The birds here are beautiful and I realize we haven't seen much wildlife on this trip so far. Gorgeous blue and green birds with long, azure pendulum-shaped tails swoop onto low branches and then let their tails switch back and forth mechanically, like clocks. They are the 'guardabarrancos,' Nicaragua's national bird. Other birds that look like giant blue jays with feathery curly cues on their heads make a lot of noise in the mango tree and are curious about everything it seems.
We finally get around to finding the beach. It is hot and empty, and the water is again cold. I'm not interested in swimming anyway and instead pick stones and shells and other things off of the beach, throw most of them back, and keep a few. We wander, have a beer here, and ice cream there, typical beach wandering. Except for at one point when our beach stroll was interrupted by a loud and irritated voice behind us, 'Man, they really f***ed this place up!' We look back and see a middle-aged man walking quickly and angrily and all the while talking out loud, mostly to himself, about how San Juan has been ruined in the past 20 years. Meanwhile, Abby and I feel a bit silly and out of place here anyway, maybe we should have been here 20 years ago? Who knows...It's a nice place, but we're not surfers and it seems like the whole town has been built up just to accomodate those folks. And there's the wild partying people have told us about, but I'm just not interested this time.
After a seriously satisfying dinner of fish, ceviche, and a couple of Toñas, I dropped like a rock onto a thin mattress on Sarah and Baldo's terrace.
We finally get around to finding the beach. It is hot and empty, and the water is again cold. I'm not interested in swimming anyway and instead pick stones and shells and other things off of the beach, throw most of them back, and keep a few. We wander, have a beer here, and ice cream there, typical beach wandering. Except for at one point when our beach stroll was interrupted by a loud and irritated voice behind us, 'Man, they really f***ed this place up!' We look back and see a middle-aged man walking quickly and angrily and all the while talking out loud, mostly to himself, about how San Juan has been ruined in the past 20 years. Meanwhile, Abby and I feel a bit silly and out of place here anyway, maybe we should have been here 20 years ago? Who knows...It's a nice place, but we're not surfers and it seems like the whole town has been built up just to accomodate those folks. And there's the wild partying people have told us about, but I'm just not interested this time.After a seriously satisfying dinner of fish, ceviche, and a couple of Toñas, I dropped like a rock onto a thin mattress on Sarah and Baldo's terrace.
