San Juan del Sur

I returned Wednesday from the beach, having spent the previous three nights in the Pacific coast town of San Juan del Sur. The normally quiet-- from what I´ve heard--beach town was hopping and full of Nicas on vacation from work in celebration of Semana Santa (Easter Week). Almost none of them know how to swim, but the water was full of families playing. Oddly, almost all the women were wearing tee shirts and shorts. I think this is in part due to a lack of funds for purchasing swimsuits but is mostly due to modesty concerns that come from living in such a machismo culture.

On my way into town, via 'chicken bus' aka old school buses from the USA, I sat next to a man named Javier who was on his way to SJDS for the day to sell some clothes to a store in town. Our meeting did not get off to a good start, as I sat next to his bag on the bus and then he got on and told me that he was paying for the whole seat so he could sit with his bag. I asked him if I could please sit there as there were no other seats and I didn't want to stand for two hours. He finally relented and after that we got along really well. He even insisted on paying for my bus ticket and took me out to lunch. The bus got super crowded, as it stops and picks up every person on the side of the road that waves to it. There were so many people going to the beach that the aisle was totally packed and still people were squeezing on. The cost of this two hour+ trip was about $1.20.

Once we finally arrived in SJDS, Javier took care of his business (He told me that he bought 25,000 shirts from the US--though made in China, of course--for $.25 each [after import/export taxes, etc $.68 each] and was trying to sell them for around $4 each) then we had some lunch and then a couple beers at one of the beach front bars and watched the antics of people drunk at noon. Since I arrived on Sunday, there were even more people at the beach than on the following days.

We spoke a lot, in Spanish and English, about the problems of our countries and other topics of daily life. One thing that I really like about Nicaragua is that everyone has a lot of opinions about every topic. I think this is partly due to the fact that their news programs are really good here, having in depth coverage about a lot of important issues world wide and also streaming news briefs along the bottom of the screen (similar to the way we do the stock market reports). He left around 3:00 to catch the last bus to Granada and I had a long walk from one end of the beach to the other (~1 hour roundtrip) and got acquainted with the town.

Later that night, I met an Australian woman who's been living and working in SJDS for about ten months. She started out in Guatemala and told me about some places to check out, which was really good as I am going there next and know very little about the country. Apparently the infrastructure for tourists is better there than here, so I'm not too worried about it. But I really should have bought the Central America guide, not just the one for Nicaragua!

Monday morning I went to check out the "biggest English language bookstore in Nicaragua", El Gato Negro. It was really fun and I probably spent at least an hour looking at books. I bought one on the history of Nicaragua and also a novel (and exchanged One Hundred Years of Solitude for a discount--sorry Erin, I owe you a book!). I also read an interview with Kurt Vonnegut (Stop Smiling magazine, issue 27, 2006) where he said "Look, practice an art, no matter how badly or how well you do it. It will make your soul grow. That´s why you do it. You don´t do it to become famous or rich. You do it to make your soul grow. This would include singing in the shower, dancing to the radio by yourself, drawing a picture of your roommate or writing a poem or whatever. Please practice an art. Have the experience of becoming. It´s so sad that many public school systems are eliminating the arts because it´s no way to make a living. What´s important is to have the experience of becoming, which is as necessary as food or sex. It´s really quite a sensation--to become." This is great advice.

Then it was another lazy day of eating, drinking, reading, writing, and strolling along the beach. The sunsets were all spectacular and it was a terribly romantic place to be alone. Good thing I didn't bring my camera or I would have been tempted to break my vow of not trying to capture sunsets on film (I think it's best to just savor them in the moment).

Later, I had a few beers with Koko, an Argentinian musician living in Costa Rica because it´s possible to make a living playing music there. He has four bands and is happy, though recently, after 5 years of waiting, was denied residency and now has to leave the country for 72 hours every 3 months to renew his visa. He told me some places to visit in Argentina and we talked about the problems and assets of our respective societies. One thing that really stuck out was the fact that in Argentinian suburbs, unlike those in America, there are a lot of businesses and things to walk to. So it´s more like living in a city and people aren´t as isolated from their neighbors. Which I think is a really good thing. He also taught me some slang, which I will not post here but will email to you if you ask.

Tuesday, I had planned to take a water taxi to visit another beach, but it (unseasonably) rained really hard all morning. The afternoon was a little better, but I didn´t want to get stuck on a beach somewhere in the rain so I stayed in town and hung out on the same beach. I treated myself to a very expensive dinner ($11) of gigantic grilled shrimp and a perfect piña colada.