Crabs Everywhere

I cut the last post in half because, as anyone who followed my India emails will tell you, I write a LOT in a single sitting.  Therefore, this picks up where the last one left off.

To backtrack just a little bit, after breakfast that first morning in San Juan, the owner's son informed us that his mother had accidentally put us in a room that was supposed to be reserved for a group of ten who would be arriving that day.  He was terribly sorry for the mix up, but would we mind switching rooms?  Now, mind you, our former room had a view of the ocean across the street.  We agreed anyway and went to investigate our new room.  While this room was a corner and had a window on the left wall, it did not have a view of the ocean (though we could easily see the ocean if we ventured out onto the balcony).  This was sad to us.  It also appeared a little more dilapidated than our original room.  Regardless, we settled in anyway and, as it turned out, that side window was key because the breeze appears to come from the hills, not the ocean.

The new room...

Following our excellent feast at the little yellow kitchen, the three of us headed back to the hotel for a quick pitstop.  Courtney decided to remain there because her sunburn was bothering her and she was tired, but Sara and I weren't quite ready to call it a night yet.  We wandered down the street and ended up at a bar called the Black Whale, which we both agreed reminded us slightly of the trance club/bar we went to in Goa, India (more on that later).  The place was colorful and open, with barstools and tables that looked as though they were cut from logs, a pool table, a foosball table in the very back, and a very eclectic crowd.  It was mostly outdoors (far too hot to be inside).  Sara and I settled ourselves at a high top near the entrance to the bar, about halfway down the patio.  It was a prime people-watching location.  As we worked our way through some beers, we discussed everything from traveling (must do more) to relationships (not now).  It was one of the best nights yet and definitely solidified my belief that we need to travel together more frequently.  

At one point, this guy came up to us and invited us to join him and his friends at their table  As he was clearly intoxicated, this was entertaining.  We learned his name and that he was Canadian, although his accent sounded different, almost Spanish.  We had fries coming to us though, so we were disinclined to relocate to another spot.  While he was talking to us, his friends got up to go play pool, so he told us we should join them for that.  We told him we'd "think about it" and he left.

And then he turned up at the beach today?  Awkward.  

Gratuitous beach picture

Our waitress at the Black Whale was funny as well.  We decided we were hungry around 10:58pm, and so called her over to order a side of fries.  She said (in Spanish) the kitchen was closed (and I understood her!) and pantomimed what happens when she asks the kitchen for food after that time.  From what I gathered, they get very angry and throw things.  It was hysterical.  However, she managed to get us fries anyway for which I shall be eternally grateful.

All that day it looked as though it was going to rain (obviously this did not stop us from going to the beach).  Around 3am, long after Sara and I returned from the bar, it finally did.  This is when we learned our roof leaked.  At first, I was annoyed by this and objected (silently), but then I realized it actually felt pretty good, so I put my Zune under my pillow and went back to sleep.  There isn't much you can do about those things at that hour of the morning anyway.  It was a pretty major storm, major enough that I had minor concerns about my impending doom (really though, what ISN'T scary at 3am?).  However, when I started getting tense, I asked myself whether this current storm was worse than the storm we experienced at Panisagar during our last week in India (that was intense: howling wind, rain everywhere, tornado, etc.).  Obviously it wasn't, so it was all good.

Our new, albeit slightly leaky room

Our second full day in San Juan was much the same as the day before: breakfast, shuttle, beach, shuttle, shower.  A routine I could get used to.  Sara and I befriended a taxi driver while we were wandering around San Juan in the morning, trying to see if a different beach could be an option for us.  His name was Louis and he was funny.  He also dropped his price really easily.  Unfortunately, we weren't haggling (had I been haggling, I doubt I would have been so successful).  He told us not to worry about anything because we would be "safe with him."  Oh, by the way, this was entirely in Spanish and not only was I able to comprehend enough to translate to Sara, I was able to respond!  SUCH A WIN.  

I actually felt bad we weren't going to use his taxi, but the beach we were really interested in, Playa Hermosa, cost $3 to get on anyway and we weren't yet convinced it was going to be a good enough beach day to warrant that.  

It did end up being a really nice beach day.  Courtney stayed mostly in the shade because I was worried about her burn and she was being smart about it.  There were also two people stung by stingrays that day - what??  Courtney was able to help out an English family whose son had been pretty badly stung.

Nice beach day.  Love the beach.

There was, in fact, a marked animal/crustacean presence at the beach that day.  On the shuttle to Playa Maderas, we noticed tons of brighly colored crabs covering the embankments, climbing in and out of holes and threatening to fight the truck as it rattled by.  When I say "brightly," I mean legs the color of fire, purple pincers, black bodies and yellow eyes.  I've never seen anything like it.  

