San Juan del Sur

Monday morning we set off bright an early on a 'chicken' bus for San Juan del Sur.  

We booked into the Esperanza Hostel which is right on the beach front.  With the view above straight across the road.  Although San Juan del Sur is known for its surf, this beach rarely gets surf and you have to travel a little to reach the surf beaches in the area.

After wandering around town for about ten minutes and asking directions we found the Kingdom Hall and met a lovely brother called Raphael, a special pioneer, who lives with his wife in the little flat behind the hall.

We found out that the Spanish congregation at this hall had recently sponsored an English group , the English meeting was to be on the Wednesday night and the Spanish one on Thursday.  We would only be in town on the Wednesday night as we were heading back to Masaya on Thursday so we decided to attend the Wednesday meeting.

Then it was time to head back to the hostel and the beach for a swim and bit of a relax.

Being on the coast for the first time in ages Porl was of course keen for a surf so he unpacked his board for the first time since we arrived.  Noticing a small ding near the fins he was philosophical after all we had travelled a long way on various forms of transport.  

But when he got the nose of the board out of the bag and saw this massive hole caused by the rope used to tie his board to the top of the bus he was pretty sad, as you can see - lol.

There was to be no surfing that day.

Fortunately there are lots of little surf shops in town and a helpful guy put us in touch with a young man who turned up on his bike, skidding to a stop and assuring Porl that he could fix it for $US35.  Porl told him make it $US40 and do a good job.

Sure enough the young guy did a top job, matched the colour perfectly and the board is as good as new.

The next day we headed to a local surf shop 'Good Times' ....

where we joined one of the locals and some other tourists to take a trip out to Playa Hermosa (Beautiful Beach).  Playa Hermosa is a bit further away than the other beaches so it costs everyone $US10 each including a $3 entry fee on to the beach which is private.

It was a beautiful beach with great surf conditions and everyone got some waves.

Apparently the wind here is off-shore 364 days a year!

Kieran

Porl

As I mentioned the beach is private so we had to pay $US3 each to be there but as a treat it was nice as we got to use the facilities of the resort so while the guys hit the waves I hit the sun lounger and ordered a strawberry daiquiri - it's a hard life, I guess someone's got to do it.

Before long though the waves looked too inviting and I got my boogie board off Chase and caught a few myself.

Then something amazing!!!!

After lunch Porl headed back for another surf sesh' and we were just relaxing in the shade when one of the workers at the turtle refuge a little way up the beach ran up to tell us that they were releasing some baby turtles if we wanted to watch.  Did we ever!

So off we ran down the beach and we got to see the cutest little turtes you've ever seen being released into the sea.

It's actually quite a hike for them to get to the water so they must be very relieved when they actually get there!

One little one was lagging behind so I asked one of the refuge workers if I could give it a hand and I got to carry it down to the sea - cuteness!!!

What a way to end and afternoon, we loaded the boards back on the truck and headed back to town ......

 

....    just in time to catch the sunset.