Days 731-737! What a week! This week I finished up my time with my friend from home, Ryan! I then went to El Gigante to meet up with a newer friend, Bohdi, who I met in Gigante a few weeks ago. And to round off a fun week of sun and surfing, I met back up with my friend Anne-Sophie to spend a few more days down in San Juan Del Sur!

Ryan and I kicked off this week with a slow morning on Thursday, January 1st. We might’ve not had a crazy new years, but San Juan Del Sur definitely did. There were fireworks and loud music the entire night, probably till around 7am. When we finally did make it out of the hostel for breakfast, the streets and main beach were still packed with people, who I’m assuming did not go to sleep.

We ate breakfast at our favorite cheap restaurant, La Reina Del Sur and afterwards hopped on our motorbike to head to Playa Maderes.

The waves were picking up at this beach today! For Ryan’s 3rd surf lesson I made him try and paddle into some of his own waves. And on the big foam board he was riding, he was actually able to catch a few!! I was a proud friend and teacher. I still pushed him into a couple, but I was able to let him do his thing and I was able to catch more waves myself today. Which was nice, since there were actually some fun waves to be caught today.

Our Dutch friend, Bob, was also out surfing and I gave him some help as to when to paddle into a wave. It mainly entailed telling him to start paddling, then “yelling” at him to start paddling harder, and then also “yelling” at him to stand up. I did this for Ryan too and they both said it was helping them internalize when they should be catching the wave. Which is exactly how I felt when I took a surf lesson in Australia.

Because the waves were picking up, I decided to try out a 6’4” surfboard. It wasn’t in the best of shape, but the shape of it looked like something I could ride, so I wanted to test it to see if I could. And I was actually able to have a really good surf session with it, which made me very happy!

I always joke that you can’t take a picture with a surfboard unless you can ride it. But I also wanted to prove that I’m definitely as tall, if not taller than this board… I’ve told people how tall I am on the road, and so many times they say “no you’re not.” Like why would I lie about my height!

We got back to the hostel before sunset and were about to head out to the beach. But just before we left, I hopped on a FaceTime with my friend Anne-Sophie to solidify some plans on spending time together after her surf camp! It sounds like she’s been having a great time there, so I’m looking forward to getting some more surf sessions in with her and seeing what she got out of her two weeks at camp.

Ryan and I then set out to play some pool at a bar called Josselines, had a Toña, and watched the sunset.

Our friends Mila and Loris both joined us as well. We sat and chatted for a bit before Ryan and I headed off to get some street food for dinner.

While I waited in an insanely long line for dinner, Ryan was chatting up a group of American’s sitting at our same table. Eventually though, I was able to get our order in and we got to eat our delicious grilled meat, gallo pinto, salad, and plantains. I didn’t get a chance to chat with those people, they had already left by the time I sat down, but a new family of locals sat down with a very cute baby. And I chatted with them in Spanish for a bit.

Ryan and I had been chatting about getting ice cream the entire time we had been in San Juan Del Sur. So tonight, we finally went and got it from the 40 Cordoba ice cream shop.

We met up with Kira and Robyn at Iguana Bar after we finished our cones. They were with two of their friends and we played a big game of Harry Potter UNO.

We wrapped up the night and said our “see you laters” to Kira and Robyn since we were heading to Managua the next morning. It’s always fun meeting people in a different town and then getting to hang out with them in other towns throughout the country. It makes the world feel very small!

We tried having an early night sleep… but around midnight the lights to our room turned on and one of the people in our room comes drunkenly in. He was super loud and started trying to talk to the person in the bed next to his, who had been asleep. It was super awkward and uncomfortable, I felt really bad for the guy who was asleep. I was also annoyed that I was just woken up! Thankfully, the lights ended up getting turned back off and the drunk guy went to bed. I went back to bed too, until 5am rolled around and AGAIN the lights turned on in our room.

