We Might Not Be Back: San Juan del Sur: A Week at the Beach

So from the city we journeyed out to the beach. San Juan del Sur was about a 1.5 hour trip from Granada. It was nice to get out of the city, although San Juan del Sur is about as touristy as it gets. It felt like there were more expats than Nicaraguans. Also, there is just something about surf towns that I find slightly annoying (I promise I eventually quit bitching about the areas we stay on this trip), however the sound of the ocean is one of my favorite things in the world. I have no love for sand and I am terrified of swimming in the ocean, but the sound of waves makes up for everything. We could hear the water from out apartment, but it was thankfully outside of town enough to feel kind of cut off from the party scene. We could also hear the sounds of the aquacate man, the roosters, the cats and the fascinating neighbors. The people next to us would start off the evening with evangelical services with a little kid who was belting out hymms and then it was a crowd of young guys who sounded like they were maybe enjoying a couple drinks. It was truly confusing.
We spent the majority of our time this week digging in the sand. The sand which by the way gets totally imbedded in every piece of fabric it comes in contact with. This bothers my offspring not in the slightest. They basically bathed in it.
We were supposed to have done a homestay and more school at this location, however there was a small snag with the allocations of funds that I took as a sign to cancel the home stay and school. We instead set up a two hour a day program for Gabby and I with a school we could walk to from our airbnb. Lottie opted out of this week. The school was awesome. I think if we'd started with this one and the girls had separate teachers we'd have made a lot more progress. This school was a little more structured and there was more direct instruction. I think if I had started with this type of school and then transitioned to the school in Granada where it was more conversation based I'd have picked up more. Oh well! Live and learn. I think Gabby learned a lot. She learned a lot of Spanish and lots of interesting life lessons from her young teacher that may have been of questionable content. Lottie seemed to enjoy just hanging out. She definitely enjoyed our school outing to the super pricey restaurant on the beach where we got to see a variety of traditional dances. All the teachers at the school new us by name and would say hi when we saw them out. I am truly grateful to them for their kindness!!!!
On our last day we finally hiked up to the Cristo de la Misericordia . The view was pretty incredible and worth the unbelievably hot climb. Naturally we spent a couple hours at the beach afterwords.

We reused out trash to play with in the absence of "real" beach toys.

There's Jesus off in the distance.

So this seemed like a fun set up, but I maybe had a small nervous breakdown over all the bugs and lack of light in this basement rental. The very kind owner was accommodating and let us move upstairs. This is where I realized I am more high maintenance than I sometimes want to admit.