Day 8: San Juan Nights

After the sunset, we grabbed some snacks and headed back to the hostel. It was then that we met the rest of the hostel crew. We met Kate and Alyssa, two girls from where else....Canada, lol. Toronto to be exact. And met Chloe and Jayden, a couple from Australia. But funny story...they have a connection to Canada too! lol! Chloe has applied for some jobs in Canada, and they are looking to travel north in January 2011. But please, guess where in Canada....Calgary! For real! Too fricking funny.

Anyways, we all managed to grab some snacks and get back to the hostel right before the rain started. And by rain, I mean it poured!!!! It didn't last long, half hour to an hour maybe.


But don't you worry, Alyssa made sure us girls had something to keep us occupied! She had nail polish remover and a few colors of polish! I finished with my journal entry and provided the light.

After the rains stopped, and the drinking was well on its way, we all headed out in search of a bar and good music. This crew is so awesome! You guys truly made our stay at Hotel Joxi worthwhile! Thank you!

Pictured below (L-R): Kate, Alyssa, Jocelyn, Nick, Chloe, Paul and Jayden.

After some back and forth trying to decide where to go, we hit up the Iguana Bar along the beach. (Picture taken during the day, obviously).

This crew is a good time.

The dancing started.

As the night went on, and the more drinks were consumed, Jayden brought out the "chicken game". Oh my goodness! Now he "claims" this is a drinking game that they play back home in Australia, and that if any of us were to ask an Australian about it, they would know the game....we're not too sure. But man, us girls had a good laugh at these boys!!! I haven't laughed that hard in a long time! We were crying!

As the night went on, Jayden finally had the whole table playing it. Now we were the ones being laughed at by the locals!!! hahaha! Thanks Jayden!

Day 8: San Juan Sunset

After grabbing some cash from the ATM, we headed back to the beach to watch the sunset. And we're soooo glad we did! It was amazing. The best we've seen yet on this trip. The sun cast a beautiful glow on everything!


Sunset silhouettes....sure why not!

So beautiful! Thank you Nicaragua!

Day 8: San Juan Del Sur

Bienvenidos a San Juan del Sur....like the murals says! Woo hoo, we're in Nicaragua! We're all checked into a hostel, and we started meeting people right away. As we were leaving our room, we met a couple (Jocelyn and Nick). Guess where they were from?! First we narrowed it down to Canada, to BC, then.....Nelson! Nelson, BC of all places, just a few hours away from us in Fernie. Too funny! We all just arrived in town so the four of us headed to the market to grab lunch.

It's pretty funny....in Costa Rica, this time and last, I've always meet Americans. Store owners, restaurant owners, property owners, tourists. In Nicaragua, you will meet Canadians. Yes, in both countries there is also a mix of other countries, but looking at North America, this is who you'll be meeting in CR and Nica.

After lunch, Jocelyn and Nick hit the beach while we toured around town. I love the character here, and the colors! It's so different than Costa Rica...I simply love it! And it has a great small town feel. Last time I met so many cool people and great connections, this time was the same. And you don't just see them once, you keep on running into them. It's just great! I could live here :)

Now it's time to check out the beach. Sadly, San Juan is a fishing village. People do swim here, but I'd prefer to travel north or south to the swimming and surfing beaches. Last time, I tried to go swimming here and I got stung by jelly fish...no thank you. This, this is my one "princess moment" of the trip.

The beach is gorgeous though!

Dipping our toes into the Pacific Ocean from Nicaragua.

Again, this place just has so much character. The beach is filled with beachfront restaurants with thatch roofs.

We went and toured more of town. I love the colonial architecture that Nicaragua has to offer. Again, you don't find much of this in Costa Rica. Two countries, side by side, yet so very different! This is why I wanted to bring Paul here....I knew he was going love it too!

Back to the beachfront to grab some cash. The private ATM room is one place you will find wicked air conditioning! lol.

Day 8: Hotel Joxi

The heat in Nicaragua is intense. A dry heat. We crossed the border and arrived in San Juan during the midday heat. I prefer the dry heat though over the damp heat of Costa Rica, but the midday heat is really intense!

So the taxi, dropped us off in San Juan and we set out to find a hostel. I had stayed in two hostels there last trip, and had also been inside two others where friends were staying, so I knew we had choices.

We tried Hostel Nicaragua first, but no one was around. Seems just like last time with that place...no one is ever around...but it's a nice place so I thought we'd try it. Next we ventured over to Hostel Casa Oro, the popular hostel. All private rooms were booked up. Not surprised. We were approached by a lady who said she had rooms to rent down the street. She spoke English. She was actually the first person we heard speaking English since we arrived. She seemed legit but her rooms were $25 a night. We're in Nicaragua where I know we can get a room that is cheaper than Costa Rica.

We were about to walk back to El Puerto Hotel, where I stated last time, but it was hot, sooo hot. Paul noticed Hotel Joxi so we thought we'd give it a try. It really wasn't anything great, but we'll stay for a night at least.

The hotel is a family-owned, family-lived in building. They live on the main floor and rent out rooms on the second floor. They provide breakfast and coffee, and laundry services.

This is our room on the second floor. Very bright and very colorful, and very hot. We had the option of air conditioning or a fan. We originally paid for air conditioning. It was a small A/C unit placed in the window. It hardly worked, and definitely didn't produce enough cool air to cool down the room.

We switched to a fan...thank goodness, it actually worked! The room had a double bed, a bunk bed and a private bathroom...I'll spare you the photos of that, as it was a little scary....okay, I'll be honest, this was the worst place we stayed at. I'll explain more later.

The "upside" of the hostel was the common area on the second floor. There were a few dining room tables, three hammocks and a siting area.

A must-have for me in any hostel is hammocks. This was the hostel's saving grace.
The floor boards were a little sketchy, the balcony railing was even sketchier...and the balcony area that led to our room and 2 others, were quite scary. But the second floor location down from the beach provided a nice breeze when you were in the common area....and it turned out, that we ended up with a pretty wicked hostel crew here! In the end, we stayed at this hostel for 2 nights, simply because of the crew we met.

We all left the hostel on the same day. Even though Paul and I were staying in San Juan for another night, we couldn't bear the place any more....midway through our second day there, the bathrooms started acting up. Not overflowing or anything, but the smell was unbearable! We hardly slept on night two because of the smell. With that, it was time to find someplace else!

Travel Routes in Nicaragua

Welcome to our travels through Nicaragua! Yes, I finally twisted Paul's arm enough and here we are!

A quick summary of our Nicaraguan destinations included:

We crossed the Costa Rican-Nicaraguan border around 1 or 2 o'clock. It took us about an hour, and definitely wasn't an easy adventure. We then grabbed a taxi from Penas Blancas (the border crossing) to San Juan Del Sur.

In San Juan, we rented a Land Cruiser that we nicknamed "El Beastio". We trip to go on a day trip to Masaya and Granada....but El Beastio is definitely not a highway vehicle. Instead we turned around and ventured to the beach....Playa Maderas and Majagual. We went on a ocean road adventure. First we had no clue where we were going, second we missed the turn-off to the beach. Yes we got "misplaced" a couple times, but it was fun.

The following day we rented "Gringo", a little sedan that we could do some road tripping with. We took "Gringo" and hit the open road. Like the day before, we missed our turn-off and ventured too far. We turned around and took "Gringo" to Masaya, Volcano Masaya, and Granada , then back to San Juan. We had a road map in Costa Rica. All we had in Nicaragua was my map in the Lonely Planet book. Lol...it wasn't the perfect map....obviously.

When we left San Juan, we took a taxi back to the border crossing.

Here is the route we followed:

Detail map: