Nicaragua—

Hey guys, I’m still alive. But now I’m sick with the cold. Glad I got it now then when I was at the hostel. I don’t think I’ll ever be timely with my posts, but Mum asked for some photos so I said it would be with my blog post, a good excuse to finally do it. Enjoy!

In Tarantino style, I’ll be writing this in non-linear order. While I have had content for a while, I have long neglected this post for over a week. I’ve had a polar change in living environment. I’ve exchanged the social, hectic atmosphere of the partying backpacker, staying at one of the most popular hostels in town, for an immersion in the local Nicaraguan lifestyle, living with a typical Nica family in their modest home, having to deal with Spanish as the single method of verbal and written communication. None of the family members speak English. This is all part and parcel of my attempt to acquire the native tongue, in combination of 4 hours of one-on-one Spanish lessons. My previous experience in Spanish was confined to simple literature, memorising vocabulary flash cards and competitively levelling up my Spanish in the now ubiqutous Duolingo app.

I plan to try stay as long as possible till I am confident that I can get myself out of a sticky situation. That maybe a wee while as I’m still yet to actually learn anything about the family I live with, except their ages and names. You see that, at least in Central America, just saying numbers such as prices are in Spanish, and combined with the differing accents of the locals of each country, even that is a hurdle, with tourists often giving a big cash note and hoping that they get the correct change.

The good thing is the family I’m living with are lovely, have a large, cozy home, I get 3 square, local, differing meals a day, my own private room (which I feel I little bit guilty for, I think I kicked out some of the kids onto mattresses on the floor), and a genuine Nicaraguan lifestyle, which actually isn’t much different from my experiences from some of the homes I’ve been in the Philippines. This lifestyle is far from uncomfortable, they do have running water, though the pressure sometimes stops and. Power gets cut at a regular but random basis, for differing lengths of time. We have Wifi, but that is stolen from the neighbouring buildings. But this isn’t what I expected for the poorest country in the Central and South America. For all I know, they may be in the upper echelons of the local society, but until my Spanish improves, I’ll never know. Also, I’m saving coin not doing much, its $215 USD a week for lessons, accomodation and 3 meals a day.

My days now consist of waking up, having breakfast with the family and making extremely small conversation consisting of “Me gusta …”. Then going out for a surf if conditions are good, jamming on the ukulele or practicing Spanish. Then 4 hours of intense class with my experienced teacher. Important thing is that there is around 2 hours of conversation, which is where I get to flaunt my skills but also get feedback on my speech. I don’t think I have done anything as mentally draining as this, I’m comfortable with logical tasks but never really had the nack for the spoken arts. As for the surfing, here in Nica, there is 300+ days of offshore wind. Despite the favourable direction, it is squally, enough to catch me offguard pull my surfboard out of my pathetic grip while out walking and fly into some rocks. Now I’ve got this fricken hole in my surfboard that I’ll need to get fixed before I can go out again.

Unfortunately, the sheer act of investing time and effort into this masterpiece of prose is akin to having a cream-filled doughnut while on a shredding diet; it only holds you back. While I feel I have adjusted smoothly to sudden change in environment (I’m sure my liver hasn’t had any problem), there are enough distractions as it is here, being a popular party destination for foreign backpackers. Therefore, I am unlikely to update the blog till after I reach my goal of basic conversation proficiency. It is taking every single cell in my brain to assimilate this language, and the most efficent way possible is total immersion (or as close as possible).

Anyway, now to where I left off, leaving Tamarindo, which is now over 2 weeks ago…

En route to Nicaragua

In Liberia

Arriving on another hot sunny day in Liberia, I went looking for a instrument shop. As most of the my friends know, it is typical behaviour to try new things e.g. everything thing I bought off 1-Day in first year uni. What I really want to do know is to be able to jam on an instrument. I’ve dabbled with the guitar, but without any proper feedback, I never got past memorising the chords. During my travel, I got the idea of buying a ukulele and then every day, jamming on it with other fellow travellers, culminating in some epic session at the end of my journey. After an 45 minutes of wandering around the town in the sweltering midday sun, I finally stumbled upon the store, with no help from my understanding of Spanish; the local’s directions were in quick, accent-think Spanish. Plus I didn’t know what straight, right or left was in Spanish. Unfortunately, at $140 USD, it felt a bit too much for my first ukulele, so I put the idea on the shelve on the mean time. I returned to the depot and jumped onboard the bus to the border.

Crossing the border

After a relatively pleasant hour and a half trip to the border, I was dropped outside the Costa Rica exit office where I was easily able to exit with no issue. Once you get the exit stamp, you walk down a long dirt road for about 250m, walking through queues of transport trucks and without any explicit indication, you’ll be on Nicaraguan soil. Occassionally, border guards walking the road will stop you and look through your passport and ask you some standard immigration questions in Spanish, but there is nothing intimidating about it. A few steps into Nicaragua, a well dressed local who would have been in his late 20’s spotted me and asked if I was going to San Juan Del Sur. He most likely inferred it from the large surfboard bag I was hauling around, but I affirmed.