Swiped from Google, but this is the crab.  It's also vaguely terrifying to google "crabs."  Just saying.

Later, around 3pm, there were hermit crabs everywhere on the beach.  The craziest thing is that they were all heading in the same direction.  It was absolutely bizarre.

Chased this little guy all over the place while I attempted to get a picture of him before he turned around and ran away again.  Success.

We took the 3:30p shuttle back to town and hung out at the hostel for a while due to a sudden storm that came out of nowhere and foiled our plans of watching the sun set, drink in hand.  I'm starving.  It has now stopped raining, so hopefully we can go find food...?

Solo Una?

29 June 2012
sometime in the early afternoon - Playa Maderas, San Juan del Sur

Signs to the beach

I was all nice and caught up on my writing, but then I got lazy yesterday.

After watching the sun set on the 27th, we went to the Iguana, a bar recommended to us by the other people staying in our Granada hostel.  Their quesadilla de pollo was excellent and our waiter was funny, in a dry sort of way.  At one point, I had to ask if they accepted dollars (I'm not sure if that's a sign of globalization or of how touristy certain areas are. Or both.), so I flagged him down and said, "tengo una pregunta..." ("I have a question...") because I'm never sure how to preamble questions in a foreign language.  I always feel like I need to preface questions with a statement.  He replied, "solo una?" ("just one?").  Fresh.  I didn't think I'd been asking THAT many questions...

We enjoyed a leisurely dinner and a couple cervezas on their 2nd floor deck overlooking the harbor before deciding to return to the hotel for a little siesta.  As previously mentioned, it was so ungodly hot in our room that we all had trouble sleeping.  It was hard to rally again after the nap, but rally we did.  I always try to keep a mental voice in my head that says, "YOU'RE IN A FOREIGN COUNTRY, GET OFF YOUR ASS AND DO SOMETHING!" whenever I'm feeling lazy.  I think it goes without saying that some times this is harder than others.  Fortunately, I travel with friends like Sara who are able to verbalize this idea and actually get me moving again.

Our original post-nap plan was to head further down the main street to a bar that promised reggae, Latin & jazz music (what a combination), but we ultimately decided that was a little out of our comfort zones, what with it being dark and in an unfamiliar location.  Therefore, we ended up back at the Iguana.  This is apparently a gringo bar.  The others werent' in love with the Iguana and, admittedly, there wasn't really anything too special about it, aside from the fact that I enjoyed watching people from different countries coming together.  People watching is one of the best parts of traveling.  I would have liked the bar to play more Latin music and less hiphop, but there wasn't really any dancing anyway (except for a rather awkward group of three).  I'm dying to do some bachata/salsa/chacha now though!

We stayed til Ladies' Night ended (free drinks til midnight - I didn't hate it), then headed home.  Our room was much cooler by that point, fortunately.  I woke up to the sun pinkening the hills on the other side of the harbor (we faced west).  All I had to do in order to see this was lift my head three inches off the pillow.  It was gorgeous.  I could get used to seeing the ocean first thing every morning.

Aside from the fact that it's not dawn at the time of this picture, this is the exact view from my window.

Hotel Estrella offers free breakfast which, on top of being only $8/person/night, makes it a pretty sweet deal.  Although the coffee was Nescafe (a tragedy - especially since I learned at the coffee plantation that Nescafe is made with what doesn't get into your quality bag of coffee.  Nasty.), I became quite attached to the pancakes.  After breakfast, while the other two went to prep for the beach, I went poking around the town for a shuttle that would take us to a beach for cheaper than what the hotel offered.  Due to high gas prices, the trend among most shuttles in the area seemed to be a five person minimum.  The hotel followed this concept and told us that if we could find 5 people, a shuttle to the beach would cost $5/person, totaling $25.  If we couldn't find two more people, then we would have to make up the difference ourselves.  So, I wandered.  I had an interesting exchange (en Espanol!) with a taxi driver outside a Peruvian restaurant, but as he was charging a similar price, I decided to keep moving.  I eventually came across another hostel called Casa Oro, a hostel with a big focus on surfing, where they offered a beach shuttle for $5/person.  Sweet.  I signed us up and went to gather up the others.

