San Juan del Sur: first day of rain. A view from on high.

San Juan del Sur is a brightly colored, unpretentious little beach town. Its lazy, humid warmth permeates the streets depositing plenty of sedate young men and women along its friendly, shop filled roads. Buses, uniformed school children, bicycles, and a wide variety of man-powered, wheeled vehicles hacked together from various bike parts criss-cross the streets that radiate away from the Catholic Church in the town center. The occasional old-timer snoozes the day away happily on the cement and wooden benches adorning the edges of the crowded streets.

When I left Costa Rica, a familiar taxi driver had warned me to keep my eyes open while in Nicaragua.

"When you walk down an empty street," he said, "you may not see any people - but people see you."

A stairway to Heaven

I took his advice with a grain of salt, knowing that there's at least some national pride fueling the spurious claims that Nicos and Ticos constantly make against each other. On the other hand, I did get had at the border for about $15 in a shady currency changing scheme. The way I figure it though, that's a fair price for the exceedingly cheap accommodations just a few hours from Playas del Coco's suburban-America-like cost of living. With meals from $2.50 and rooms from $7, it's hard to get too worked up over a $15 loss.

A likeness of Christ blesses the city

San Juan del Sur is about thirty minutes by taxi from the border. Its iconic South American Catholic presence is fortuitously established by the stone Christ that looks humbly out over the town from its position along a bordering mountainside. I added a visit to said likeness to my otherwise rather blank to-do list the moment that I saw it, squeezing it in somewhere between wandering the beach, finishing my book, and trying to generally lounge about as much as possible. Done, mostly done, and done, by the way.

The stay was a laid back, relaxing one. I was able to practice my Spanish a little (there are far, far fewer English speaking folk in San Juan del Sur than Playas del Coco), and even ran into a few interesting characters. One such character was a French solar energy scientist on sabbatical. We started talking after he asked me whether I knew of any cheap places to stay. He was paying C$120 (around $6) for a room, but his part of town was experiencing a water outage and he wanted to upgrade to somewhere where he could shower without a bucket.

A hostel and a laundry shop

Wandering the beach and visiting the holy statue ended up as part of the same task. I discovered during a morning beach walk a kind of ill repaired, rickety stairway to heaven sliding off the mountain and almost directly into the sea that could only lead to one place, all things considered. It wasn't a difficult climb, although I was unable to come face to face with the statue on account of an entirely surmountable gate around the perimeter within which there was a terribly unfriendly looking dog. Close is close enough, I guess.

A mural of Augusto Cesar Sandino, an anti US domination guerrilla fighter. It read

In addition to discovering that the ocean in San Juan del Sur is rather more intimidating than the ocean I'm used to at home, I also came across a really comfortable establishment. El Gato Noir, an open, airy coffeehouse and bookstore with plenty of hammocks and a pretty international crowd, was a welcome find seeing as I haven't been to a coffeehouse in ages and had been looking for a decent cup of coffee since I left my apartment in Costa Rica.

I ended up befriending a pretty, smart young lady who had been accidentally left at the coffeehouse by her parents. As far as I understand, her mother's father or grandfather had been the Vice President of Nicaragua during the political turmoil in the 1980's. It was actually very refreshing speaking with someone that young with what appeared to be a rational, realistic, and passionately inquisitive world view. I spent a long time talking with her while waiting for her parents to resurface, which actually never happened. One of the women working at the coffeehouse lived near where her and her family were staying, and drove her there after El Gato Noir closed for the day.

For months now, based mostly on hearsay, I've been somehow idolizing Nicaragua as a minimalist paradise that's a perfect choice for an unimposing house on the beach and a simple, sunny lifestyle. After some considerable apprehension, I'm glad to say that bubble's not burst.

You can view more San Juan photos on my Flickr page.