san juan del sur

i will try and keep this post short because so much has happened since my last post and i'm sure my one reader is sick of the long posts, therefore, i'll be including more photos and hitting a few highlights. these posts are in reverse order, start with leon, nicaragua.

san juan del sur was a neat town on a cool beach. we ended up staying there maybe four nights. one day we headed north to a more local, exclusive beach intending to catch some surf and spend the night on the beach. no surf, no camping, so we played frisbee, swam in the ocean body surfing and relaxing on beach. it was a beautiful beach with many exploring possiblities. the first picture is a shot of the beach from a rock peninsula, the second is looking out from a cave we found. see more photos of san juan del sur's beaches here.

we headed back the night and stayed an extra to hang out with some friends from norway we had been catching up with throughout the travels. two days later mateo and i decided to head furthur south with hope of surf. our plans, playa yanke, an exclusive beach south of san juan. the day started out annoyingly. the bus we were riding was hot, slow and stopped quite often. the ride seemed to take forever. then we found out the driver forgot to tell us to get back. so after our 3km hike up and down hills we reached the road that took us to the beach. this road was no treat either, being steamy hot in the middle of the day, hiking through hilly subdivision that were still empty, asking many direction and only understanding when they pointed, we finally made the beach. it was desolate, but when we got there it was cloudy and late in the afternoon. we searched for trees to hang out hammocks and was instructed by a local who was house sitting a beach house that it wasn't safe just anywhere and we should sleep on his land. so we set up our hammocks on his land only to be approached by him later in the evening that it wasn't safe to camp on the beach at all. after trying to understand what he was saying and much convincing, we ended up staying in a spare room he had. it was a very dodgy night and many scenerios played in our heads as we sat on the beach until 1 am. so again, we didn't get to surf, didn't get to sleep on the beach, only the conclusion of an overly paranoid house sitter was left. it was a lot more sketchy than i've described. i've been on the computer too long and lack the desire to write now.