We caught a taxi from Sapoa over to the coastal town of San Juan del Sur in Nicaragua, a beach community that was recommended to us by several people in Playas del Coco. This is the go-to fishing spot for many locals & foreigners alike, and has a big surfing culture as well.

We were dropped off at the beginning of town, and walked the rest of the way in. Dennis knew of a cheap hostel just up the street from Hotel Estrella, so we headed there first. We settled on a room with two bunk beds for $15 a night. It was private with its own shower, so what's not to like?

The hostel was less than a block from the beach, and we could smell the saltwater at night. Unfortunately the walls & doors were not in the best condition, and mosquitoes easily found their way into our room at night. At least we had air-conditioning...

Since none of us had eaten anything after breakfast, we wasted little time getting down to the main drag and finding a restaurant right on the sand. We landed at Iguanas which we would become very familiar with over the next 48 hours. Even though there were dozens of places along the coast, we always seemed to end up back here for breakfast, lunch & dinner.

San Juan del Sur is a half crescent cove on the Pacific coast of south-west Nicaragua. It remained a sleepy little fishing village until 1851 when, of all things, the California gold rush would transform her to become part of a transit route between the east and west coasts of the United States.

Prospectors would leave the east coast, sail to the Caribbean side of Nicaragua, then navigate up the Rio San Juan. From there they would cross Lake Nicaragua, disembark their vessels and catch horse-driven buggies across the 10-mile stretch of land until they reached San Juan del Sur. After all this, they would finally set sail for California.

Look closely at this picture and you'll see a large figure sitting atop the distance hill. Instead of building an ocean-view home for himself, a local land owner recently commissioned this statue of Jesus Christ to preside over the Bay of San Juan. Finished in May of 2009, this statue is the second largest statue of Jesus in the world, second only to the famous Christ The Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

After lunch, Kenny, Dennis, Marta & I all took a stroll amongst the surf to see what we can find. At the far end of the main strip, there is a suspension bridge which spans the Rio San Juan and leads to the other side of town. Oddly enough, only Dennis & myself made it across. Kenny & Marta turned back after just a few feet, fearing the whole bridge would collapse or that they would fall off the side. I can certainly understand this from my scare back in Coco during the last zip lining tour I took.

That evening the sun slowly set behind a beautiful array of clouds, giving me the perfect opportunity to test a new technique I've been waiting to use. I removed my sunglasses, and shot this picture through one of its lens. It may be a bit of a goofy trick, but it was worth a try. I have tried this before with mixed results, but I think this one came out pretty well considering its a single shot, not a bracketed, three exposure HDR image like a lot of my other photos.

In the morning Dennis & I ventured a few miles down the beach to a surfing competition between Nicaragua, Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Guatemala. I must say that I was expecting a bigger turn out, seeing as how I am from Huntington Beach, a.k.a. Surf City. Neither Dennis or myself recognized any of the surfers, which was not all that surprising. We stayed for a few hours, met a few of the locals, then headed back to our hostel to pick up Kenny.

We had another travel day ahead of us, but one that was not nearly as grueling as getting into town from Coco beach. We were headed to Granada, a city that had been on my list since I first starting thinking about moving to Costa Rica back at the beginning of the year...