Nicaragua! This trip
was last minute, with only about a month of planning. The trip included Sean, Robby, Mike Pacada,
and Mark Vorwaller (Sean’s friend from Florida). When I initially heard about the invite I was
really excited but figured it was a “no go”, since Charlie was still pretty
young. Emily was adamant about me going,
since she knew I’d love to do a surf trip with those guys, and especially to
Nica. So, I bought a ticket – and insurance. We had been advised by Sean, that if the
swells didn’t look favorable, we would push the trip back. Well, sure enough the swells didn’t look good
and neither did the winds. Robby, Mike and
I bought insurance through Priceline, and to make a long story short it was a
nightmare trying to figure out the insurance and to see if we would be
covered. Luckily Robby had “sinusitis”. We risked it and booked the trip for the week
after, which ended up being August 12th – 18th.
We arrived Sunday, and Mike, Robby, and myself all had the
same connecting flight from Houston to Nica so we poached some seats in the
upgraded coach-plus section (which was empty) and got to sit by each
other. We arrived around 9pm, and Sean
and Mark had arrived before us. They had
already picked up the double cab truck, and some essentials - five jugs of
purified water.
The drive out to the coast was three hours, with one hour
being on dirt roads. Mark has been to
Nica many times and so he was basically our surf/tour/driving guide the whole
trip. If it wasn’t for him, we wouldn’t
have scored nearly as many good sessions as we did. Mark had also done the hotel reservations, and
we stayed at a place called “The Surf Sanctuary”. It was right near the beach, and was set up
like a resort/mini little village. We stayed
in a house on the property and it was surprisingly nice. It had a full kitchen, three bedrooms, two
baths, and most importantly AC in all the rooms. It also had pretty good wireless internet,
which is crazy considering there wasn’t a paved road for probably 60 miles.
Monday – We woke up around 7:30am, (we slept in since
we didn’t get in until 2:30am). Robby,
Mike and I all had reserved beforehand surfboards at a local place called
Popoyo Ding repair. They had a great
website with a good variety of boards, and at $10/day you couldn’t
complain. We picked up our boards, and
headed out for our first session. Popoyo
– probably the most popular break in the area.
The waves were good, a little crowded, but a fun place to start the
trip. The water was perfect – warmer than
Hawaii. Lunch was at a local place
called Yolanda’s Cafe. The food was
awesome! Excellent chicken, rice, beans,
and some fried bananas. I loved having
the rice and beans, since it reminded me so much of Brazil. There was an entertaining monkey that would
swing from a chain while we ate too. We
had a ciesta during the afternoon since everyone was pretty beat, and then
headed out for our second session to a place called “death rock”. It was really close to our house. The walk
was a about ten or fifteen minutes and was gorgeous. The actual surf spot was nestled in a little
cove that was also really pretty, with some nice Americanized homes all around the cliffs and hill sides. This was a really fun session, with some good
waves and a lot less people. That night
we ate at the restaurant at our resort.
The food there ended up being really good and so we ended up eating
there quite often throughout the trip.
Tuesday - We
woke up a lot earlier – 6ish. Headed out to death rock again since that place
is best during low to mid tides. Sean
decided to bring his camera, since it is and was the only convenient place to
take pictures. There were only a couple
other people out surfing with us which made it nice. The waves were once again, really fun. As soon
as it was around high tide, the waves got mushy, and we walked back the same
way we came. At high tide, a place
called Santanas goes off with fun little A-Frame waves. We only surfed at Santanas until about
12:45. Our truck had been having
problems with overheating, so we had arranged for the rental car company to
come out and exchange trucks with us at 1pm.
Santana ended up being a lot of fun and we were able to get some more
pictures there as well. The rental car
guy didn’t show up until 2:30! We were on a tight schedule since we wanted to
surf Colorado’s, and it is best at mid tide.
Mark knows a lot of locals in the town, so he had one of his friend’s
sons come with us to help us find a short cut.
Colorado’s is located in a private community, and unless you can get in
there, you have to walk quite a ways.
The local kid supposedly had a connection to get into the community but
that fell through. Colorado’s ended up
being pretty crowded, but since it’s a beach break, we were able to find a few
areas that were peaking with some good waves rolling in and fewer people. It was a fun a session. Randomly, the winds turned on shore at the
end so it was a good time to head out. A
side note of Nica – Winds are almost ALWAYS offshore which make for great
waves.
I forgot to mention that for breakfast each morning we each brought
granola bars and other snacks. I brought
Cliff bars, which worked out great. Mike
brought some nature valley bars, and ate them all by today – ah, very
typical. He then bought some local
cookies, similar to E.L. Fudge cookies, and had those the rest of the week for
breakfast.
Coming out of a barrel
Mike
Robby
Sean
Mike, Jason, Mark, Robby, Sean
Wednesday – boat trip. Mark had a friend in the town that had a boat
and gave us a good deal to take us out on his boat for a trip to further
breaks. The boat trip was incredible, with awesome views of the coastline. The
place we went to ended up being AMAZING!
It was called Punta Raylo. It’s a
point break, right alongside a 100 foot cliff in a relatively narrow but deep
bay. When we showed up, we were all a
little disappointed because it looked like the waves were pretty small, but at
least no one was there. We waited it out
for about ten minutes to see if any bigger sets would come in. Another side note – although we ended up
changing the dates for better swells, the forecast changed to massive
swells. The forecast had 15-20ft+ swells
for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday! So
this boat trip was intended to find a spot that would knock off some of the
size. After waiting for around ten
minutes, we saw some sets come in that looked amazing. Without anyone else out yet, we quickly got
in the water, and as for me, I began surfing the best spot I have ever
surfed. The waves were no bigger than 2
maybe 3 ft overhead, BUT, when you caught a wave you could ride it in for 200
yards! AND, it gets better…we had it
completely to ourselves the whole time!
