few days they were going to get to a point I probably wouldn’t feel comfortable surfing. But, I was going to take a stab at them and hopefully have a good session.

Within the first 20 minutes of the session (after paddling out), I actually caught 2 nice waves! I was riding the 6’8” surfboard again, having successful duck dives and now a couple successful rides as well! The first wave I caught started on one side of the hostel and finished a bit into the other side, a very solid wave! The second one was a little shorter of a ride, but it was a bigger wave and I felt really accomplished that I caught it.

I was happy to know that I was able to catch waves with this board and start getting a better feel for paddling to catch a wave and my feet positioning once I popped up on a wave. I’ll definitely stick to using this board for the next handful of surf sessions.

I eventually ended up in a bad spot in the water and was getting hit by wave after wave. So I caught a wave all the way back in to reset and paddle back out in a better spot. I managed to get back out after a lot of effort and determination. I tried catching a couple more, with no success, and since the waves were not being super kind to me, I headed back in. I surfed for a solid hour, which in these surfing conditions is pretty good for me!

I watched more surfers head out, then ate breakfast, and then it was time for yoga! I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, not a bad way to start the day!

For lunch, the owner of the hostel wanted to do a little grill and pool afternoon for him, his friends, and the hostel. So the volunteers worked together to whip up smash burgers for lunch.

It was a fun afternoon with the most amount of people in the hostel so far. It was mainly other owners of restaurants and such and of course all the hostel staff and our one guest as well. Some of the other guests had their kids and they were having a good time playing with the volunteers in the pool. We ended up having a pretty big water gun fight which ended when one of the kids demanded that the war was over.

We played some frisbee on the beach and in the ocean before a huge rainstorm came through town. This one had been building up for the last few days and it put on a show! There was lightning up and down the beach and a ton of rain. Pretty much for the rest of the night.

Right before dinner, a guest showed up out of the blue! He’ll only be here for 2 nights but it’ll be nice to have a new face around for a couple days!

I called it an early night in hopes for another successful (and potentially better) early morning surf session.

I woke up to some massive waves on Sunday, September 14th and decided to take my first day off from surfing since I showed up to the hostel. Instead, I watched as other surfers from across El Tránsito paddle out into the largest surf I had seen so far.

I hemmed and hawed about going into the water, but after yesterday’s surf session and my friend Theo, today, almost breaking a board from just the power of the wave alone…. I stuck to my comfy chair. One of the volunteers, Alfonso, was leaving this morning so I said my “see you later” to him.

I ate breakfast and worked on a new Instagram Reel instead. I also spent some time floating around the pool and went on a beach walk with a couple of the other volunteers and the hostel dog, Snoop.

A tough life…

The guest that showed up, the previous night, was traveling with his handpan (steel drum). So after 30-40 minutes of yoga, we meditated and listened to him play. He was really good! It was a nice treat.

After another amazing meal from El Ancla, I read and relaxed, watching the waves and napping on and off. I started reading the second book of a Brandon Sanderson series… I sparked notes the first book, so we’ll see how good this one ends up being with my little knowledge of the series.

Around sunset, I pulled out the hostel’s Spikeball set and played it with a couple of the other hostel volunteers. Also, the second best surfer in Nicaragua lives in El Tránsito and he joined in too! He’s a very nice, soft spoken guy and after a couple matches he grabbed his surfboard and paddled into the big waves of the afternoon high tide.

After dinner, we attempted a movie night, but there were too many storms around the town and it messed with the hostels wifi. So, we called it a night! I was told the following day would be massive waves again, so I might unfortunately have a couple days off from surfing… we’ll see!

I in fact woke up on Monday, September 16th to some even larger waves… so no surfing again.

Today was one of the hostel managers birthdays! The chefs made him pancakes and put candles in them along with some chocolate. They paraded it out and we sang happy birthday to him in Spanish, it was very cute.

The other manager, Clara, came up to me while I was relaxing by the pool and told me that they needed videos of the hostel for a surf competition the hostel was sponsoring. And they needed them ASAP! So, we brainstormed some video ideas to create a montage of different parts of the hostel. For example: people hanging in the pool, playing Spikeball on the beach, picking out surfboards, etc.

Before lunch, I gathered up the remaining volunteers and did a bit of a video shoot with them. It mostly went very smoothly, but some shots were more difficult than others. Especially because some of the volunteers thought it was pretty silly to have to stage “having fun…” which to be fair, it is a bit. It would’ve been much better to film this all during high season!

But, it needed to be done and I was happy to do it. I got enough good takes and got to putting it all together. The owner of the hostel, Felix, also gave me a hard drive that was full of old drone shots, which I went through and picked out the ones that helped make the video better. In the end, I had about 2 minutes of shots that made the hostel look nice, cool, and fun.

I had some time for reading and then it was time to start the birthday celebrations for Bailey. We started out playing washers, a game similar to corn hole or horseshoes. And then the night went into a big party and dinner with the hostel volunteers, managers, owner, friends of the hostel, and locals. There was singing, dancing, and I actually had a fair amount of Spanish practice chatting with a number of the local surfers. They were all super nice guys and it was cool to get to know them outside of surfing with and watching them surf.

One of the birthday traditions in Nicaragua is to have an egg smashed on your head. It apparently is to bring the person good luck.. and I guess is supposed to be filled with confetti, but these were definitely just regular eggs that the locals surprised Bailey with and cracked over his head.

It ended up being a fairly late night, which made Tuesday, September 16th a very quiet and lazy day.

After sleeping in, I spent the morning reading in a hammock and did an hour yoga session with the yoga volunteer, Samira. The session woke me up and I FaceTimed my parents!

There wasn’t a ton to catch up on on my end, I have my routine here and there’s a lot of relaxing and enjoying paradise. But I got to hear all about what my parents had been up to the past week. As always, it was very nice to see them and chat with them.

Afterwards, I went back to reading, napping, and relaxing. A new guest arrived during the day but everyone had zero energy and she was keeping to herself, so we really didn’t meet her until dinner. And then later in the night, a former volunteer, Emilie, came back after a week and a half of traveling! It was great to have her back at the hostel.

Wednesday, September 17th rounds out this week! For the past couple of days I’d had a minor ear infection, so I made an attempt to go to the local clinic to try and get ear drops. Turns out they were closed today so I tried a convenience store in town and they had some! It made for a nice walk around the town, which isn’t something I’ve done since I first arrived (not many reasons to leave the hostel).

I spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon finishing Firefight by Brandon Sanderson. It was a very easy read and the story was pretty cool and entertaining, even without reading the first I enjoyed it… but I wish I had been able to.

After I finished, the hostel dog, Snoop, wanted someone to go on a walk with him. I couldn’t say no, so we went on a walk up and down the beach.

I picked up my laundry that I had dropped off the day earlier. Then we did a lot more chilling out the rest of the afternoon and enjoyed the sunset.

We had dinner and then hung out for a bit more, with the hopes of starting the following day with a good surf!

Overall, it was a really nice and chilled out week here in El Tránsito. Hopefully we’ll have more waves to surf soon and more guests to hang out with. Tonight was my friend Ollie’s last night volunteering, so we’ll have new volunteers heading to the hostel soon! I’m looking forward to the weeks to come in this lovely little surf town.

– Elie