Surf's Up!

Last week I got my first opportunity to be a Nicaraguan tour guide, kind-of. My Jacksonville friend and old roommate, Davis Miller, and his cousin, Michael, came to visit Stef and me, and we had the responsibility to show them around the country. They mainly came to surf, which was fine with me. So we picked them up at the airport, rented a SUV, and took off on our week-long vacation. That's right, we rented a vehicle and I got to drive for the first time on the crazy streets of Managua. We stood at the rental company's desk contemplating what type of insurance we needed. The smart and obvious choice would have been full coverage, but the cheap side of me won the others over to save money with only liability. Luckily we got out of Managua alive, but it got a little hairy when Davis wanted to buy some $5 Ray Bans from a guy at a big intersection and the guy had to run through the intersection to finish the sale because Davis was bargaining so long. Thus began an entire week of laughs. 

We spent the first night in El Crucero, and the guys got to visit with the kids in the orphanage. Davis and Michael had their hands full as the children immediately climbed all over them as soon as they walked in the door. 

The next morning we woke up early and drove toward the beaches making sure to stop and see a few sights on the way. We saw the lagoon at Catarina and the beautiful city of Granada. Davis was driving in Granada and drove us right through the main market. Needless to say it was very slow going and we couldn't get out of the traffic. Once we got out, we visited the cathedral and the main square. 

After Granada we were in a hurry to get to the beach so we hit 100 a few times on the Pan American Highway. Luckily that's kilometers per hour (kph). I won't mention who originally thought it was mph. In San Juan del Sur we settled in to our fancy hotel right on the beach for a whopping $6 a night, rented some surfboards for $10 a day, and hit the Pacific Ocean. We spend the next 5 days surfing as much as we could. Luckily we had a 4x4 because a few of the beaches were pretty remote. Sometimes the mud splashed over the hood. By the end of the trip our vehicle was a different color and at night we couldn't tell if the headlights were on or not.

On one occasion Davis had a slight malfunction with his board. It was probably the biggest wave day we had yet, and Davis ended up coming back in with two boards! A wave had landed perfected on his board as he ditched it to snap it in half.



After just the first day of surfing I was tired, which means after 5 days I was dead. But it was totally worth it and we had a blast with lots of laughs the entire time.

On the way back to El Crucero, we stopped at the volcano Masaya. It is still active and spewing sulfer constantly. At one point Davis, Michael and I must have gotten a bad whiff of the smoke because we couldn't stop coughing. We had to walk away. It's funny though, the parking lot at the crater makes you park facing out just in case of an eruption!