The Wandering Bishop: Wanderlust

The exit trip to Nicaragua was a great success. We all ate, drank, and associated well, and nobody got arrested (though Lou came close.) Everything is much cheaper there, and the brothers and sisters serving up there are very lovely indeed. We stayed in San Juan del Sur, which is about 30 minutes from the border and a popular tourist destination. It's about a four-hour drive from Sámara to the border, where we parked the car and walked across. Taking cars across is a long, complicated process which we didn't want to attempt.

First rule of surfing: Each surfer must carry his own board... unless you're Jamie and swindle Lou into being your board caddy.

On the Nica side of the border, this guy sold Jamie and Sam SIM cards for their phones. Sam's ended up not working, but Jamie's functioned well after the vendor made some after-market adjustments with his bowie knife.

Getting the trip off to a good start. We got a taxi driver to take all five of us, our beers, and the guys' boards in his car. No open container laws.

Off to San Juan!

Lou opted for chocolate instead of beer, which promptly melted in the 100 degree car. He'd been hoping to eat it in the air-conditioned duty free store, but time, tide, and Jamie Detwiler wait for no man. Lou grumpily informed us that for that, none of us would get any of his chocolate.

Our rental house was on the very top of a hill overlooking the bay. The walk up was so steep that we all had to get out of the car and walk up while the taxi drove up with our luggage.

It was another hike up from the vehicle-accessible top of the hill.

I slept on the couch outside for the first night because as the owner (center, in gray shirt) told us, he'd been cleaning what would have been my mattress when the wind blew it down the hill. By the time he had run down to retrieve it, it was already gone... lesson: never leave anything lying around, even mattresses.

A view of the town from our place.

Walking around SJDS

Really high tide

A very cool-looking, but very snobby and uptight hippie coffeehouse. The sign on the bookshelves inside read "You may not read a book without paying for it." They were used books, and their smoothies were awful. Megan did have a delicious Reuben sandwich here, but I still don't like them on the principal of having to pay to read books.