Nicaragua = Lighter Vehicle & Good Waves

We headed up to Nicaragua and a town called San Juan del Sur after spending time Costa Rica. San Juan was a nice enough tourist town with some beautiful beaches to the north. Brandon was still recovering from dengue so we coughed up the money for a hotel room (with secure parking) so that we could lay low and chill for a couple days.

Here, we found out that secure parking with a security guard doesn't guarantee a car's safety. Brandon woke up early the second morning we were there to go to the car to get his medicine. He woke me up with the bad news that our car had been pillaged once again. This time it looked like the entire neighborhood went shopping in our car. They took almost all of Brandon's clothes, all of our food, cooler, hammock, backpack, shoes, fins, masks and snorkels, Brandon's GPS, our crappy CD player, our burned CD's, they even took our ziploc bags and dish soap. Luckily, we had our surfboards in the room and were also able to protect our important documents and money.

We spent the majority of the next day filing a police report...not exactly sure why we bothered seeing as how the chances of the police making an effort to locate our belongings is slim to none. The hotel took minimal responsibility for our loses...we were able to get a refund for one of our night's stay and that was about it. Not sure whether the security guard kept his job or not.

On the bright side, if this keeps up we'll have a lot less to unpack when we get home :)

From San Juan del Sur we drove north to a pretty remote surf break called Popollo. We were able to catch some great waves. It was about 6-10 ft faces with a howling offshore wind. The drop-in's were reasonably steep, but the wave backed off a bit after that which made the rides really fun. Turns out that Nicaragua is the land of offshore winds because of the huge lakes in the middle of the country.

After Popollo we traveled further north to visit a couple we had met in El Salvador. They had just landed a job managing an Eco Surf Lodge in the north of Nicaragua called Los Cardones. The lodge was very interesting...only solar power and compost toilets.

We were only able to stay a couple days because the prices were a bit higher than our budget could afford, but it was totally worth breaking the bank. The lodge was really the only place to stay in the area, therefore, the waves were the most uncrowded we've seen in this trip.

The picture at the top is of one of the secluded breaks close to the lodge. This break is called Hemorrhoids. Brandon was finally able to use his 6'6" surfboard. There was also a great long board beach break out front which I was able to enjoy.

Now, we find ourselves back in Suzal, El Salvador. We decided to scratch spending time in Honduras given Brandon's touch of dengue. Honduras has a slight problem with dengue and we didn't want to take the chance of him catching it again...that's when the disease gets dangerous.

It's great to be back staying with the family we got to know the first time we were here. They're really great people! Tonight they're cooking dinner for Brandon and I...good times :)