Nicaragua's South Pacific

San Juan del Sur.

I’ll ride the wave…

Some other Pearl Jam lovers (or maybe just Nienke T?) know how to finish this sentence, and more importantly what it means: freedom, action, no fear, surrender. The surfing environment San Juan del Sur at the pacific coast of Nicaragua seems to connect well with this mentality. For some reason, the music I travels with me so these days on the pacific coast I listen a lot to American rockmusic. Rough, lyrical, dynamic, extreme, just like the beachlife here. I’m totally into the Red Hot Chilli Peppers.

And yes, I tried surfing on Playa Madera, the ultimate surfingbeach in this area.. on this very day, the waves were 100 meters high and I saw the real good surfers disappearing into this wave-curls… incredible.. like I know it from videos. Next beside me. I can totally understand people make surfing their way of life. It’s mystical, looking over these little black puppets on the horizon, sitting on their surfboards, waiting for the waves in this silvergrey sparkling water. I could stay forever just watching this.

I’ve been about a week in San Juan del Sur, a nice fishingplace in a bay with the most beautiful beach reached in 40minutes by bus through the jungle. I met a lot of people here that I already knew, so that gave my stay a big ‘cosy’ idea. Have been there on the beach quite a while, for it was the first time I saw the Ocean Pacific in real... amazing, I loved it here.

With two friends from the US, Shawn and Brent, I stayed a night on Playa Madera, the beach next to San Juan del Sur. Quite an adventure. We saw the sunset, collected wood, made a fire to keep the bugs away, ate fruit and cookies, heated cans on the fire, did some nice storytelling – just the way it should be. While being asleep, it started to rain, so we had to pack and hide under the rocks. Later it got dry and I suddenly woke up at four, seeing an amazingly clear sky with all the stars you can dream off, hearing the fire behind and the sea in front off me.

At the moment I write this, I’m still at the pacific coast but then in Costa Rica, and will stay here this week, heading more southwards tomorrow already towards Jaco and Manuel Antonia.