San Juan Del Sur & Rivas

Three months to the day that we arrived in Nicaragua and we were able to celebrate with a day trip. Seeing more of Nicaragua is a real delight with each area being so different, offering a great deal of beauty and interesting sights. The topography is constantly changing with the fauna & flora also presenting new offerings everwhere you go.

Heading toward Costa Rica, in fact not far from the border, is Rivas. We found the area mush poorer than Granada, but much friendlier. The open air market was a real delight, especially in comparison to Granada's crowded, dirty one. Wide streets, without vehicles, were lined with tidy market stalls from which smiling vendors curiously stared at us, foreigners being less common here. We had only about an hour to spend here as we were heading for somewhere even better...

San Juan Del Sur! Still maintaining it's fishing village feel, this little town lies between the hills and the glorious Pacific Ocean. It is the more commercial beach in the area....commercial for Nicaragua anyway. Cabana style restaurants line the beach and new developments and luxury home are sprouting up in the hills overlooking the moon shaped beach. Even still, no more than 50 people were on the beach and a meal can still be had, served to you in your beach chair should you wish, for about $4-$5. A beer served to you under your umbrella will put you back about $1.25. Luxury ;)

The waters of the Pacific, which has been a life long desire of mine to see & swim in, were warm but refreshing. Little schools of fish swam cirles around us. I just prayed nothing bigger would be following them (once a mother always a mother)! Nikki was like a fish herself and was not even put off by the Sting Ray her and Gary saw swim by! We collected stones & shells that the tide had washed up, lots of pretty ones that were very different from the ones we had found on the Atlantic Ocean beaches. We even found a live Sand Dollar that we snapped pictures off and then placed gently back in the water. The sun was merciless, giving Nikki and Gary a lobster style tan but the constant gentle breeze and a light afternoon shower made it difficult to know that you were getting so much sun.

We stayed to watch the glorious sunset (which we are told is even more glorious in Nov-Jan due to it's location) and then headed back the 1 or so hour trip in the dark to Granada. It really was a beautiful day. We look forward to exploring some of the other beaches (the vehicle we are looking at currently is 4x4 which will make it possible). Nikki wants to see the turtle egg laying and hatching this fall too!

It was hard to pick some pictures to show you. I added just a few to show the area. Gorgeous!