Castaway Life in Nicaragua

Travelling foreign lands on your own has its advantages, especially if you lack an itinerary. For one, it gives you the flexibility to stay where you want, for as long as you want. This is precisely why I found myself living on the Nicoya Peninsula in Costa Rica for five weeks; I was enjoying the ‘pura vida’ lifestyle too much to leave. Unfortunately, I was way over budget and, if I intended to make it to Patagonia, I had to change something about the way I was living.

Nicaragua was the solution. The surf was world-renowned, the country was less developed and, accordingly, the cost of living was lower. The icing on the cake, however, was the accommodation. A fellow I met in Santa Teresa, Ross, happened to be house-sitting a little place on the beach near San Juan del Sur in Nicaragua that he invited me to stay at free-of-charge.

Four of us, all from different countries, decided to leave Costa Rica for Nicaragua on Sunday November 3^rd, 2013. We woke before day-break and scrambled to gather and pack our belongings for the six o’clock bus out of Santa Teresa, which a power outage prevented us from doing the night before. Two buses and a ferry later we arrived at the Nicaraguan border. If there was any security, it was well hidden. We simply flashed our passports, got it stamped, and paid a modest entry fee of $12 US. After some drama between the cabbies over who got to take us and for how much, we hopped in a cab that got us to San Juan del Sur just in time to catch the sunset.

Sunset in San Juan del Sur

As the trek to the beach house was supposedly fairly precarious in the dark, we opted to spend the night in town where we could grab a bite and celebrate our arrival in Nicaragua over a couple of drinks. It quickly became apparent that Nicaragua was in fact less developed and substantially cheaper than Costa Rica. The roads were, in general, in much worse condition than those in Costa Rica. Very few people spoke English. And people were smoking everywhere, inside restaurants, bars and stores. Fortunately for us, Nicaragua is the home of Flor de Caña and one can buy a 1.75 litre bottle of the rum for less than 500 córdobas ($20 US) or a mojito from the bar for 25 córdobas ($1 US).

After dinner we found our way to Hostel Pacha Mama. To my surprise, it was more a bar than a hostel. They had several private rooms and one twelve-bed dorm that was open to the common area, pool and bar downstairs. Pacha Mama’s was the last stop of ‘Sunday Funday’, a day-long pub crawl of over a hundred borrachos. Needless to say we didn’t get much sleep that night. The four of us were to leave town and head to the beach house in the morning, but we lost the South African representative of our group to what must have been a severe hangover, for its been several days now since she was supposed to meet back up with us.

After catching a ride to Maderas in the bed of a pick-up truck and a twenty minute walk along the beach, we arrived at 'Castaway'. It's a small, simple place right on the beach in between Playas Maderas and Majagual. 

Shuttle to Playa Maderas

The beach hike to Castaway

Castaway Beach House

I believe I’ve found paradise. Three surf breaks are within walking distance of Castaway, and one of these is just steps from the front door. Here we’re the only ones surfing – no battling the crowds over waves. It's exactly how I imagined my surf trip. And, in the down-time, I’ll just read in one of the hammocks overlooking the ocean. I make fruit smoothies for lunch, go spear-fishing to try and catch some supper, and, if unsuccessful, stroll on over to Juanita’s Kitchen. Juanita’s is a small cabin on the beach run by the friendliest locals. One can enjoy the special of the day while watching the sun set over the shark-fin-shaped rock that jets out of the Pacific Ocean for only 100 córdobas ($4 US).

Enjoying Hemingway's 'For Whom The Bell Tolls'

Getting ready to hunt some dinner

Sandal repair

One can occasionally see enormous turtles climb-up onto shore to nest directly in front of the beach house. While the turtles lay a large amount of eggs, only 2% of these will survive. Unfortunately, some locals make a living by digging-up and selling these eggs, which puts these turtles at risk of extinction. Some will even go so far as to cut open the 100 year-old turtles to harvest their eggs. Luckily we have a local, Douglas, who protects these eggs by digging them up and reburying them on his property, ensuring that they have a fair chance to make it into the ocean when hatched.

Douglas the sea-turtle protector hard at work

I've been fortunate enough to have the opportunity to help Douglas on one of his rescue missions. I woke at 5am on Sunday November 18th to the sound of a shotgun and Robert standing outside my window telling me that two sea-turtles just nested outside our front-door. We dug-up two nests totalling 164 eggs and re-burried them elsewhere to prevent people from stealing and selling them. Afterward we stumbled across one lone baby sea-turtle trying to make it to shore, who we dubbed 'Scout'. We put him in a bucket of water and waited until dark to release him to prevent birds from catching him on his way to the ocean. This was truly an incredible experience.

Their new home for the next couple of months

Scout

To get an idea of what its like, read my pal Ross' blog post or watch his video that was made directly in front of Castaway!

Life here in Castaway is simple but good, very good. The isolation, spear-fishing and fixing of my own sandals definitely makes me feel a little like Tom Hanks in the film ‘Castaway’.

Beach bonfire