The bars across the sides make it totally safe.
(picture swiped from Courtney)

The shuttle that would be taking us to Playa Maderas (Maderas Beach) was essentially a pickup truck with bars up the sides, a canvas roof, and two benches perpendicular to the axles for passengers.  It should probably go without saying that there were no seatbelts.  The trip to the beach thoroughly rattled every bone in my body and possibly shattered my tailbone, especially once we left the paved roads.  However, it also gave  us a broader perspective on how the natives of San Juan lived.  Many of the homes were arranged in a similar style to what we experienced in our region of India:  cement cottages with compounds where animals and bikes were kept and cooking was done.  You could see the smoke rising from kitchen fires and smell dinners being prepared as you rattled by.  I found myself seriously wanting to stay in a cottage in one of the little villages and really become a part of the community.  Had someone offered me a teaching position, I would have been hard pressed to turn it down (I'm fairly certain the only reason I returned to America was the leadership trip I chaperoned earlier last week).  I love traveling, but I feel like an idiot as a tourist.  When you're a tourist, you see a carefully constructed facade.  You see what they want you to see and it paints beautifully over the cracks, over the issues, over real life.

Just rattlin' our bones on the shuttle
(picture by Courtney)

The beach we went to, Playa Maderas, was a vast improvement over the harbor beach.  The water was clean, clear, and the waves were huge, which is probably why the surfers seemed to like it so much.  It's tucked away in kind of an indentation on the coast, almost like a cove, I guess.  You can see mountains (volcanoes?) in the distance.  The water was refreshing, but warm enough to make me question my ability to readjust to the harsh Atlantic.  The whole place is absolutely surreal.  I'm devastated that we're leaving tomorrow.  I suggested to Sara that we come back here after taking Courtney to the airport (it's only a 2hr drive, after all).  I was only half kidding.

Playa Maderas

One of the surfers who was at the beach today looked like Jesus.  He was also  just about as ripped as certain portrayals of Jesus are.  At one point he laughed and looked identical to this:

Doppleganger.  I kid you not.

Set back on the edge of the sand was a little beach bar where we went to catch a break from the sun.  It's a really nice feeling to be able to sink your toes into the sand while sipping on a cold beer.  It's a less nice feeling when you casually run your hand through your hair and find something that is large, unidentifiable, and clearly doesn't belong.  It's worse when you find out that the object was a large beetle that your hair tried to eat.  My hair tried to eat a beetle.  Who knew I had a Venus Flytrap growing on my head?  My hair is a menace.  But, life goes on.

Due to ominious clouds in the distance, we opted to catch the 3:30pm shuttle back to San Juan.  Back at Casa Oro, we decided to sign up for their Saturday shuttle to Managua as it seemed to be the cheapest and safest option.  Frankly, we would probably have been fine taking the chicken bus and navigating our way to the hostel from the bus station, but sometimes one must pay for convenience.

Dinner that night ended up being at Dorado's, the beachside bar that had supposedly offered reggae, Latin & jazz the night before.  I wasn't too hungry when we arrived, so I chose not to order food right away.  I was glad of this when Courtney's quesadillo de queso (is that redundant?) arrived - it was bland and unappetizing.  We stayed anyway until well after the sunset, drinking and chatting.  It was a beautiful sunset.  There really isn't anything quite like watching the sun set over the ocean in a foreign country.  I take that back, America has some pretty beautiful sunsets as well.  Nothing beats the combination of the beach and the sunset.

Dorado's

But, I digress.  After the sunset, Sara & I were finally hungry, but craving something other than what Dorado's offered.  We really just wanted authentic Nica food, so we decided to wander off the main drag, which caters predominantly to tourists, and found a cozy little place called Cocina Ixaca (? totally made up that spelling) a few streets up where they spoke no English.  The menu was on a whiteboard and consisted of a list of various methods for preparing "pollo" ("chicken"), "lomo" ("pork"), and "res" ("beef").  The quotation marks are theirs.  The interior was a small, brightly painted yellow room with four large tables, a sectioned off kitchen, and a girl sleeping in the corner.  Additionally, there was a gecko (I realize they are not actual geckos - this was what we started calling similar lizards in India) on the ceiling and the occasional large bug scurrying up the wall.  Obviously, Sara and I were in heaven.  

Best. Dinner. Ever.

My Spanish was not good enough to translate everything the waitress said, so we kind of ordered blindly.  Pollo de plancha, I learned, is essentially just grilled chicken (that was Sara's order).  I ordered pollo de jalapeno, which was excellent.  The dishes came as a full plate of the specified meat (chicken, beef, or pork), rice and beans, tortilla, and what appeared to beets and tomatoes over either coconuts or radishes.  I'm proud to say I at everything except the latter.  It was easily the best meal we'd had in Nicaragua - so real and exactly what we were looking for.  The waitress sat down at the end of our table while we were eating and started fanning herself.  I caught her eye and mimed that we agreed that it was hot.  She laughed and started fanning us with the menu in her hand.  Hooray for bonding across language barriers!

