We splurged and caught a a taxi from Popoyo all the way to San Juan del Sur. We really didn't feel in the mood for a day of traveling via a cramped, overheated bus. The taxi ride was an adventure in itself. Once in the car, the driver switched his music over to songs in English. I guess he was trying to make us comfortable but instead it was kind of awkward. The music consisted of very graphic and quite vulgar rap lyrics. I smiled, trying to imagine what he would think if he knew what the rap music was saying.
Twenty minutes down the road we got flagged down by the traffic police. A routine traffic stop. Unfortunately our driver couldn't find all his paperwork. The cop seemed unconcerned, texting on his phone while waiting. Our driver finally said, "Oh here it is!", handed the cop fifty cordobas ($2), and we were on our way. Five minutes later we were flagged to the side at yet another traffic checkpoint (I'm pretty sure the first cop told the.second one to be sure to flag us over for a "random" check). Our driver exclaimed, "No es mi dia." and rolled down the window. This time he didn't even look for the paperwork. He simply slipped another 50 cordobas into his palm and shook the policeman's hand calling out "Hola hermano!". The policeman smiled and waved us past.
Eventually we made it to San Jaun del Sur. We paid the taxi driver and wandered around until we found a hostel. I (Chet) was here 16 years ago. We walked around the town a bit. I didn't recognize much from what I remembered of the town. San Juan has seen a lot of development over the last decade and a half. The market is more or less the same and the church is still there. Other than that though it was like being in a different place entirely. All things change with time and San Juan is no exception.
The town seemed eerily quiet. There is now capacity for a lot of tourists to come and stay and for people to come and live. However the establishments were at low capacity, the restaurants were empty and the beach was deserted. I wonder if we are simply here at a relatively quiet time of year? Or perhaps there was a boom of development but the tourists stopped coming or never came in the numbers that were anticipated.
Wyatt and I set off to try and sell our surfboards. We are heading inland away from surf for the remainder of our travels so it was time we sold our boards. We went to one surf shop and haggled for awhile but came to no consensus. We didn't really like the guys and they refused to pay what we considered a fair price. So we left. We put for sale signs on our boards and sat outside our hostel the rest of the day. Unfortunately there just weren't all that many people walking around.
The next day we went to another surf shop. This one was run by a very friendly local guy who was born and raised in San Juan, We haggled a bit and finally agreed on a fair price, plus lunch from the restaurant next door. We sat down and ate "cerdo con papas" and sipped on a cold lemonade while we waited for the shop keeper to go to the bank.
We got to talking and I asked about some people I used to know here in San Juan. Not only did he know of them but one was his neighbor! I am going to try and find her tomorrow.
That's all for now,
Chet and Karen
No comments:
Post a Comment