Playa Madera at Sunset

Playa Madera

Honduras-Nicaragua

Imagine the feelings and frustrations that arise while you are sitting in line at the DMV. Now imagine that process taking a whole day, in the sweltering heat, with people speaking to you in a language you barely understand, while poverty stricken people hound you for money or attempt to rob you, and the so-called border officials conspire with one another to not let you cross the border without paying a million "necessary" fees. Well, that was our experience crossing the Honduras border. Apparently it is supposed to be free to enter Honduras, however we somehow got suckered into paying a grand total of $125...OUCH!!! Well apparently the secret is out...there is no surf in Honduras and you need to get through Honduras to get to the perfect waves of Nicaragua so milk those surfer gringos for all their worth. We drove through Honduras in about three hours, which is about the same amount of time it took us to pay four days worth of our budget to get through the damn border, ugh! To make matters worse we decided to cross into Nicaragua all in the same day. Chad did not want to spend anymore of our money in such a corrupt country...LOL. Had this been our only experience in Honduras, I would have concluded that it is a useless country, however during a previous trip we visited the Caribbean side of the country
specifically the island of Roatan) and found it to be beautiful with unbelievable diving. My suggestion is that the Pacific side of Honduras should be avoided at all cost and instead opt for the incredible islands and reefs of the Caribbean side of the country.

It was during this horrendous border crossing day that my irreplaceable companionship with Rhino was solidified (yeah I know another Rhino story, but this is a good one). Up until this point on our journey I was unsure whether Rhino was simply there to look cute and play with coconuts all day or whether he was a true watch dog. At the Honduras border crossing he truly proved his worth. He and I were "watching" the burb as we do best and an older sketchy looking gentlemen walked up to the car window trying to sell me some random pieces of junk. I repeated my monotonous line of "no gracias" or no thank you for those of you who struggle with Spanish :). The scraggly looking gentlemen kept coming back over to my window and I was unsure whether he was simply trying to be nice and strike up conversation or whether he wanted something more. Rhino decided for me on the third round of window creeping when the man got a little too close. He put his front legs on the seat behind me, leaned forward in a fierce posture and barked the loudest and most ferocious bark I have ever heard. He was about 3 inches from the guys face and you should have seen him jump backwards. I was seriously proud of my little "pretty/precious" (what I call him) turned "Beast" (as Chad has always called him). Instead of telling him to stop I let him posture himself for a bit longer to scare the creeper away and it worked. I proceeded to give "Beast" a treat and a big kiss. Never underestimate a lab (see the San Blas blog entry for proof that they can and WILL bite). This is truly when Rhino became "my" dog and when I took over sole responsibility of feeding and caring for the beast :). Love him!!!

The border crossing into Nicaragua was fairly painless in comparison to the Honduras crossing. Two hours later and about $58 down the hole we entered the land of "offshore winds" which I quickly learned resulted in perfectly shaped waves. To Chad and our hitchhikers dismay, we arrived too late for an evening surf session. Their disappointment did not last long as we soon discovered that the rumor of all day long offshore winds was actually a reality. We posted up in our first hotel room of the trip with air-conditioning while our hitchhiker buddy opted for what I referred to as the "ghost hotel" for $5 a night. Although I like to think that I can rough it, the ghost hotel brought out the spoiled California girl side of me. It was about as creepy as they come. It came equipped with you own pick of pet bats to keep you company at night and a warning sign to watch where you walk due to the possibility that you might fall through the floor. To top it all off Shea (aka. Hitchhiker buddy) was up all night swatting off his body what he thinks were mosquito's and I think were bed bugs. He awoke the next morning with about 100 bites all down his arms that swelled so big that it looked like someone took a bat and beat the crap out of his arms. Like a true "explorer" as Wisebecker refers to them, Shea simply shrugged his shoulders and was ready to paddle out into the surf. We enjoyed breakfast at the ghost hotel with an interesting character from Oregon. Before we could decide whether he had a love affair with another questionable male traveler, he sprinted to the bus to leave town. You gotta love the randomness of the people in this world! I spent the rest of the morning hypothesizing and creating a story of this character's life while Chad and Shea enjoyed the tiny but perfect waves in this little ghost town of Poneloya, Nicaragua.

Although Chad and Shea were stoked on having the beach break of Poneloya all to themselves, we decided to make our way south to the town of San Juan del Sur in search of bigger waves. We stopped for lunch in a little town on our way south. During this stop Chad snuck over to a local market and bought me two $2 pairs of super stylin sunglasses (I had broke all of my sunglasses prior to this) and a fake rose in which the rose was actually a red pair of thong underwear rolled in a way that made it look like a real rose. It was Valentines day and I had forgot! I know most girls back home would be appalled at a Valentines gift of this sort, however I found it incredibly sweet and completely fitting of our journey. What a sweetheart!

We arrived in San Juan del Sur in the late evening and I was going through an interesting hormonal roller coaster (to state it nicely). We found a fairly nice hotel to stay at and within minutes I had a crazy hormonal breakdown for honestly no reason. I think our hitchhiker sensed the attack coming on and opted to stay at another cheaper hotel. Good call Shea because it wasn't pretty. My excuse is that we were on day 35 and had been traveling at a fairly quick pace with some uncomfortable circumstances and I had had enough. Chad has been lucky up this this point in our relationship because he has never seen what a females hormones can do to their whole being. Needless to say we made it through it and Chad now knows to stay clear when
the warning signs emerge!

San Juan del Sur is a fairly scummy town, however the focal point is a beautiful bay which makes up for the incredible amounts of construction which currently encompass the city. Unfortunately you have to drive on pot hole ridden dirt roads for about a half hour outside of town to reach any of the surf breaks. Due to my crazy scene the night before I felt bad and told Chad I would be willing to go anywhere that he wanted to find surf. We ended up a bit outside of town at the famous Playa Madera. This little beach had a little dumpy surf camp were we proceeded to camp out for the night. Chad was a bit disappointed because the surf was tiny, however the shape was perfect due to those ever reliable offshore winds. We camped next to an awesome
couple from England who were traveling through Costa Rica and Nicaragua for a month or so. They were a good source of info about Costa Rica which made me anxious to make our way there. That evening consisted of Chad surfing with a Volcom sponsored Costa Rican surfer while I spent time meeting the local dogs and taking pictures of the beautiful sunset.

The next morning we were on our way to Costa Rica. Our short time in Nicaragua was enjoyable, however we both decided it was not where we wanted to live for six months. I would like to go back and visit Lake Nicaragua (famous for creating those incredible offshore winds and Ometepe Island with two huge volcanoes), however at this point in our journey we were anxious to get to Costa Rica. Adios Nicaragua!!!

PS. Cheers to our Hitchhiker buddy Shea! We will never forget our romantic Pupusa dinner, ahhhh my mouth is watering as I write this :)! We enjoyed our time with you and Chad wants you to fly to Costa Rica and do the drive home with him. Are you down??? By the way we left Shea in San Juan del Sur because he wanted to spend more time in Nicaragua and we were moving on to bigger and better things :).