Hasta Que Salga el Sol

("Hasta Que Salga el Sol" means "until the sun rises" and is also the title of a song I'm currently obsessed with.  Go forth, download, and dance.  You'll thank me.)


27 June 2012
roughly 8pm - Hotel Estrella, San Juan del Sur

Upon our arrival to San Juan, the chicken bus dumped us gringas (and one gringo backpacker) off in the the middle of the street and drove away in a cloud of dust.  I successfully asked for (and understood!) directions to the Barrio Cafe, where we were supposed to catch the shuttle to the Naked Tiger, the hostel we had booked for our stay in San Juan.  The shuttle, which ran every 2 hours, was at the Cafe when we arrived, but so full that there was hardly a hope of all three of us, plus our belongings, fitting on board.  We waved off the advancements of the taxi drivers promising to take us to the Naked Tiger ("for good price!"), deciding to have a leisurely lunch at the Cafe and catch the 2:10p shuttle instead.

Hotel Estrella.  I just realized I can see my relflection in one of the windows

While we were waiting for the shuttle (which took forever), we observed individuals in varying stages of hangover begin straggling into the queue.   That, coupled with what we'd heard about the Naked Tiger being a party hostel, plus its distance from the beach, made us rethink our game plan a little bit.  We rethought it a lot actually, since when the shuttle finally arrived, we chose to stay behind.  Instead, we wandered around a bit until we came across Hotel Estrella, which is apparently the oldest hotel in San Juan.  It is in varying stages of disrepair, but I like it.  It's also right across the street from the beach.  So close, in fact, that as I write this, I'm listening to the endless ebb and flow of the occean.

Oh, hi there, beach.

This hotel is a little dilapidated, but it has charm and is only $8/night for a three person room.  You can't hate on that, even if the bathroom happens to be downstairs and reminds me a little of some of the bathrooms we encountered in India (however, considering I've seen far worse bathrooms in America, this really isn't an issue). The floors are possibly original - stripped down, warped, gray planks - and the stairs are narrow and appear to have been worn down by decades of visitors climbing up and down.   

The second floor.  That sink is where we washed our faces, etc.

Note the depressions on the steps.  So much more noticeable in person.

Not my loofah.

Toilet/Shower hallway

The only actual problem thus far appears to be the fact that we're without a fan.  This may prove problematic as I'm currently wearing as little as possible without risking indecency and am still overheating.  It's like being in India during one of the power outages:  the air is still, thick, heavy, and oppressive.  The only difference is that we have power.

On an unrelated note, my shoulders are rather sore from ziplining yesterday.

Once we got settled at Hotel Estrella, we put on our bathing suits and headed straight across the street to the beach.  The sand on the harbor beach is really more like packed dirt and less like the sand we're accustomed to.  The water was warm and a little bit gritty, thanks to all the sand it stirred up,  After I submerged myself, my face had a fine layer of grit on it for the rest of the day.  We eventually retreated back from the water to some beach chairs that were set up in front of one of the restaurants to have a few beers and watch the sun set.  We're very romantic.

Beach restaurants with beach chairs need to become a thing here.

There was a little girl of about 3 years old running around near us as we sat there.  She ran back and forth from the ocean to where she was playing in (and occasionally licking) the sand/dirt.  She also befriended a random man and his son (who appeared to be about the same age as her).  She was completely unfazed by where her parents were in location to her, by the energetic game of soccer being played by roughly 25 teenage boys on the beach near her, or by the fact that strangers were around her.  I was in awe of the amount of freedom her parents were giving her and am still torn by whether or not I think that's a good thing.

I really like how this picture came out

While we were on the beach earlier, Sara and I were talking about how much this place reminds us of India.  I hypothesized that this is because I, at least, think I'm somewhat subconsciously looking for an experience that recreates what we had there, but which I'm obviously not going to find on a one week trip to Nicaragua.  India was an authentic experience because we had time and connections, two incredibly integral pieces to successfully encountering and assimilating to a culture.  We were able to immerse ourselves in a dramatically different culture because we had those things.  Right now, we have only a week and no connections.  It's much harder to have a truly authentic experience when you don't have the time to learn the area you're in and become familiar with the subtle nuances that tourists tend to miss as they pass through.  If I want to enjoy this trip, I need to accept that right now, I am a tourist.  It would, however, be really nice to at least experience true Nica food however, rather than the imitation (or worse, American/Italian food), which I've been trying to avoid.