After reading Rushdie's "The Jaguar Smile" I was set on going to Nicaragua. I was looking forward to having a Sandanista experience. Though the closest I got to a Sandanista experience was taking photos of poles painted with the FSLN logo, I still had an incredible time during my short visit to Nicaragua.

I arrived in Managua on Nov. 30, two days before my birthday. That morning I met a guy at the hostel in Guatemala City who had lived a year in Nicaragua. He gave me some advice on places to visit around Managua, and I was able to borrow a guide book during the flight to read up on these spots. I had decided to fly from Guatemala City to Managua because the flight cost $160 USD, and the bus would have been $120 USD. I only had 9 days for the trip, and the flight was an hour. The bus would have taken 20 hours.

By the time we landed I still did not know where to go. Esteli seemed cool, a Sandanista stronghold north of Managua, but there was San Juan del Sur to the south where you can learn to surf. San Juan just seemed like a better place to spend my birthday. I would have the break the trip in Granada for a night. I ended up splitting a cab to Granada for about $10 USD per person from the airport. The buses are much cheaper, but you have to take a city bus into Managua, then catch a bus back out of the city to Granada. Granada is your typical Central American colonial city. It was razed to the ground years ago, and has now been only partially rebuilt. Still, I stongly prefer Granada to Antigua in Guatemala. Granada is an actual city, and not just a gringo stomping ground like Antigua.

The buildings in Granada are painted bright orange, purple, yellow, and pink. It seems like everyone in the city is in the central park during the evenings, and street vendors sell fried banana chips, popcorn, and delicious pupusas. There is a single gringo street in Granada, and on it I ran into nearly everyone I had met throughout my travels. I saw the Dutch guys I had argued politics with in Xela, The Polish Canadian I had met in Semuc, and most surprisingly, the Italian German I spent a week with in Zipolte, Mexico 3 months earlier. It was great to see him, and it was his birthday! Needless to say, we went out that night.

The next day I had breakfast with the Canadian guy I had shared a cab with, and then I caught the next bus to San Juan del Sur. I met a couple Swiss guys on the bus, and went to the same hostel as them. I got my own simple room for $4/night and headed straight to the beach. The beach in San Juan is long, but there are a lot of boats right off shore. It's not a great beach. Every morning I would head out to one of the surf beaches. For $10/day you can rent a board and get transport to and from one of the nearby beaches with good surf.

San Juan del Sur is the perfect place to learn to surf. It's cheap, it's got a great vibe, and it has surf for everyone from absolute beginners to pros. There's this one bar called The Pier that seemed to get pretty full most nights. The owner is a real prick American guy, and the bar really has nothing going for it besdes the fact that it attracted a crowd. I hope that by the time you visit, some Nicaraguan owned bar is the new hot spot.

I would not allow myself to spend my entire vacation in San Juan del Sur, as much as I would have liked to, so after a few days I made the journey to Isla Ometepe. This place belongs in a fairy tale. Set inside the enormous Lake Nicaragua, Ometepe's 2 volcanoes are easily visible from the city of Rivas, where boats leave frequently for the island ($7.50, 2hrs). As you approach the island the views are incredible, and the size of the island becomes clear: it's big. I arrived in the evening, and by the time the bus dropped me off near the hostel, it was pitch black. I had a half mile hike in the PITCH BLACK to the hostel, and burglaries are common at night. My head lamp ran out of batteries on the way, but I arrived safe and sound and took a comfortable room to myself for the night. There are cheaper places, but I paid $8/night for a private room with a great bed and private bath.

The next morning I walked down to another hostel (that is also an organic coffee farm) where some friends were staying. When I got there I found out they were out on a hike, so I sat down to lunch and waited for them to get back. I overheard someone at the table next to me talking about Chicago, and couldn't help but jump into the conversation. They were all Americans who were volunteering at the coffee farm. It was costing them almost $5 per day to volunteer, and that included nothing but 4 hours of work per day and place to pitch a tent. The couple from Chicago was on a gap year after college, there was a guy from Connecticut who was traveling for some time and decided to spend some time in one place, and a gorgeous girl from Rhode Island who had no definite plans beyond one day wanting to live on a farm. The couple from Chicago took my email, they would be volunteering in Colombia in a few months and may need some help on a water project. I have yet to hear from them.

My friends got back to the hostel, and we had a short conversation about the differences between the US and Canadian Engineers Without Borders (A Post on this is coming). One girl had worked for EWB Canada for a year and a half, she was now looking for work in medium sized loans in the thrid world. She said micro loans were now accessible, but a step above that, loans to people who wanted to start small businesses and the like were not were not widely available. Another girl was a mechanical engineer who had been working to design wind farms. She was headed to Paris for an MBA. We said our goodbyes, and headed off to make it back to my hostel before sundown.

The next day I made the 4 hr trip to Granada and stayed at one of the heavily trodden hostels with a big bar and 10 beds in the dorm for $6/night. A guy I mad met in San Juan del Sur was there too, and we went out and had a pretty good night with a Chilean guy we met at the hostel. I woke up the next morning and took the local bus to Granada (1 hr, $1), then a taxi to the airport (20 min, $3.50). I had Subway at the airport and bought some coffee with the last of my Cordobas, and then enjoyed a free Scotch on my 1 hr international flight back to Guatemala.