This time it wasn’t the drunk guy, it was an older Italian traveler. At this point I needed to go to the restroom. So I got up and it turned out he was trying to light a cigarette in our room by the door… he tried talking to me (very loudly) I was like “dude! Shush, people are sleeping and get that out of the room.” When we got out of the room he continued to try to speak to me and I was like “no, I’m going to the bathroom.” When I came back he tried again and I was like “I’m going to bed…” I was super confused and very tired. Honestly one of the strangest nights in a hostel in my two years of traveling.

Ryan slept through it all somehow and we got up at 7am on Friday, January 2nd. I told him all about the night and we were both shocked he managed to sleep through it all. I spoke to Cooper, the guy who got chatted to during the night and luckily he was leaving the hostel that day so he wouldn’t have to deal with the two other travelers alone.

Ryan and I got an early breakfast at La Reina Del Sur, then we walked to a coffee shop for Ryan to get his caffeine fix for the morning. I was the one who probably realistically needed it, but I’m no caffeine drinker. I got in contact with the motorbike company and we arranged for our motorbike to be dropped off a day early. We were also checking out of our hostel a day early… so we were burning some money, but we had a fun plan in store.

The motorbike guy opened up the shop early for us and I dropped off the motorbike. We headed out for the 9:30am chicken bus from San Juan Del Sur to Rivas. It was going to be a long morning of travel. Our friend Mila was also heading to Rivas and she joined us on the bus adventure. Unfortunately, there was a very drunk and disorderly local on the bus who was trying to flirt with Mila and other people on the bus. It was a fine balance of diffusing the situation and not agitating the man. Eventually, he passed out and didn’t bother anyone for the rest of the bus ride.

The ride was otherwise, uneventful, and we pretty much immediately hopped onto the bus to Managua right as we arrived to the Rivas bus station. Ryan was one lucky guy for not having to really deal with the joys of this bus station… I on the other hand was going to be very familiar with it this week (foreshadowing).

This next bus was a very long one, taking around 2.5 hours to get to Managua. The seats looked more comfortable than the regular school bus seats. But there was no leg room, the bus was hot, and the ride was very long (shorter than it could’ve been).

I dozed in and out of sleep on this ride, with Ryan capturing a cool picture of me sleeping as we passed a volcano. I also grabbed us a snack of a sweet pineapple pastries from one of the many sales people who come onto the chicken busses.

We arrived to the Managua bus station and then got a taxi to our hostel. We were staying at the same one we started at, Oasis Hostel, and when we walked in they recognized us immediately. It turned out they overbooked the dorm room. So instead, Ryan and I were put into a private family room with AC and 4 beds! We were pretty excited about the upgrade and immediately took a nap in the cool air. Not too long later, we were woken up to the sound of our door unlocking and opening. Turned out, they overbooked another guest too, so he was sharing the 4 bed room with us.

The traveler, Sam, turned out to be a really nice guy from the Netherlands. He joined us for lunch at a nearby restaurant that was actually really tasty and very cheap! We went back to the hostel to relax a bit more, our plans for Managua weren’t starting till around 5 or 6pm.

Part of our relaxing was playing more pool. It’s been really nice having Ryan around to make the down time a bit more fun, but our fun wasn’t nearly over yet. Around 5pm, Ryan, Sam, and I went out onto the streets of Managua for a 20 minute walk across the city. Our destination…

The Estadio Nacional Dennis Martinez, the Nicaraguan national baseball stadium!

We stood in a very long line for tickets, being harassed by ticket scalpers and food vendors. We eventually made our way to the ticket window and were able to get 3 tickets for 100 cordoba each! The ticket prices started at 60 cordobas and went to 300 cordobas, which is a very cheap baseball game. Our tickets were on the first base line, which were pretty good!

Today’s game was the Rivas Giants vs the Boer Indians. The stadium was much nicer than I was expecting and much less crowded than I was expecting. But that didn’t stop it from being a very loud and entertaining game! Apparently this game was part of a little round robin tournament that would decide the seeding for the post season playoffs. Boer was the home team and brought a very ruckus band that was directly behind our section… that was probably the only negative of the game.

