One thing I’ve noticed about Nicaragua so far is that I’ve seen no begging. Granted you have the handicraft street vendors, stray dogs, and taxi driver’s soliciting your attention, but no pesky children running around asking for a dollar like you do in other touristy, less developed places of the world. I suppose it’s a sign this place hasn’t been tainted by tourism (or maybe it’s just the culture) and I hope it stays that way, but by the beauty and potential of this area, along with the low costs, I don’t see it staying remote and untouched for very long.

Last night we arrived into San Juan Del Sur, which is a great little town that if I had known, would have skipped the expense of France and come here for the spring to learn Spanish and surf. It’s a gem of a find. The beachfront is riddled with restaurants and little bars so it’s not so lazy, but is a good mix at this stage. We found a place run by an expat couple that has a neat ambiance on the beach with an open porch to hear the crashing waves, swinging chairs to relax and geckos crawling on the wooden rafters. They were having an open mic night so we stuck around after chowing local grub to be entertained. (Mental note, I have to learn guitar and a few songs for situations like so. Mental note 2, No I don’t.)

During the open mic night, this long-haired, surfer guy stood up and sang a few songs and jammed with the owner, who was on bass guitar and they were actually really good. We seem to think the songs were original and I would venture to say he has a possible career ahead of him if he wanted. When he stood back up for the encore, he took his shirt off to sing and Marshall leans over and comments, “The music definitely sounds better with his shirt off”, for which I agreed. He fed the masculinity act by making comments in deep accents in between songs like, “Are you not entertained?”, which was a pretty funny Gladiator reference at the time. We were entertained, in a completely comfortable with your sexuality kind of way.

After the place wound down, we waddled over (we’re both short guys) to the town’s only discotec to see what that was all about and were further entertained with some large, hairy arm pitted local girls dancing with the door man/security guard, who had a beer in one hand and an AK-47 in the other. The place picked up with a mix of travelers and locals and the music switched between the reggae-ton Latin beat beats and Western dance stuff and generally we had a good time strobe light dancing with 80 cent beers and five dollar girls. Kidding.

At one point in the night I lost Marshall, but randomly found him exploring on a rickshaw headed home, when I exited the club, which was fairly entertaining and picture worthy.

Today we went surfing at Playa Maderas, which is a hot surfing location in the area. It was a bumpy 30-minute drive out from our base and we caught a ride with an old cabellero in his 1970s, barely ticking, beater of a pick-up truck. This diesel purred like a chain saw and bounced us around real nice as we made our way north to the beach. The seats were old worn leather, the glove compartment was tied shut with insulated electrical wire and the windows had to be rolled up and down with pliers. She was a beauty. He drove both ways and stayed with us for the afternoon, watching our stuff as we surfed for the low price of $10. We tipped him well.

(I’m a big fan of direct foreign investment, or stimulating the local economy, so unless I feel I’m getting cheated for the value of the service or good, I rarely bargain hard. I suppose that’s in direct conflict with my desire to keep a place unspoiled by tourism, but so be it.)

When we finished surfing (for which the tiny beach was again filled with destination surfers), we went to the only hut on the beach and bought a cold Coke to wash the saltwater blues away. They serve Coke out of bottles here and it’s a collective agreement between most people I know that Coke in bottles is far superior to Coke in cans. It was nice to enjoy that cold and refreshing Coke (shameless plug), wind down, and watch the remaining surfers do their thing.

Afterwards, we walked over to the truck and compadre has his hammock out, tied between trees, and was reading a book. I know I have issues when I mistakenly thought the book was “The Game” when it was actually The Bible. For those who don’t know, The Game is a book about picking up girls and is in a leather-bound, bible looking format. Why I would think this old guy would be reading that book, here in this nook, is beyond me. I suppose I’ve fallen off the deep end.