Days 759-765! Sorry for yet another late blog post. Unfortunately, part of living in tropical paradise is power outages. Fortunately I haven’t experienced many lately but this week was full of them. With all the wind we’ve been getting, the ocean has become very cold again and the waves not that great, so by the end of the week I was taking some time off. Pretty crazy it’s already February and it’ll soon be time for me to fly to San Diego!

I started Thursday, January 29th with waking up later than I had all of last week. The early morning surf’s were behind us because high tide had pushed to almost 11am (around high tide is the best time to surf at Playa Maderas). After waking up at 7am, I took my morning slow, ate breakfast, read, and then got ready for surfing.

Philip picked me up in his truck and we went down to the beach… and the waves were not what we were hoping for. Usually mid tide is an okay time to surf, but today it was not. The waves were all closing out, super steep, and were forming really strangely. I think there was a strong cross rip causing the waves to become big wedges. Philip immediately said he was going to head home but I decided I’d stick around and see how the waves looked as the tide came in.

I sat in one of the closed bars with some other surfers waiting to see if the surf got any better. I met an older surfer, Rick, who’s 73 years old and still surfing! He said the waves were not fit for him today. By 10am, the waves were looking a little bit better, but by this point I was itching to get in the water. So, I went in.

The waves did in fact get better closer to high tide. It took a while, but in the end I caught a couple really nice rides with a few turns thrown in. Mainly though, the waves were big and closing out, which made for some more intense paddle outs. There was a handful of people in the surf lineup that I knew and I chatted with them on and off throughout the session.

After around an hour and a half, I caught one final wave in and headed back to the hostel. By the time I put my surfboard away and showered, it was 12:30pm, which meant it was lunchtime!

After lunch, I settled into a hammock and read more. I also finalized a new trivia night question sheet because tonight I was hosting the hostel’s trivia night. Post lunch, there were a lot of check-ins. The hostel was completely full starting today and we had a bunch of people checking in… and most of them came around the same time.

One of the new guests wanted to skateboard, so Evan and I joined them at the hostel’s skate bowl. The owner’s son also joined us and I finally got to see him skate in the bowl. He was insanely good! I road the surf skate a little bit too, but then it was time for dinner.

Evan and I made our dinner together which consisted of gallo pinto, refried beans, cucumber, potatoes, and tostones. It ended up being a hearty feast.

After dinner, it was time to host trivia! I had taken one of the trivias I had made for Free Spirit Hostel and revamped it for Hostel Clandestino. Originally I was supposed to host it with Stephan as well, but he ended up being busy, so I hosted it by myself.

This wasn’t that big of a deal because I’ve done this a handful of times while volunteering at hostels around the world. We ended up having 16 people making up 5 teams. I went through 4 rounds, 10 questions each. The first round was all about Nicaragua and San Juan Del Sur. The second was all about surfing. The third round was a picture round where the guests had to answer the cartoon characters name that was in the picture. The final round was a music round where they had to answer the artist name and the song title.

I feel like I’ve gotten a good grasp on hosting hostel trivia nights and this one went just as well! It sounded like everyone enjoyed at the end of the night. Also for having to host an event for the first time at the hostel, I felt like this one went very well!

After trivia I turned on and off the well pump and then called it a night.

Friday, January 30th started off with a bit of reading and then a team breakfast. We had been talking about having one for a week now and finally had the time to do it. Stephan and Philip prepared the breakfast for all of us. They bought some gallo pinto from the market for 50 cordobas… I wish I had known that this was an option when I was hanging in the city! That’s cheaper than I can make it for I think, and it tastes so much better.

We also had eggs, avocado, a little salad, and fruit. I already spend a fair amount of time with these four, but there’s something nice about sitting down and enjoying a meal together.

After breakfast, I went back to reading. Surfing wasn’t until around noon today so I was biding my time until then. I was also waiting for the food truck which didn’t come until after I had left for surfing. Thankfully, Evan was willing to pick up the grocery list of fruits and veggies I needed.