Otherwise it was very high scoring with Rivas hitting a grand slam and Boer hitting a bases loaded triple play! We left before the game finished, but the final score was 18-9 with Rivas taking the game.

Saturday, January 3rd was here and that meant it was the end of my wonderful 2 weeks with Ryan. We had breakfast, packed our bags, and then sat and chatted a bit about how much fun we had these last couple of weeks. I headed out around 9am, in a taxi to the bus station, leaving Ryan to wait at the hostel for a taxi to the airport later in the day.

Having Ryan around was a blast! As I said earlier, to have a friend around to spend the down time with and to also experience the joys of traveling with was incredible. I’ve lost touch with a lot of friends, but Ryan is one that I’ve kept in contact with, which makes me very happy. That he was so game to go on all the different adventures we went on made the experience really smooth. I look forward to whatever adventure we get to go on together next! I’ll miss having him around.

The reason I headed out before Ryan was because I was headed BACK to the Rivas bus station… my favorite. I needed to catch the bus from Rivas to Gigante (where I was headed next) but there was only one bus to get at 1:30pm. So I needed to make sure my connections worked out. It was going to be another long day as the bus to Rivas from Managua was around 3 hours long and I had just done it the day before.

And, to make matters worse, the bus I got on was standing room only and I was standing the entire ride to Rivas.

The bus wasn’t the usual old school bus. It was more like an old charter bus. Which, made me believe I’d hopped onto an express bus hopefully making the ride shorter. My suspicions were correct and the ride only took 2-2.5 hours rather than 3-3.5, which I was happy about. Butttt it was still a long time to be standing and making sure I didn’t topple over when the bus would jerk to a stop or hit a pot hole.

I listened to music the majority of the ride and tried to just enjoy the ride. But by the end of it, I was ready to be off the bus. I was dropped off at the gas station a little walk away from the Rivas bus station, around 11:30am and headed over on a hot sunny walk to catch my next bus.

I of course got to the Rivas bus station and was immediately chatted up by multiple taxi drivers. One of them claiming to have 2 people already heading to Gigante with him. Turned out these travelers were going to Gigante… but they were definitely not taking a taxi, so I thanked the driver for introducing me to them and sat down to wait for the bus.

The two travelers were a couple who live in Germany, one Nicaraguan, one German, and their 7 month old baby. I was planning on reading while I waited for the bus, but I ended up chatting with them pretty much the entire time. An older traveler, who had been traveling Latin America for the past 22 years, joined us as well and was also heading to Gigante, so we all waited together. The bus finally arrived around 1:15pm which was a fairly long time to wait at the Rivas bus station.

I got a seat on this bus and sat down squished against my bags. This bus was very crowded, as it was the last one to Gigante today. I had multiple people squeeze in next to me throughout the ride as well. The ride took about an hour, it was hot, I was cramped, and I was ready to be relaxing by the beach.

I hopped off the bus around the entrance to Gigante as it was a shorter walk to my hostel from there. Last time in Gigante I stayed at Monkey House hostel, which was a nice spot. But this time, my friend Bohdi was staying at Casa Medusa, just next door. It was a little less expensive and had a kitchen, so I was looking forward to staying there as well. The walk up to the hostel was a very steep set of stairs, and I was looking forward to getting out of my sweaty clothes and into the ocean.

I had met the owner of the hostel last time I was in Gigante and she was pleasantly surprised to see I was the one checking in. We chatted for a little bit, I put my stuff in my room, and sat down to snack on some crackers and peanut butter. I also gave the owner my laundry and she did it for $5, which is on the cheaper side of what I’ve paid for in Nicaragua and was very convenient.

After eating, I threw on my swimsuit and went down the hostels “private beach entrance” to the beach. This is another very steep path but a little less so than the path from the street up to the hostel. As I walked down the beach, I immediately ran into Bohdi who was walking back from his afternoon surf! We did a quick catch up, but I went on my walk and he went back to the hostel with plans to chat more later. When I got to the end of the beach, I body surfed for a bit. The waves were good body surfing waves, not good surfing waves (closing out too much), and I had a nice time swimming around by myself.

