San Juan Del Sur

SAN JUAN DEL SUR - April 9th, 2011

Somehow our group of 5 got up and left our beautiful hostel, "Little Morgan's" and took a taxi down to the dock.  Unfortunately, the ferry was leaving right when we pulled up, so we had to wait until 11am for the next one.  This gave us time to eat at The Corner House which I remember being a real treat on this volcano island.

Word to the wise; traveling in a group affords the luxury of taking taxis long distances instead of taking the unreliable public transportation.  This is exactly what we did once we got to the mainland.  We each paid a couple of dollars more than we would have if we took the sardine tin they call buses in Nicaragua, AND we got there in about a quarter of the time it would have otherwise taken.

Upon arriving at San Juan Del Sur, I immediately set out to find us somewhere awesome to stay.  A few backpackers pointed me up the hill to a place called, "Rayito de Luna."  The pic above is what we got for only $15/night per person.  No one else was staying at this 4 bedroom lodge, so we occupied two rooms, and got to play asshole all day at this amazing pool bar.

We went out that night and I met a really cool girl named Lisa who was looking for a roommate in Athens, GA which was the school I was applying to for my MBA. What a small world?!  She hung out for awhile and I almost lived with her, but then I chose to go to school at the University of South Carolina instead.  The 2nd best decision I ever made.

We could only stay one night (even though we had 3 entire months to do this trip, we really had to keep to a semi strict schedule to make sure we could see everything we wanted), and so headed for the bus the next afternoon.  While waiting for the bus I decided to get some fried chicken from a legit looking fast food place (think Church's chicken).  I got one chicken leg, which would end up being the last thing I ate for the next 30 hours.  I threw up the chicken w/in 10 min of consuming it and then crammed into a bus for a two hour journey to Managua (and I really mean CRAMMED).  

Tica Bus left at 4am for Tegucigalpa and then we got on a bus for La Ceiba, stayed the night there and then FINALLY took a ferry to Utila where we would later become Advanced Open Water Divers.