At noon, Philip came and picked me up and we headed down to the beach for a surf (we passed the food truck on the way down). I stretched and entered the water immediately, Philip went on a walk with his dog first. We arrived just before high tide and the waves were pretty small. Quickly though, the sets started rolling in and I was able to catch some fun waves. I started with a nice right wave where I threw in a couple turns on it. The next wave was a left with turns as well, it was shaping up to be a fun surf session.

… I then had a bit of a rough patch and didn’t catch the best waves after that. Mainly because the waves were getting bigger, closing out more, and I was having a hard time reading the waves due to the mass amount of wind sweeping across the ocean. Eventually Stephan joined us and I ended up surfing for over 2 hours. The waves started closing out too quickly for me and I was tired, so I went in after a big closeout wave.

There were actually some really big sets coming in during this session. A couple times I caught a wave and then was in the impact zone of some of the big waves. It was good practice for surfing beaches with heavier sets, since Playa Maderas has been fairly small recently.

I hung out at Sunset Bar with Philip and Stephan. We chatted and played some chess on Stephan’s phone, passing around the chess game after each move and playing whatever color’s turn it was. We were also waiting on some locals to show up to play baseball on the beach… but they never showed up! So Stephan convinced Philip and I to go out for some more surfing.

It was fairly low tide, but the waves were still holding up, for the most part. We went out for another 30-40 minutes and I actually caught some nice waves. One of which was one of my steepest pop ups and best take offs on a steep wave. I was able to pump down the wave and out of the closing section, but I ended up too high on the wave when the next section closed, so I missed passing that section and got launched off my board. And the wave before that one my board flipped and I landed on my fins.

The combination of this, I’m assuming, is what caused what came next. I was exiting the water and flipped my board over… and I was missing a fin. It had completely snapped off. That was not ideal. I talked to Philip and Stephanie, and they suggested I talk to the surf coach that was hanging in the bar. He told me he might have the exact fin back at his surf shop, so the following day I was planning on following up on that.

We headed back to the hostel, where I showered, had a quick bowl of noodles for a very late lunch, and then dove into a poker game with Evan, Stephan, Philip, and one of the hostel guests, Alex, from France. It was another fun game where I started having a comeback but then was the 2nd one out.

By this point I was very hungry and okay with being done playing the game. I went down to the kitchen and started preparing Evan and I’s meal. Tonight we were doing another salsa night. We made homemade salsa, guacamole, I fried up some plantains, and we made some gallo pinto, with other vegetables, as well.

It was already fairly late after this delicious feast and we called it a night. I was exhausted after almost 3 hours of surfing.

The end of January was here! I’m not sure how the first month of 2026 was already coming to a close, but it was Saturday, January 31st. And to finish off the month, I woke up to the power being out at the hostel.

It definitely went out around midnight to 1am, my fan had turned off in the middle of the night. I didn’t think much of it, power outages happen, but usually they come back on fairly quickly. This one however kept persisting. I spent the morning relaxing and reading. I had breakfast and then went back to reading. There wasn’t much else to do with high tide being in the afternoon and the wifi being down.

I did need to run one errand this morning though. I grabbed my surfboard and went on a walk down the hill to the surf shop of the surf instructor who potentially had a surf fin I could buy off of him. I didn’t have any way to check if he was open except just going and seeing in person, but thankfully he was. We went through an entire box of his spare fins and I ended up having 3 to choose from. One of them was pretty much the same color and size as the other one, so I paid $10 and thanked him.

Around 11am I asked to Evan if he wanted to play a game of Settlers of Catan. He said yes, and we got two other guests, Liz from the US and Alex from France, to play as well!

The game lasted well over an hour and it got pretty intense! I took a nice lead gaining 9 points first. Evan however knocked me back to 7 points (10 points gives you the win) and he also had 7 points. Out of nowhere, Alex shot ahead of us both and took a crazy comeback win after a lot of back and forth between Evan and I. It was a very fun game!

