A Walk On Water: San Juan del Sur

So much has happened in the past two weeks! Here I would like to share with you Kristie and my adventure to San Juan del Sur. Two weekends ago we had an extra Friday of teaching off. We took full advantage of the weekend and left on Thursday afternoon after classes to head south to San Juan del Sur. This is a popular destination for tourists and is also a location that Kristie and I had been to before. We were most excited for the surfing!

We stayed at Hostel Yajur, a surfing hostel that I had remembered and wanted to stay at from my visit down here two years ago. The hostel was everything surf, creating a fun and relaxing environment, and to our advantage cost only $10 a night. Here we met friends from all over the country: Bulgaria, Canada, England, Venezuela, America, and France. We hung out with these friends Thursday night and Saturday night before we came back to the school on Sunday.

Kristie and I hit the beach early Friday morning, and took a local charter bus to go to the hot surfing spot of Playa Maderas. When I say local charter bus, think outside of the box. WE were in the back of a truck with a wooden bench in the back to sit. (These informalities have become normal for me). When arriving at the beach Kristie and I rented a board each and surfed the day away.

As the sun began to set we waded in the water to watch it go down in bliss. I couldn’t help but to reminisce and soak up the surf, the fact that I am traveling with a best friend, and all the blessings under the sun. In this moment I was rudely interrupted. As I was floating with my feet in the water a STING RAY stung my foot! I was talking to someone in the water and all of a sudden I felt the sting. I rushed back to the beach not knowing what had just happened to me. A local explained to me it was a sting. I was a bit frightened at first. The veins in my foot began to bulge and the pain began to radiate. They told me to soak my foot in hot water in order to break down the protein in the venom. It was so painful but after about 2 hours of soaking my foot was relieved. I was back to surfing the next day.

Kristie and I camped at Playa Maderas on Friday night. We hammock camped so that we could get the best waves at 9 am Saturday morning. I can’t say it was a terribly comfortable sleep this time. Unfortunately neither of us had a wind block and we didn’t seem to think about a light blanket to bring to sleep with. In all it was an adventure, just like we wanted…and it cost only $3 to sleep there. Great for our tight budget ;)

Surfing on Saturday was again a blast! Thankfully the sting rays stayed away from me that time. After another full day of surf we headed back to San Juan del Sur (only a 15 min truck ride) to stay at our Hostel once again. That night everyone from the Hostel had a bon fire right on the beach where the hostel was located. During this time students from Canada were interviewing everyone around the camp fire. They are a student group who has set out to create a pilot project TV show. They desire to travel the world asking and telling stories about those who are traveling and about their experiences. Again it was so cool to meet and greet people from all over the world with many different backgrounds. One was a cruise ship pilot in training, another had drove his motorcycle from Canada all the way to Nicaragua (and will continue south), another girl was previously a stunt woman in air shows (as in she does flips and tricks on the old double winged planes in the air), two girls from England had just graduated high school and were traveling Central America, a yoga instructor, surf instructor, and so many more!

It was so rejuvenating to take some time away from the school and to get our adventure bugs out of us for a bit of time. It rejuvenated our souls, but by the end our bodies were beat….and burnt ;)