I ended up walking back to the hostel and relaxing in a hammock reading and chatting with Bohdi. We continued our chatter as we made our way down to the beach again to watch the sunset.

Bohdi wanted to do a beach bonfire tonight, so we also collected wood and piled it up for later. After the sunset, we walked into town, hoping to have dinner at my favorite, cheap restaurant…. But it was closed. So we went to Blue Sol, which is a little more expensive. Seeing how I hadn’t paid for a meal yet today, I thought that was an okay trade off. We stopped by a convenience store afterwards and I grabbed some food for breakfast in the morning.

Bohdi stopped by a friend’s hostel and I headed back up to our hostel to relax the rest of the night. I was exhausted from my two long travel days and needed a mental breather. I worked on my blog post for a couple hours and then Bohdi came back and asked me if I wanted to join the bonfire.

I decided to join for a little and I’m glad I did! We were joined by his friends from the hostel El Tumbo, one of which I had met in Ometepe. I knew she had been in Gigante, but that was over two weeks ago around the time I had left, so I didn’t think she would still be here. We all chatted and listened to music. Eventually I said goodnight to everyone and went to have a FaceTime with my parents before calling it a night.

I woke up and plopped myself into a hammock on the morning of Sunday, January 4th. I spent the entire morning reading. I’m currently reading Brandon Sanderson’s three “in between” books for the Skyward Series (books 2.1, 2.2, and 2.3). But once I finish these up, I’m going to start my first read through of the Harry Potter series since I was very young. In fact, I’ve never read the 7th book so I’m looking forward to making my way through the series.

Bohdi and I went to have lunch around 11:45am at the language school near the hostel. He’s been going there pretty much every day for lunch and the woman working there was very happy to see him. After the very filling meal, we went back to the hostel and got ready to set out on a hike to go surfing! Yes… a hike.

We walked down our hostel’s beach access, down to Playa Amarillo. This beach is about 1.5 kilometers long (just shy of a mile). We walked along it all the way to the end and then cut off back towards the forest, where there was a small opening to a trailhead.

We were welcomed by the shade of the trees, which was much appreciated after a hot walk on the sand. The trail wound us through the forest going up a hill with a decent ascent and then leveling out for a bit before heading back down.

The trail opened up to Playa Coloradas, but this wasn’t our final destination. We continued on down the beach and after about an hour or so of walking, we made it to Playa Penga Drops. This is a well known section for surfers as the waves are formed by a reef break, usually making for more consistent waves.

Today appeared to be a fairly choppy day in the surf and when we got in, we found out there was a strong cross rip that made it so we had to paddle the entire time. Otherwise, you’d be swept feet away from where you were pretty much instantly. Casa Medusa had a nice little selection of surfboards and I decided to challenge myself and go with a much shorter board than I had ever surfed on.

I took a 5’8” dual fin fish surfboard that probably had around 35 liters of volume (if I had a guess). I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to surf it, but I didn’t want to take anything super heavy on our long walk and there wasn’t a huge selection to choose from… so I tested my luck.

We hopped into the water and I had a little difficulty at first paddling out as I found my balance on such a short board. But after a few minutes I got the hang of it and was out in the lineup. As I said, we had to paddle almost the entire time, so I only lasted about an hour and a half in the water. But in that hour and a half I actually caught 6 waves! I was super stoked to have been able to successfully surf such a short board. It was really difficult and I missed a number of waves because I wasn’t paddling hard enough, the waves were also super slow and fat making them more difficult to catch. But I caught some! I had plenty of nose dives too as I got used to where to put my feet on the board.

The waves were nice enough to practice a bit of turning on them as well. With how light the board was, this was a bit easier and the board was muchhh easier to duck dive too. The water was fairly crowded for the amount of waves to be caught, but Bohdi and I had a blast. Especially since the waves were much better than near our hostel.

