Road trip to Rivas

After leaving Granada we boarded a school bus.  Buses in Central America come from the United States.  They are the retired school buses that are no longer fit to drive.  Once they get here they get souped up with some serious bling.  There are usually rosaries, picutres of Mary, a few statues of Jesus and maybe something catchy scrawled up in the front like - Driving for Jesus.  The particular bus we boarded in Granada was already full.  I mean, beyond belief full.  So full, that the dude who throws your bags on the roof said it was full.  Luckily, some Steven Seagal lookalike offered up his seat to Ali.  And of course what we did next was tour around Granada just to make sure that anyone else standing on the side of the road who wanted to board could get the chance.  Where this room would come from, I did not know, but somehow there is always more room.  This left Ali with Shane and Logan on her lap, our bags went on some other ladies lap, guys were hanging out the edge of the door holding on to the door frame and I was securely wedged - in the most uncomfortable type of wedge - between a mix of objects and sweating humans behind Ali.  The other thing that buses do here is stop at random villages to pick up supplies for delivery.  Like a sort of FedEx.  We´ll pick up rice, chickens, bags of meat, envelopes and the people will yell out where it´s going.  An hour or so later, there will be someone standing in the middle of nowhere flagging the bus down to get their delivery.  This is how it works.

 In Rivas we transferred to the down of San Juan del Sur.  The hub site of Nicaragua´s beach scene.  The home to the nightlife that ends when the sun rises.  This is what will put Nicaragua on the map as a tourist destination and it is easy to see just by looking at how beautiful it´s setting is.  Although the water is actually too dirty to swim in, due to the port, cruise ships, and runoff from local houses.  Despite being here, I hit a traveller low. We were living on less than 50 bucks a day and it was starting to feel like it: staying in very tight quarters while sorting out house rentals, with Shane waking up nearly constantly in the middle of the night; roasting hot without the fan hitting me, full moon, I had to go for middle of the night dips in the pool just to cool down.  I was saying things like let´s call it quits and just head home or else head back to some place we´ve already been to where we already know things are better than here, but Ali seemed to be handling it.

We were trying to book a house rental for a week by a nearby surfbreak and having no luck.  You can´t surf in town, but there are world class breaks 45 mins. nearby.  Town is nice, but mostly just for eating food and for people getting wasted.  Frustrating.  We knew we had to checkout of our place and find something new, but the options are mostly just a bunch of party hostels or else the uber swankfest options that are totally out of line with the rest of the country.  We had even contacted the renting agent and were walking around some Barrio up on the hillside but no one had heard of the house.  The kids were starting to lose it, we had all our bags and this was close to that limit.  So we put our bags down next to the beach.  Ali stayed with the boys and I started to hit up pretty well every single guesthouse, room, apartment, hotel and any other option I came upon.  I bought myself a cold drink.

 
 Then I started to think like in Antigua.  I went to the higher end places.  The oceanfront view with balcony and massive rooms type of place.  Totally devoid of clients.  Done deal.  When I returned to Ali she mentioned that they bumped into Aussie Matt (aka Green Sausage) and that we would be meeting up in a few hours.  Sun, Moon, Stars aligned.  Total turnaround. 

  Pretty decent balcony view eh?