Nicaragua 2015
October 31, 2015
I'm sitting on a wooden deck next to a French family overlooking one of the most beautiful sights I've ever seen. We're at Costa Dulce, an idillic beach community near San Juan del Sur in southern Nicaragua. I'm looking out onto small, surf-able, yet powerful, dominating waves that never cease to build and crash, grow and dissipate.
It's Halloween, but no ghosts or gruesome goblins are in sight. Only exotic butterflies, birds, trees, and smells. We've been here, in this paradise, since late Tuesday night, October 27th. Three full days of ocean swimming and boogie boarding, beach exploring and relaxing on the hillside decks overlooking the setting sun. The first day we took stand-up-paddle-boards and navigated the mangroves and murky waters of an estuary hidden at the end of our semi-private beach. It was creepy, quiet, and so cool!
Other highlights include visiting Costa Dulce's resident barnyard animals. Accompanied by Tyson, the owner, builder, and man with a vision, we took the pigs for a walk. They are appropriately named (in Spanish) Bacon, Ham, and Porkchop. We examined the chicken coop, selecting five roosters to harvest for the evening dinner. Tyson killed four, right there in front of us, and Botts killed one.
The food here is incredible. Fresh fruit juice and gallo pinto with fried bananas, friend cheese, pico de gallo, freshly gathered chicken eggs.
But adventure calls. I can't sit on this balcony with a Tona beer overlooking the blue sea forever. A jungle trek on horseback, returning by pitch black beach back. Giddy-up Colorado the horse!
A shady forest scamper to Yankee neighbor beach for soft sand strewn with sand dollars a-plenty and hardly a soul in sight. Rock scrambling, tide-pooling. The hot mornings turn to much appreciated rainy afternoons. Delicious dinners and lively conversations with other guests.
Today we leave paradise to explore la Isla de Ometempe. Two massive volcanoes, Maderas y Concepcion, represent the swollen breasts of a dying princess in love. We journey by taxi, taxi, launcha, and taxi to la Finca del Sol. It's run by a Canadian-Italian couple who moved here about ten years ago. They have goats and sheep grazing through a pretty wild plot of jungle. Three casitas, ours with an inspiring view of Volcan Cocepcion, are their source of tourist income.
The land is a symphony of sounds with calls from many bird species, howls from monkeys, dogs barking, insects clicking, geckos chirping, and the locals bumping a heavy bass down the street.
We hire motor-bikes after a lazy morning and circumnavigate El Volcan Maderas. The previous night we dined at a local restaurant called Mi Ranchito and met el dueno Eduardo who talks and even looks a bit like a Nicaraguan God Father.
