The trailer for Greg and my Film about our time here in Costa Rica.

Second trip to Nicaragua was equally as nice as the first. Perhaps a bit nicer because I didn’t get sick this time. Asaph, Greg and I took two days off work so we could leave on Thursday morning. We left really early and got to San Juan Del Sur at about 1pm. San Juan was a nice little town right on the Pacific Ocean, essentially one long main road along the coastline with a bunch of restaurants and bars overlooking the bay. For surfing you have to take a short ride to playa Maderas. We tried to walk there but it was a bit too far. We ended up hitching some rides with locals to get ourselves a bit closer which sped things up considerably. We couldn’t find the beach we were looking for but stumbled upon some really nice vacation houses that had an amazing view of the ocean with waves crashing over rocks. We hit a fork in the road, one way which was marked private property, so we took the other direction. Apparently this was private property as well, and a security guard with a shotgun asked us to leave. He was nice enough to show us a shortcut down the beach that we could take.

We got down to the beach which was completely deserted. We walked up on the rocks and watched the waves crash against them. It’s crazy how violent the ocean can be. We hung out here for a while, the scene must have looked like the cover of a Christian Rock album… Three dudes sitting on rocks staring thoughtfully out into the ocean. There was an ark half constructed on the beach which was a really interesting sight.

We got back to San Juan and headed over to our hostel Casa Oro. The hostel was very nice, tons of interesting looking people, decent beds, friendly atmosphere. We met a guy who had convinced himself that Asaph and I were Jewish. Apparently Asaph looked really Jewish and I just looked Jewish by association.

The next day we rented surf boards and found some people to take us to Playa Maderas. The surf here was a lot of fun, still not quite as tranquil as Tamarindo, but it was much more manageable then Nosara. We met a surf instructor from Nosara who’s name was Yeti, and a really nice guy from Holland named Sumit. We surfed pretty much the entire day. I caught a few decent waves but the whitewash was pretty strong at this beach too, so I didn’t really get out to the bigger waves. Once the day had wrapped up we went back to the hostel and got drinks with Sumit.

The power went out everyday at 8:00 pm while we were in Nicaragua. Most of the restaurants and bars had generators though. It was pretty creepy when you’d walk down the street and then everything would just die, and you are in the pitch black and all you can hear is ocean. We ran into Greg’s tattoo artist in a bar in San Juan. Greg and him talked for a while about the next tattoo Greg’s thinking of getting.

The next day we got breakfast at an amazing restaurant called El Gato Negro, got some great banana and chocolate pancakes then headed up to Granada.

Granada was really nice. The city is one of the oldest colonized cities in Central America. There are tons of nice old churches we didn’t have time to check out this time around. We stayed at the Bearded Monkey hostel, which was equally amazing. They were low on beds so Asaph slept on a mattress, Greg on a couch and me in a hammock. We were running low on Cordobas so we decided to find a place to eat where we could pay with credit cards. We found a tacky American-style steakhouse that was plastered with baseball paraphernalia and got some burgers. The portions kept true to the American theme of the restaurant.

That night we went to a club close to the hostel, watched some live Salsa music and had a few drinks. We eventually made it back to the hostel and got some sleep. Next day we travelled home. Nicaragua is very nice but I am always thankfully to be back in Costa Rica. Traveling is just not very comfortable on the local buses, especially when you are tired or sick or when it’s been raining and everything is wet.

Tonight I’m headed to some geothermic pools North of Bagaces. I’m pretty stoked my family has decided to come visit Costa Rica for Christmas. Plans to visit Cartago have been put off for this weekend, but I’ll probably go next weekend.

So the good times never seem to end here. I haven’t been motivated to blog lately because there’s been so much going on. But I’ll try and catch you up on the latest details briefly. Last weekend we had a Murder Mystery party, where we all had characters and a loose script and we improvised this Murder Mystery story over dinner. It was a lot of fun, my character was a female though so I had to dress up in a very lovely dress with fake boobs. It was quite an interesting site. I’m sure picture will leak out onto the Internet sooner or later.

This weekend I met a girl from Cartago and we ended up hitting it off pretty nicely! Cartago is close to San Jose and about 4 hours from Bagaces. I’m going to go visit her there and stay with her family in about two weeks. I’m pretty excited but super nervous too. My Spanish is constantly improving but I still say some ridiculous things sometimes I’m sure. I’m a little nervous to meet this girls parents. Anyways, her name is Alejandra. She is 19, graduating high school in a couple months. she studies Business Administration. This is a picture of us at the pool yesterday.

I’m taking Thursday and Friday off this week to go to Nicaragua with Asaph and Greg. San Juan Del Sur and Granada are both on the itinerary. Should be quite a good time!

Hope everyone’s summer is going well at home. Look forward to hearing from all of you!