Day 4: Nicaraguan Wedding in San Juan del Sur

I guess you know you love your job when you find ways to do it on vacation.  We found out the surf instructor we requested wouldn't be able to give us surf lessons because he "forgot his sister was getting married tomorrow."  I told Kevin about the surf lessons and he said that I should check to see if they had a photographer for the wedding.  

Eduardo's sister had not planned to have a photographer at the wedding since they couldn't afford it.  Even though they had been civilly married 3 years prior, they had been saving up since then to have a ceremony in the local Catholic church.  It costs around $50 dollars to get married in the church if you do it in a large group, so there were actually 10 other couples besides them getting married at the same time.  All in all the wedding cost around $300 with everything (wedding dress and suit and shared fee for the church), and it had taken them 3 years of savings.  I just thought it was so special to be part of their wedding since they had saved so long for it, and it felt like we were leaving a little bit of good behind in Nicaragua.  The bride's grandmother was SO sweet.  She walked the bride down the aisle and when she saw Kevin and I she stopped right in the middle of the aisle and gave us both a kiss.  After the wedding there was a catered lunch in the back of the surf shop and the grandma kept dancing with Kevin.  Seriously the cutest lady ever and the wedding was such a great experience.  

Late afternoon that same day we hitched a trip with our new friends from Vancouver to a super secluded local called Yankee beach (which the Nicaraguans pronounce Janke).  There was nobody else on the beach and we attempted surfing again for the second time (less successfully).  Jasmine and I gave up after about half an hour and just started trying yoga poses on our surf boards.  We had a blast goofing around on the beach and there was a beautiful sunset on the water.  We had another fabulous dinner again at the hotel -- croquettes for appetizers, fresh fish from the market, and crepes for desert.  

Day 3: San Juan Del Sur, Nicaragua

After a long night drinking way too much Nicaraguan rum, we woke up early to head to San Juan del Sur.  An hour and a half ride from Granada we finally arrived (thankfully without me puking).  As soon as we were out of the car I felt a million times better and the views from our hotel were incredible.  The actual hotel leaves some things to be desired (no restaurants within walking distance and they told us they didn't serve lunch.  It also wasn't overly clean and Kevin found a scorpion in the room).  

...BUT the pool was amazing, and after soaking in the sun for awhile, some new guests arrived at the hotel named Josh and Jasmine from Vancouver, Canada.  We all hit it off right away and decided to all share a cab down to one of the surfer beaches.  Josh has surfed all over the world so after giving Kevin and I a ten minute lesson we were both standing up on the boards.  It feels way faster and is way harder than it looks - imagine trying to jump from your belly to your feet on a moving object while balancing.  It was also WAY more fun than it looks.

Day 2: Granada, Nicaragua

We spent the morning wandering around Granada and the highlight was paying 25 cordoba (the equivalent of 1 US dollar) to climb up the clock tower of Merced church.  The stairs were crazy narrow and windy but it was a beautiful view of the city.  From that top you can really get a better sense for the city with all the tile roofs and you can see how so many of the building have internal courtyards with gardens that are hidden from the street.  

After a bunch of walking we stopped at a two story bar and drank some more Mucua and watched the street life.  We kept laughing about all the different vendors since it seemed like every little shop or street vendor only sold one product.  A guy would walk down the street with 30 belts on his shoulder and we'd yell "the belt guy."  We also noticed a troop of women sweeping out the gutters, which explains why Granada is overall such a clean city.

In the late afternoon we went on our first arranged tour with Livitwater to go stand up paddle boarding.  It was our first time paddle boarding and actually much less strenuous than I expected - it was really peaceful and quite gliding down the water standing up.  Gea and Scott, the couple that owned the paddle boarding company were awesome and we ended up meeting them up for drinks and tapas later in the night.  Meeting up with someone new and local is one of our absolute favorite things when we travel.  We drank so much Flor de Cana (rum) that at one point Gea thought there was a minor earth quake.  We laughed about that for the rest of the night.

Gea and Scott's friend Jemma who owns the tour company Green Pathways met up with us and got us onto the exclusive "list" to see a popular Nicaraguan band right on the Lake Nicaragua beach.  I wish we would have met Gea before we planned this trip - if we come back we'll definitely have her help us plan something.  The discoteca was called "I heart weekend" and was hilarious and ridiculous.  It was super fun dancing on the sand and I think we were the only gringos there.