We got out and hung at the beach for a little bit before we started our trek back to the hostel.

The walk back was a little more difficult after an exhausting surf session, but doable enough that Bohdi and I planned to do it again the following day. When we got back to the hostel, I showered and then relaxed in a hammock reading as the sun set.

I had a couple PB&Js for an early dinner. But earlier in the day, the hostel owner, along with a few of the guests had gone out on a fishing excursion, paid for by one of the guests. They caught three big fish, two of which they gave to the local guides, and one smaller one they brought back to the hostel. They decided to share with everyone staying at the hostel for dinner, which was very nice of them, and they cooked us up mackerel, potatoes, rice, and a little salad.

We all sat around a small table, enjoying tasty food, one of the guests gave us all a Toña as well, and we chatted late into the night.

I wanted to sleep in on Monday, January 5th, but the sun and my brain had other plans. I was up at 7:30am, and got comfy in a hammock. I worked on this week’s blog post for a bit, I was behind a couple days, and then read more.

I did that till around 11am when I switched to an important task. I’m wanting to volunteer at another hostel from the middle of January till I start volunteering in El Transito again in February. So I started compiling a list of hostels all up and down the Pacific Coast of Nicaragua. I reached out to a bunch of them and then it was time to wait and see if any would contact me back.

Lunch today was delicious peanut butter and pineapple jelly sandwiches. Then it was back to more hostel hunting. Bohdi got back from his Spanish class and it was finally time to head out for a surf!

We trekked all the way to Playa Penga Drops again. Today I decided to use a 6’4” thruster, hoping that a bit more length and volume might help with the lumpy waves at this surf break. We had a nice hike to the beach and when we got to the waves, they looked a lot nicer than the day before. We quickly put our stuff under a tree and jumped into the surf lineup.

Today’s surf session was one of the weirdest I think I’ve had. The tide was causing fairly size-able waves to come from the shore back out to the ocean, which caused the waves to break funky. The regular waves would build up and then become very hard to read as the waves coming from the shore would muddle them up. Sometimes they would even cause the wave to ripple, which a couple times sent me flying off the wave.

But one of the benefits of the two waves colliding was a shorter wave to take off onto, with the power of a big wave, and then the wave would form back into a big wave (but you didn’t feel like you were paddling into a big wave). I caught a handful of these waves and had some fun rides, one of which I was able to complete 3 successful back and forth turns on riding it all the way to the shore.

Today’s surf session also wasn’t a paddle fest. The cross shore rip was nowhere near as bad as yesterday, so I was able to float around in the water more. There were a couple times when I got stuck in the inside of a big set of waves, after I caught one. But other than that it was a fun surf session, with some fun waves, and it felt like a real surf session, which I haven’t had in a while with the swell being so small across Nicaragua.

At one point during the surf session, I was hopping back onto my board and my foot felt something slippery on the ocean floor. My guess was I accidentally stepped on a stingray! Something you definitely need to be careful about in some parts of Nicaragua.

The sun was close to setting, so we made our way back to the hostel. It was a really pretty walk home with the setting sun peaking through the trees.

I showered immediately when we got back and when I took my swim trunks off something strange fell out. While I was surfing, I finished a wave and fell into the water. I felt, what I thought were a bunch of sticks around me. Confused and curious, I grabbed a handful and it turned out the sticks were in fact minnows! There were probably thousands of them jumping around me. Well… I guess a handful of them got stuck in my swim trunks and fell out as I was rinsing them off.

I thought I had imagined feeling them jumping around my clothing but I guess not!

I read for a little bit and then headed into town, by myself, for dinner. Blue Sol was closed, so I went to the house that sells food I was frequenting last time I was in Gigante. I sat and waited, they prepared my food to go, I then picked up some groceries for breakfast and lunch before making the hike back up to the hostel.

I spent the night reading and chatting with an older traveler, Mark, who is a lawyer from the US in Nicaragua going to Spanish language school. After that it was time for bed! I was exhausted from today’s surf session and looking forward to sleep.

