Day 121 – Wednesday 18th January 2006

The town of San Juan del Sur is a mecca for the surfers of Nicaragua. Not because of the flat waters in the bay, but due to the waves that crash onto the shorelines of the beaches to the north and south of San Juan. The Argies and I decided to check out one of the playas along the coast, not as surfers, but just beach dudes.

We took a taxi to the next beach along from San Juan, Playa Maderas . The ride took about 20 minutes along a dirt track. The taxi dropped us off as close to the beach as he could get, and we walked the final 300m. As we came through the trees we saw an expanse of sand about 1km long, without a single soul on it. It instantly became my favourite beach of the entire trip so far, and I reckon it would take a pretty special place to beat it.

Apart from the expanse of golden sand that no one was using, the beach was great because the waves continually crashed onto the shore, meaning that if I were a surfer, I could have made use of them. As it was I just had to be content with paddling around. It was also surrounded by cliffs meaning that it had an air of seclusion.

The final deal sealer for beach of the trip was the rocky outcrop at the far end of the beach which was perfect for exploration. This meant that once we tired of having the entire beach to ourselves, we could go and do some wandering and climbing and other cool things, and after a few hours of lazing around we decided to head off to the rocks to do just that.

Walking around and clambering over the rocks, our final destination was to be the giant boulder that stood out at the end of the outcrop. In order to reach it we had to traverse a few gaps in the rock by jumping or swimming across. It took a while to reach the top of the rocks, but once we did it was a worthwhile spot to eat the packed lunch of chicken sarnies we had brought along for the day.

After lunch and sitting up on the top for a while we began to notice the tide coming in, and not wanting to be cut off we made our way back to the beach. Crossing the gaps was a little more tricky due to the higher water levels, but we ade it back in good time before we were cut off. Guillermo did manage to lose a flip flop during our return which he was pretty distraught about, but apart from a few cuts and scrapes that was the only casualty of the day.

As the sun began to fall in the sky we hitched a ride back to San Juan, thus saving ourelves the $3 taxi fare, to end the day on another high. Dinner was a street BBQ, where Agustin said that I could stay at his house when I get to Buenos Aires next month. All in all, a pretty sweet day.