His English wasn’t that good, but he helped carry my surfboard, told me the taxi fare of $25 USD to SJDS and guided me through the immigration process, which isn’t difficult, but finding the right buildings is a little confusing because they are sparsely spread out. Once I had converted my USD to the local cordobas at the border bank, we reached the end of the border area, where a row of taxis and drivers were waiting, with the backdrop being a large, modern, eerily quiet highway. I got taken to a taxi, and put in a taxi. At this point, the ‘taxi driver’ who was taking me around said that he leaves me here and wants a tip. Argh, so I got played. The smallest local Cordoba note I have is 100 so I give him that. I sit in the back seat behind the driver, because my surfboard takes up one entire side of the car. Ok, so I won’t be able to taxi with others while in transit. Finally, we hit the road for the 30 minute trip to San Juan Del Sur. It’s 5pm now, the highway is empty except for trucks.

Arriving at Casa De Olas

Eventually, we take a turn off on the main highway onto another to SJDS. Before we hit any significant sign of a town, the taxi took a turn off onto a dirt road up the hill through some arches, with some signage for the Casa De Olas and Naked Tiger hostels that are perched at the top of the hill. After struggling and getting bumped around in 1st gear up the poorly maintained road, I was greeted with an epic looking hostel.

Casa De Olas (a pretty cheesy name, “House of Waves” in English) is one of the most popular hostels in San Juan Del Sur, as it offers the best combination of the party lifestyle but also a beautiful place to chill and escape the mayhem that can ensue at the more lively hostels. Unfortunately, it’s popularity and ability to suck people into staying longer means that they don’t take bookings, you just have to turn up and hope there is a bed available. This is to not to kick existing people out, which is the last thing you want to wake up to, the owner over you saying your bed is gone. I felt a little worried with my chances arriving at 5pm on a Thursday evening. The main entrance leads up to a long rectangular shaped pool, which is the centerpiece of the hostel. I waded through the guests relaxing by the poolside to the bar, which is is at one end of the pool. I meekly asked if they had any beds available. A quick look through their book and there were beds available in their surf dorm. Yes, time to finally relax.

The mixture of people staying here has also been different. There was a much more equal distribution of (western) nationalities. For the majority of the guests, they were all on 3 months and upwards OEs, mostly doing the Gringo Trail and have started in Mexico or Guatemala, but some starting in Bolivia. I must say it was not only an awesome bunch of people, but also inspiring. One particular lad, Daniel from South Africa, who despite having an accent like he just got of the boat from SA, had spent the last 4 years travelling the world, eventually spending the past year or 2 in Europe, finding work in the boatyards in Barcelona, Spain. He then gets the opportunity to sail across the Atlanic Ocean over to Central America. His tales of his camping escapades, his encounters with people around the world, especially the Sengalese, everything - epic. There are many other interesting life stories, but this particular one stood out. Also found some Kiwis staying here as well, pretty stoked with that. You know it’s a diverse mixture when they have the Premier League on the big screen, then after, someone puts on Super Rugby, with intense discussions about ice hockey in the background.

First night out

I have not had a night out where I had commited myself to recouperating the next day. After dumping my possessions in the room, I sat at the hostel bar and mingled with the other guests. Happy hour is from 5pm till 6pm, and I had 10 minutes left to take advantage of $1 USD local beers and $1.50 Buzz punches, named after their pet spider monkey Buzz, is just a mixture of the local rum and juice.

San Juan del Sur

I really like the township of San Juan Del Sur. It is bigger and more developed than Santa Teresa, the first town I stayed near in Costa Rica, but has been able to maintain a rustic feel that Tamarindo does not have, with many of the buildings being single storey and having wooden façades. It is also small enough to get to all the necessities on foot. Unfortunately, the surf breaks are all a drive out of town. That is the one thing I miss about Santa Teresa, we were literally living besides the breaks.

I could go into detail with each thing I did over my stay, but skip the monotonous stuff, be terse and bullet point all the memorable things:

• First night out, beating the challenge at the Loose Moose Canadian bar of 5 modified Cesar shots, with significantly increased chilli factor. I only participated as I was egged onto, and at that point in time, I needed some clean clothing and won a pretty slick looking to. Unfortunately, it’s not the hardest of challenges (they keep changing it), and now a few people in town are wearing it. Also, the Cesar is the most bizarre but unique cocktail I have had to date, but unfortunately it is not my cup of tea at all. The canadians I met rave about it. Clam broth and tomato juice anyone?

