San Pedro del Sur

I headed down to the beach town of San Juan del Sur to relax and try to do some surfing. San Juan has a beautiful little harbor with a nice swimming beach. The surfing beaches are a car ride away but plenty of services exist to get you out there and back for cheap.

And Nicaragua is cheap. My bill at my hotel on Ometepe after 2 days and 3 nights was only $38 and that included the room (room only had a bed and fan but what else do you need?), most of my meals, a few beers, and lots of bottled water. My hotel here in San Juan is $6 a night. Meals in restaurants usually run $3 to $4 for a good meal. A beer is under a buck.

Mark Twain came through here and said that San Juan consisted of "a few tumble-down frame shanties" and that the town was full of "horses, mules...and half-clad yellow natives". Twain certainly had a way of putting things. The town has changed and developed, but probably not all that much. Most of the nicer homes are foreign-owned. The locals' homes are still pretty ramshackle. The half-clad people these days are more likely to be foreigners.