Days 16-18 - San Juan del Sur

This week is flying by and the town is growing on me by the day...good thing I am planning to come back here at least 2 more times before leaving Nicaragua! My lessons are continuing to be well, and my instructor Claudia is fantastic. Wednesday afternoon, we did not have a scheduled activity, so Gretchen and I walked around in the town and hung out on the main beach for a while. It is interesting that there are really not many American tourists here. Mainly, we've seen Europeans so far but have also heard that there are lots of Australians and Israelis around these parts. Around sunset, we went to have a drink at this bar right on the beach where they have hammock-type chairs in the sand. The sunset was gorgeous, and as we were taking some photos, this woman walked up and asked if we'd like for her to take one of us...in our introduction, we learned that she was visiting SJDS on a "visa run" as she currently runs a guesthouse in the "Beverly Hills" type area of San Jose, Costa Rica. She was originally from Southern California, but had been there for several years. It's interesting who you meet and for what reason. She seemed very nice and gave us her information to check out the site and in the case that we needed a relaxed, affordable place in a great neighborhood of San Jose. We'll see...it may work out for a quick stop over on my way to Panama with Nic, but is nice to have an option in an otherwise nebulous city to navigate.

Thursday turned out to be another great day as well. My discussion in Spanish has gotten a bit better and my confidence level greater. Of course, when I don't know the Spanish word, I've been throwing in French or Italian where possible or throwing an accent onto an English word to make it work, but still it is better than fumbling through and getting stuck. During class, we walked to the market to pick up our supplies for the cooking lesson in the afternoon. We made Indio Viejo, a traditional Nicaraguense dish which is a kind of stew comprised of shredded chicken, peppers, tomatoes, onions, mint, corn meal and milk...very tasty. I'd had it with my host family in Granada, but never prepared it myself.

Following the cooking lesson, we took a walk around town and found the area where I was planning to stay after Managua which looks like a smaller version of the Gas Lamp quarter of San Diego with the antique fixtures in the street, etc. We also ran in to my friend Mascha who is still in town until late next week.

Tomorrow is my last day of lessons here and I am excited for the weekend on a boat and the beach, but have had a great experience with this school. Also, looking forward to my first surf lesson tomorrow afternoon!