I was glad it ended when it did because high tide was quickly approaching. I had two PB&Js and a banana as a snack and then got ready to head down to surf. The owners were out for the weekend and their dog, Mia, joined me on my walk to the beach. I ran into a friend of the hostel, Mercedes, and she told me that the waves pre-high tide were fun! I was hoping that they would still be fun post high tide.

And my hopes were right!

The waves held up better today and I had multiple nice rides pumping down waves and making a few turns. Before I knew it, it was 3pm and I had already been in the water for an hour and 45 minutes. I kept on going and around the 2 hour mark I caught a nice wave all the way in. But when I turned back around, I saw even more fun waves rolling in, so I ignored my tired body and paddled back out.

I met Robin, from South Africa, in the lineup and he got a good chuckle seeing me paddling back out after saying I was just going to catch one more. Turns out, my one more was a lot more than one more. By the time I wrapped up, I was nearly in the water for 3 hours. I knew I’d be sore in the morning but it was totally worth it for the extra waves I was able to catch.

When I was getting out of the water, I took off my rashguard and then started hearing the sound of plastic hitting plastic… my necklace I had bought in Granada while Ryan was visiting me had broken. Pretty disappointing, I enjoyed wearing it, guess I’ll have to find a new one. Maybe in San Diego!

I walked back to the hostel, rather sluggishly, and found the power still out… a big bummer! I showered and then had a late smaller lunch since I knew I’d be having an earlier dinner with how hungry I’d be. I chatted with Evan and Alex a bit and read some more too. By this point, the hostel had run out of water since Evan and I weren’t able to turn on the water pump from the well with no power.

I started making myself dinner in the dark and just when I was about to start cooking, the power came back on! We could hear cheering up and down the hill the hostel is on as the community was all getting power back at the same time. Evan immediately turned on the pump supply the hostel with water again.

With how much I’ve been surfing, I was super hungry. I ate a full plate of my usual dinner, snacked on some cereal that a guest left behind, and then decided to make myself a bowl of noodles too. I probably could’ve kept eating but I restrained myself.

I finished the night by chatting more with Evan and Alex and a little bit of reading before crawling into bed, exhausted, and passing out.

I’m not exactly sure where the month of January went, but it’s Sunday, February 1st! I woke up to a super windy day, making me skeptical if there’d be any surfing today. The past few days have been super windy too… but today was taking the cake.

I also woke up in the middle of the night to the hostel cat, Leo, biting me. I must’ve kicked him or something in my sleep… but I promptly got him out of my bed after he pulled that stunt.

I spent the first bit of the morning finishing up a bracelet I had been working on. It was a simple one using leftover string I found when Adi left, but I like how it turned out!

I had breakfast and then settled into a hammock to read. I didn’t get very far into my reading because Philip showed up to the hostel. Our cleaning ladies both had to take toady off, so it was our job (Evan, Philip, and I) to clean the hostel. I ended up having to clean up the kitchen, which was nowhere near as bad as it was in Costa Rica, Evan swept all the community spaces, and Philip cleaned the empty rooms.

Philip was doing some hostel laundry, so Evan and I threw some of ours in as well. I read a bit more after that and then hung up our laundry… but I wasn’t very optimistic that it was going to stay hung up with all the wind. When I went back later in the day, I was met with a majority of it still hanging, but a fair bit was strewn about on the ground. Oh well!

Evan, Alex, and I dove into another game of Settlers of Catan, which Alex proceeded to win again. I’m really happy getting back into playing this game, it’s a blast! We had to pause in the middle of the game though to finish making a few dorm room beds that Philip didn’t get to. We started up a second game, but Philip had come back to the hostel and needed some more help with the VW Bus room.

The room’s wooden window shade was getting stuck when opening and closing. We needed to sand it and sweep up the room afterwards. Philip and Evan did the sanding and I did the sweeping. This ended up taking much longer than we thought, and I was very hungry afterwards, so we put Catan away and had lunch.

