Backpacking Times: SJDS (San Juan Del Sur)

The view looking south on the beach

San Juan Del Sur,

What can I say, this place is definitely something else. I'm sure that there are many more places that give off a similar vibe in different locals around the globe, but there was immediately a stark contrast to Managua in which I noted the second I arrived.

SJDS is a hippy/surf/beach town, on the south-west Pacific coast of Nicaragua, that is now fueled by westerners and backpacker tourism. If the stereotypical gringo-breakfast menus of "Banana Pancakes" and "All day breakfasts" aren't enough, the youthful travelers (and some not so youthful) sitting on the curb outside of our guesthouse with their Ipads has got to grab the attention, especially if you are coming from only seeing Managua for a couple of weeks. In Managua I am constantly reminded to keep my phone out of sight, even while in a cab, with the windows up, and the doors locked. These kids are flaunting their wealth in broad daylight and it is no big deal. I guess this is definitely one of the pro's of SJDS, there is a relative security sense that you are safe, and that you most likely won't get mugged for the 20 Cordobas (local currency) in your pocket.

I even trusted the lady at our guesthouse enough to park our rental car right outside on the street. She said that especially during the time we were there - low season - there is virtually zero chance of something happening, she wasn't guaranteeing anything, but I could sense the tranquillo atmosphere as well. People in SJDS have a different way about them, laid back.

First of all I guess we shall start with some pictures of our drive out from Managua. It only was a two hour drive which turned out to be just perfect, as after two hours I was kind of ready to arrive already; driving in Nicaragua, and Managua especially is a lot more trying on the senses and attention than some other corners of the earth - but super fun none the less ;)

The drive along the south-western strip of Nicaragua is beautiful, with rolling hills, lush trees, and horizons speckled with windmills and volcanoes

Ummmmmm, yea.... We are just cool like that ;)

A little pull out we discovered, literally only 20 metres from the main highway we were travelling on

This pullout had a spectacular vista, the two volcanoes of Maderas and Concepcion on the island of Ometepe. The island being located in the largest lake of Central America

A good shot of Kathy with the two bad boys in the back

Pulling into SJDS was quite the sight as well, it was like a reward to a drive that was already a reward in itself.

This little town seemed to have it all, even the Christ statue atop a mountain overlooking the bay, almost a Rio-esque touch to it

A couple of paddle-borders just going about their afternoon

Sun sets!

More sun sets!

Sun sets with boats!

A little selfy of just how relaxed I feel when I get to the beach; the sun, sand, and washing of the waves makes you forget the majority of life's woes

Enjoying a little bit of leftover Lobster pizza from the night before - probably "one" of the best pizzas I've had... but then again... I've eaten a lot of good pizza's in my time :)

It was only shortly after this slice, well actually, during this slice (about 30 seconds after the picture), that we were flagged down by the police. This was one of the highlights of the drive back really, in addition to the torrential downpour (still to come). We saw two officers in the distance standing in the middle of the highway and waving us down, so we really didn't feel like we had much of a choice. Fortunately the next 15 minutes or so were forewarned a few nights before as Kathy was researching some common occurrences when driving in Nicaragua and how to handle them. Firstly, you need to pretend like you speak minimal Spanish (better if none). I didn't remember this immediately and greeted the officer in Spanish, but as my common sense came back to me I began to shift back towards ignorance of the language entirely, it eventually did the trick :)

He began by asking for my license, registration, the whole bit, and began to propose he would write me a ticket. The funny part was he never actually wrote it, and kept telling me in Spanish that he was going to write it. I kept thinking to myself 'well write it already if you going to!!' - but didn't tell him that :) Finally he so kindly gave us the option of paying him upfront so that he wouldn't write it and he could save us the hassle. Even though we don't know what the hassle would have been, considering he never explained what would happen as we were now expected to just pay him now - 40$! yea right! I wasn't going to pay that guy. I did however want to go so I suggested we had Cordobas only, and not many. He wasn't going for it and asked again for 20$ this time (still way too steep).

I was getting frustrated to began asking him in my very broken Spanish that we needed to collect his badge number and take the ticket in to our embassy upon arrival in Managua. We tried convincing him of our bogus policies from Canada, but he wasn't about to give us any information on himself. I could tell that there was chance of escape at this point, even if we lost a few dollars, but most importantly was that I needed my license and the car registration card back. As he stood near the car I slowly reached out - white still talking "ignorant white" but still throwing in buzz words in Spanish like "embajada" (embassy) and "trabajamos" (we work) to muster up a little sweet distraction of the mind. I then ever so smoothly snatched the cards back and threw them to Kathy to lock back in the glove compartment. It was funny really, you could see on his face immediately once I had done this he had sort of lost the battle, and almost like he had made a huge mistake of giving them back to me.

The bartering was now down to very small offers I was suggesting to him, 60, 40 Cordobas at max (2-3 dollars). He asked for my license back but I told him that I wasn't able to give it back to him and that we needed to get back to our embassy, and that we really needed his badge number also. He asked to see my wallet, and I showed him some small bills, but kept it far away. He asked for everything in it, and I said no, I'll give you 20 Cordobas (under a dollar), but that's all we can spare for now, we still have to eat lunch when we get into town ;p

He was beginning to get frustrated and finally gave us the body language that said "just get out of here already you good for nothing "cheles", your wasting my time and I'm tired of these mind games. We began to drive off without sparing a single Cordoba and completed our adventure with pumping tunes and a giant high-five with a sad corrupt cop in the rear-view.

I know this could have ended worse, and we need to constantly count our blessings, but it didn't and its now a great story to tell :)

Only a good 30 minutes after we had our lovely little police encounter we then hit a torrential downpour, which was quite nice as we needed the car cleaned after some pseudo off roading the day before. The only problem was that it lasted longer than the regular rains we had experienced, and with force! It was quite difficult at times to know where we were even going, but eventually it let up and the car dried off before arriving safe and sound in Managua to fuel up and drop the car with 45 minutes to spare.