Tuesday, January 6th was a lazy day. I spent the morning relaxing and reading in a hammock, finishing the Brandon Sanderson novellas I was reading. I then started into the first Harry Potter book, which I was super excited to get to reading.

During the morning, I received a message back from one of the hostels I had reached out to. They were very interested in having me come volunteer and my timing worked perfectly for them as well. It seemed a bit serendipitous, which is how most of these volunteering opportunities have worked out to be. This hostel was near Playa Maderes in San Juan Del Sur and after discussing what the role would entail and looking into the hostel a bit more, I said yes to volunteering there!

The hostel is called Hostel Clandestino and it looks like an incredible vibe to stay at for a few weeks. The manager I was messaging with seemed super nice too. I think I lucked out and found a good spot! I got messages from other hostels throughout the day, most saying they needed a month minimum commitment, so I’m glad this one didn’t need that.

I made myself more PB&J’s for lunch and then continued on reading. I paid for my hostel stay and had to pay cash, leaving me with only 40 cordoba left in my wallet. Since there’s no ATM in town or nearby, I asked my friend Bohdi if he could give me 20 cordobas (50 cents) so I could have enough for the bus tomorrow. I’ll be heading to Rivas in the morning to wait for Anne-Sophie, then she’ll have to pay for us to get the bus to San Juan Del Sur. There I’ll be able to get more cash again!

Bohdi got back from his Spanish lesson and around an hour later we were heading down the hill for a surf. We didn’t trek all the way to Playa Penga Drops again, instead we just surfed the north side of Playa Amarillo. The waves were okay, but we still had a fun time surfing for 2 hours and watching the sunset from the ocean. I worked on my angled takeoffs (taking off down the wave not towards the shore), which I think are getting much better!

Bohdi and I went out for dinner and unfortunately Blue Sol was closed again. I needed to pay by card which limited our options, and we ended up eating at a restaurant on the beach that neither of us had had before. The food was okay, a little on the expensive side, but we had an incredible sunset view.

After dinner, we stopped by the convenience store, where I got a couple items and put data on my SIM card for tomorrow’s travel day. We also stopped by the 40 cordoba ice cream shop and got a scoop each before heading back to the hostel.

At around 1pm today, the power went out. And it was still out when we got back. So I sat in the dark reading on my kindle till I decided to hit the hay early to prepare for my long day tomorrow.

It was going to be a toasty night of sleep with the fans not working.

I woke up on Wednesday, January 7th after a terrible night of sleeping. Unfortunately the power was still out, but I had a travel day ahead of me… so not much I could do about that.

I packed up my things, said my “see you later” to Bohdi and around 10:20am I set out for my 11am bus to Rivas. I sat and waited and the bus arrived pretty much on the dot. I read more Harry Potter on the hour ride to the bus station and continued reading after I arrived.

I settled down into a chair to wait. My friend Anne-Sophie was headed to Rivas, but it was going to be a few hours till she arrived. Unfortunately my 11am bus was the last one from Gigante, so I had to leave at that time. So, for the next 3 hours I sat and read. I finished the first Harry Potter and got around 30% through the second! I also chatted to some friendly locals who were wanting to make sure I knew where my bus was.

Anne-Sophie finally arrived around 3pm and not long after we hopped on our bus to San Juan Del Sur. We caught up and chatted on the bus ride and checked into our hostel after we arrived. We were staying at Saltwater Hostel, the same one Ryan and I had stayed in previously. After checking in, we went out for dinner, grabbed snacks, and then headed back to the hostel to enjoy a relaxing night watching the first Harry Potter movie. It’s been a number of years since I’d seen it and it was fun to watch just after reading the book!

It was another fantastic week on the road. From finishing up my time with Ryan, to spending a fun few days in El Gigante with my friend Bohdi, to meeting back up with Anne-Sophie, it was a very full week of friends! I’m looking forward to seeing what this next week holds, especially as I start up on a new volunteering gig!

But you’ll have to check in next week to see what goes on!

See you then,

– Elie