• Carla and Fred advertising on whiteboard that the local music festival on Saturday had free beer and chicken. The catch was that it was 15 minutes, which defied any sort of common sense. Many of us were lured down the the festival at Playa Hermosa, only to find out that it was actually the name of a band. Of course. To say I was fuming was an understatement, many people who know me know how much I love eating food at festivals e.g. every Marlborough Food and Wine festival I’ve been to.

• My first Sunday Funday Pool Crawl. Racking up the second highest bar tab of the day at the hostel (okay, not a proud moment), first position going to an ex-owner of a chain of golf courses i.e. has money to burn. It wasn’t that high, we are paying local bar prices here. Also, drinking and diving do not mix, I eventually smash into the bottom of the pool. At least I didn’t knock any teeth out, only cut the bridge of my nose. Not too bad, some girl cut her head attempting a flip and hitting the pool edge. Natural selection will get me someday.

• Buzz escaping her confines during the night. By morning, people waking up to go see a particular guest, known for his hillarious antics, still asleep (or at least appears to be) getting some love by the hands of Buzz. There is an explicit photo of it floating around Facebook, but I’ll save this person from any more embarassment, but it doesn’t take any imagination at all to conjure this picture up.

• Jesse a.k.a Jesus’ last night as part of the bar staff of Casa, and in Nica. Precipated by free drinks at Happy Hour, that particular Tuesday night just erupted magnificently for everyone. The Taco Shop staff and random people I run into in town and around as the one that devoured 4 burritos, simply because they didn’t have enough change for 500 cords and 1 burrito. I’ve defintely had my fair share of Tacos, Burritos and Quesadillas here.

• Finally going out for a surf, at Playa Maderas, one of the popular beach breaks here which unfortunately gets supercrowded. Playing my first game of Yahtzee in years and getting my ass kicked in it.

• Regularly experiencing the nightlife in boardshorts only because there isn’t a dress code here. Means your top isn’t drenched in sweat and you can break out slick dance moves you can’t normally do in jandals (flip-flops for you non NZ/Oz). Attempting to Salsa to the local Nica bands then sweating it out to the modern Reggaeton beats. The song below, I always hear after midnight, no matter where I am in town

• Going fishing with 6 others, with only 1 person catching the only bite we had. At least the jackfish he caught satisfyingly fed al of us onboard. Seeing countless dolphins, at least 7 whales and 1 turtle in the sea around us.

• Buying a Ukulele, only this time, it was $20 USD more expensive than the last one I turned down because it was expensive. Hey, it’s hand-made locally, made of the traditional Mahogany and comes with 2 hours of free lessons. Bought a vibrant handmade carry case from a Guatemalian family, that should perfectly complement my daft looking surfboard case and backpack, as enhance my transit experience with even more stuff to carry around.

• Being peer-pressured into performing the Haka for the hostel on top of the hostel bar. I know did a shameful performance, I do respect it as a traditional Maori war dance and am currently working on improving it so that if I’m put in that situation, I can give a genuine. Glad I was able to share that embarassment with another from the motherland.

• Riding in Chilli’s shuttle, struggling up the bumpy hills, with his only CD on repeat, blaring Gangstas’s Paradise or All That She Wants

• My second Sunday Funday, where I paced myself this time. Swinging on the rails of converted utility truck shuttles en route. Chucking a fellow hosteler into the pool, only to find out she had genuine Ray Bans on her head, stealing a pair of googles and thanking finding them at the bottom, along with a smorgasbord of other things. Getting called out by the hostel owner doing something that I shouldn’t have been doing out on the outdoor lounger on the lawn just after dusk, instead but finding out that I would of got charged if she wasn’t staying at the hostel.

• Many more things I have forgotten.

• Of course, all the people I met, hung out, partied and kicked back with. Sorry to those who aren’t in any of the photos, I was pretty lazy with taking photos, some of these aren’t even mine, you’re still included :)

You may think I’ve been pretty transparent with my tales, but in reality, I’ve been a little surreptitious. You’ll just have to ask me in person for the full gossip :P

Last days

I stayed a total of 11 nights at Casa De Olas. Carla and Fred have been absolutely awesome, I concur with all the reviews on Tripadvisor that they are like your second parents. I popped by the other evening for a leaving party and was offered the hammock for the night and breakfast, all for free. I politely declined as I’d told my homestay I’d be back home by 10pm (I’m pretty sure that is what they understood what I tried to tell them). The more I stay in my Spanish immersion cloister, the quicker I can learn then leave to join the fun again.

As I said before, I won’t be doing another written entry for a wee while. Or I could try, in Spanish. I probably should do a picture-only entry as I constantly get hounded for my lack of photos for over 4 weeks of travel. Anyway, I’m still alive and kicking, just hiding out for the meantime. Next post around, I should be out of San Juan Del Sur, have no clue yet, but outta here. I love this town, but I need to spread my wings and explore more of this beautiful part of the world.

Muchos besos y abrazos,

Charlie