San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua

21/06/2014

Having been given only 7 days in Costa Rica, we left early from Monteverde (5:45am) on a bus to Lagarto. From here we connected with another bus right the way up to the border, Puñas Blancas. The whole trip in total cost just $9. I had read online that this border was difficult and full of people trying to rip you off. It wasn't that bad at all. We exited Costa Rica with no problems but had to pay an $8 exit tax. After then walking a kilometre to the Nicaraguan side, we each paid $12 to enter. We got a taxi from there to San Juan for $20, which in my opinion was ridiculously high but no one wanted to catch the bus...for $0.25!

Once we arrived in San Juan, we tried to stay at Pacha Mama, one of the bigger hostels here, but had no luck as they were fully booked. After a lot of searching, we found another hostel, Beach Fun Hostels, which only cost $9 a night. At this point we were a group of 8 but it was fairly divided. Sush and her clan went to a hostel 4km away but Andrew, Laura and I stayed in town. 

By the time we had got to San Juan it was already 4pm so we went and had a late lunch. This was then followed by buying a liter bottle of Flor de Caña (really good Nicaraguan rum), 12 beers and mixer for 165 Cordoba or £3.70 each! 

We also caught an incredible Pacific Coast sunset. We drank at the hostel then went out into town where we found live music. I was absolutely knackered so crashed by 12.

22/06/2014

Today is Sunday Funday. Something that had gone from being small a year ago to now one of the biggest parties in all of Central America. Basically it's a bar crawl but to three different hostels with pools. We had to wait in a queue from 8am until around 9:30 to get the vest and ticket, which cost $20. Sush and her lot didn't get tickets. Once we had them, we had a really good breakfast just up the road from us and then started drinking again with some Swiss girls at our hostel. Bearing in mind this was 10am and the party doesn't finish until 11, it was going to be a long day! The pools were actually really good and the views over the San Juan bay were amazing. Unfortunately I have no pictures of it because I didn't want anything stolen/wet. Last week a guy died in the pool as he was drunk/on drugs and played who can stay under the water for longest?! He won. As a result, we all were given a can of beer and had to shotgun it. Ironic really. 

Tomorrow we're off to Ometepe Island for a couple of days, which is only an hour or so away!