I was amazed and loved every second of it! Mike, near the beginning of the session ended
up breaking his board in half on the inside, where the wave would typically get
a little heavier and hollower. LUCKILY,
he had thought to bring a second board on the boat trip (he had reserved two
boards). When we were all starving and
the tide started making the waves a little less favorable we headed towards the
boat, just as another boat with surfers were arriving. We lucked out, and thanks to Mark and his
planning and connections, I got the best session of my life. Later in the day we went up the coast a
little bit to a place called Lances. We
got there pretty late, so we didn’t have much time to surf.
Thursday – During the night there was a crazy
thunderstorm that knocked out the power in the middle of the night…which meant
no AC.
It was miserably hot and
humid.
Thursday was supposed to be the
biggest day of the swell.
We decided to
drive South about two hours in search of some spots that Mark had heard about
but never had been.
We brought with us
two locals, who sat in the bed of the truck.
The one local was the same as on Tuesday, and the other was another
girl, who just wanted to go along for the ride.
It ended up being a really fun day and adventure.
The local, Eddie, took us to a place called
Hermosa Beach.
It was set up as a kind
of surf camp in the middle of nowhere.
He had promised to find us a point break, but it ended up being a beach
break.
We waited on the shore for about
an hour just lounging at the surf camp on hammocks until the swell came in a
little to make the waves better.
It
ended up being an awesome session.
It was
probably the second best session of the trip. Nica mostly has breaks that are
lefts, but this place offered both lefts and rights.
It was fun to surf some rights for a
change.
We were all shocked and happily
surprised that the waves ended up being so good and it was another solo
session!
It definitely made it worth the
drive and the entrance fee to the camp.
We ate lunch on the beach at the restaurant they had there.
Another great meal!
We definitely ate well during the trip.
And, we all drank a Coke a day to help with
any possible stomach issues, and I surprisingly enjoyed the Cokes quite a
bit!
(Usually I hate Coke).
We left that spot in search of a point break
a little further down the beach.
Mike
and I decided to ride in the back on the way to the next spot.
Along the dirt roads we could hear some crazy
howler monkeys!
We ended up finding a really cool spot, but we didn’t
surf because it was almost dusk and the tide was too high to make it worth it.
But, it ended up being a really pretty spot
and we got some cool pictures.
Friday – Sean’s last day. Because of all the crazy travel plans and
changing of itineraries, Sean ended up having to fly out Friday late afternoon. The rest of us were scheduled for Saturday
around noon. We headed out really early Friday
morning so we could get in a session before Sean would have to leave. We went back Lances. It ended up being a much better session, with
better waves. Lances is more of a “reef”
or “rock” break, with probably the longest paddle out that we did during the
trip. It was a great morning session,
and a good one for Sean to have as his last of the trip. Lances is near a fishing village, that had tons of fishing
boats lined up all along the shore. And
the way the boats get into the water, is they roll them down the sand beach, on
big wooden logs. That is also the same
way our boat was launched when we went on our boat trip on Wednesday. We ate lunch at our resort restaurant
again. Some of the dishes I ate there
were, black bean tacos, fresh mahi mahi tacos, Mahi and Mackerel steaks,
chicken, chocolate and banana pancakes, and awesome omelets. Sean left after lunch. Then Mark arranged to take some of the local
kids out to some hot pots in the afternoon, so Robby Mike and I walked to
Santanas again. The waves were a lot bigger
than on Tuesday. We stayed out for a
couple hours until Mark came back and joined us for a little bit. We then went back to Popoyo, (where we first
surfed and picked up the boards), to finish off the trip with one last session
and to drop off the boards. We only got
to surf for about 30 minutes because it was getting so late, but there was an
amazing sunset.
For Friday night, we
ended up leaving the house because it was booked by another group, and we stayed
in one of the actual rooms of the lodge.
Mark’s good friend, Mollena, offered to make us dinner that night. She lives right on the beach, and has 18 kids!
Yes…18. She made us a great meal, of
beans, rice, coleslaw, and fresh caught red snapper. She and her family live in VERY humble
circumstances. We were given the biggest
servings, and we were the only ones that ate fish. They were really nice, and it was a good
way to finish up the trip. The circumstances
reminded me a lot of my mission.
Saturday – departure day….boo! But, I was very very
excited to see Emily and Charlie again! We
kept in touch via email each day throughout the trip. We woke up early and had
breakfast…banana and chocolate pancakes, which were awesome! We each settled up our tab at the restaurant
and headed out. We had a three hour
drive ahead of us, and once again we brought some locals with us who wanted to
go into town. We said our goodbyes to
Mark, and thanked him for pretty much making the trip as good as it was. Robby, Mike and I were on the same flight
back to Houston. Upon arriving near Houston
thunderstorms made us get rerouted to another airport. By the time we landed in Houston, Robby had
like 10 minutes to make his flight. He
missed it. And luckily was able to get
another flight, otherwise he would have had to spend the night in Houston. Mike was actually coming back to Utah, since
he began law school on Monday.
Originally he had an overnight
layover in Houston, yet I was able to fly out that same evening to SLC. So, Mike used the thunderstorm chaos at
Houston to tell the gate agent that he originally had my same flight, but for
some reason his itinerary now showed him having a layover. The gate agent didn’t think twice about it,
and put him on my same flight with an upgraded seat.
The trip was incredible! I’m so glad Emily let me go, and
wanted me to go. We all had such a fun
time and we all got along really well.
The waves couldn’t have been better, the winds cooperated the whole
trip. Great food. No one got sick.