I was full and tired after lunch. I took a nap in a hammock and when I awoke, I went down to the beach for a surf. The waves that I saw when I arrived were not what I was hoping for. I had a feeling that with all the wind the waves wouldn’t be very good… but the waves today were teeny tiny. On top of that, the water was very very cold. That combined with a bit of muscle strain under my shoulder, I decided to only surf for around an hour. I maybe caught a handful of waves, but unfortunately most weren’t worth the effort.

After I got back, I played some guitar and while the sun set I FaceTimed my parents.

There wasn’t a crazy amount to update my parents on, I’ve pretty much just been hanging at the hostel and surfing. But it’s always nice to chat with them nonetheless! And I got to share with them the gorgeous sunset from the hostel.

There were a couple late check-ins, one of which was Rita, who was here a week or two ago. After getting everyone checked in, I had dinner and then Peter and his friend Jack came over to the hostel for a jam.

All three of us were playing guitar and switching out who played rhythm and who would solo with every new chord progression. Some hostel guests gathered around to listen to us play as well. It was a very nice way to end the night!

Well I don’t think it could get any windier but it somehow did. The wind picked up on Monday, February 2nd and I spent the night and the morning in sweatpants and a sweatshirt! It was chilly (I know, nowhere near as cold as the winter in the US or Europe, but for Central America! It was cold). I had breakfast and then hopped into a hammock to read, but I didn’t read for long as an early morning Catan game started.

I wouldn’t necessarily recommend Catan, outdoors, with a bunch of wind, but we made do. The game was again, super competitive, but the couple playing as the 4th player had to leave near the end of it. Philip showed up around then and took their spot, but since he was in a losing position, he wasn’t super duper thrilled about that. Soooo I might’ve taken advantage of this knowledge and used it to win the game. OR, I was in the winning position already and it didn’t matter that he subbed in… we’ll never know, either way, I took the victory on this one.

We immediately started playing another and this time I was surely in the lead for the majority of the game. And then, out of nowhere, Philip came back and won! It was a really fun match. We’ll definitely be playing more games since the surf will be off with all the wind.

It was lunchtime by this point and we broke off the game playing to eat. Around 2:15pm, I walked with Alex down to the beach. I wasn’t planning on surfing today, not only because of a slight pain on the underside of my right shoulder, but also because I had to return the board today. But as we arrived to the beach… the shop wasn’t open. I asked one of the other shops if he’d be open later and they said no, but I could leave the board with them and they’d give it to him the following day. I had talked to them before and trusted them, so I left it and then headed over to sunset bar to pay for a drink I had the other day… and they were closed too.

Oh well, I tried! I’d just have to come back another day.

I sat and watched the waves for a little bit, I was glad I took the day off. I was thinking I might be taking the week off to rest while the wind and swell get better, but I hadn’t fully decided that yet. While I was sitting and watching the waves, Mia, the hostel dog, found me and hung out with me for a bit. When I went to head back to the hostel, she followed for a bit and then wandered back to the beach. It was cute that she sniffed me out though!

I went back to reading in the hammock until the owners daughters came back from their weekend in Popoyo. They were very excited to see Evan and I and tell us all about their weekend… and then demand to play with us. I took the initial brunt of the bothering and chatted with them and fought over who got to sit in the hammock. Then I pawned them off onto Evan who ended up playing with them on the yoga deck. There was a lot of thudding, jumping around, and yelling, but I was playing guitar at this point. I also checked in a new guest around this time as well.

I made dinner, did a lot of chit chatting with the guests, and then it was time to crawl into bed and call it a night. The week is quickly flying by and before I know it I’ll be heading to El Transito!

Tuesday, February 3rd brought even more wind and unfortunately knocked the power out over night, so I had a pretty bad night of sleep. But it came back on in the morning, unlike the rest of the week (wee bit of foreshadowing)…

On top of it being windy, there’s a wild legume called Pica Pica or Devils Bean. This lovely plant has seed pods covered in small golden hairs that when they touch your skin cause you to have some serious itching. And of course, with all the wind and the plant being everywhere, it’s getting on everything. So every now and then I’d roll over and then become very itchy. Quite unpleasant when you’re trying to sleep!!

I did my usual morning routine of reading and eating breakfast. Then it was time for more Catan playing. Unfortunately, we didn’t get through the entire game this morning due to Alex not feeling well and needing to go back to bed. I’ve been enjoying starting my day with a board game, it’s been very fun. I went back to reading and I was getting very close to finishing the 5th Harry Potter book!

The food truck came around 11:30am and it brought with it a new fruit! While picking out my fruits and vegetables, the food truck guy shows me a fruit I hadn’t had before and then proceeded to open one up and letting us all try a bit. He called it “nice” and it infact tasted very nice. Very similar to eating a cinnamon pumpkin pie, or something along that line. I decided to get a couple since they were only 10 cordobas each. The new little brown fruit was actually called a Sapodilla and I believe it’s a little version of the zapote I was given on my hike of Volcano Conception while on Ometepe Island.

The power unfortunately went out again and for the entire rest of the day. I ended up reading a lot of the rest of the day and did some surf skating on the owner’s surf skate which was much better than the hostel’s board. I chatted with the owners kids for a bit, played some 2 vs 2 chess with Evan, Stephan, and one of his kids, and then it was dinner time!

Without power, we had a nice ambiance of phone lights to dine to. After dinner, a group of us played the card game “the game” where you have to get rid of your cards while going up from 2 to 99 and on another pile going down from 99 to 2. This got interrupted for Evan and I because we had to help fill up jugs of water with rain water. Since the power was still out, we needed to make sure that all the cabanas and the bathrooms were fully stocked in case the hostel fully ran out of water…

Which it did on Wednesday, February 4th. I woke up to the power still being out and the hostel’s water very very low (we couldn’t pump the well water due to no electricity). This led to a slow morning of reading and Catan playing. We played a 5 person Catan game which I pulled out on top of! It was a ton of fun.

After the game, Alex and I went on a 20 minute walk to the closest minimart, Marsella Minimart. I needed a few more groceries to make it to Sunday, when I’d be heading to El Transito. Also, tonight, we were having a potluck style dinner, where everyone staying at the hostel would bring a dish and we’d all share for one big meal.

When we got back, I made myself lunch, read for a little bit (I had one chapter remaining after this reading session), and then borrowed Evan’s surfboard to go surfing.

It had been a couple of days and my shoulder was feeling much better. The problem now was the water was SUPER cold and the waves were very small. I only lasted around 45 minutes due to how cold the water was and how poor the waves were. But when I got back to the hostel, the power was back on!

I started preparing my food for the potluck. I was making gallo pinto and a big batch of tostones. After I finished up, I jammed a bit with Stephan and his friend Devin. We had three guitars playing in the kitchen while the guests showed up to start preparing their meals as well.

I helped Evan clean up the dining area around the skate bowl, where we were planning on having our family dinner. With the power back, all systems were a go and with the skate bowl all lit up and the buffet of food ready, we had ourselves a wonderful hostel meal.

We had chili con carne, gallo pinto, tortillas, tostones, guacamole, salsas, shakshouka, potato salad, pasta salad, veggies, and fruits. With everyone bringing their own dish we were all able to have multiple plates and enjoy lots of wonderful cooking. This was a really nice evening event and we were able to bring everyone together to enjoy a night of food and chatter.

I had to do a quick check in near the end of dinner and when I came back, Evan and one of the hostel guests were playing a game of S-K-A-T-E (similar to HORSE in basketball, but with skateboarding tricks).

After Evan took the victory, we transitioned into more 2 vs 2 chess. And when the night wrapped up, I went to turn the pump on to fill the water tank. It was a good thing I did since at 11:30pm, pretty much just after I got through all my messages I needed to respond to, I heard a loud BANG and then… the power went out again.

But, you’ll have to wait until next week’s blog post to hear more about the power outages!

As the weeks get closer and closer to my time in El Transito and my time in San Diego, I’m getting more and more excited. I think it’s going to be a really cool experience and the 3 months in San Diego are going to help steer me in the direction of what I want to do next. But only time will tell!!

See you next week! And sorry for the late blog post… blame the power outages…

– Elie