San Juan del Sur is set on a large, picturesque bay surrounded by mountains. We tendered over to a barge and from there walked onto a dock. The waterfront is being renovated and I suspect that when it is finished there will be a pier for tender boats. The waterfront is edged by restaurants and beach bars with outdoor seating, and there is a long, very wide brown sand beach that narrows considerably at high tide. We walked along the waterfront and eventually crossed the main street to look at the vendors' stalls. I immediately spotted a bracelet made of woven bugle beads for $5 that I thought I needed. G encouraged me to buy a matching necklace for $15 but that I didn't need; I've already purchased two this season, on Murano island in Venice and on the beach in Barbados.
We walked back a few blocks into town then, and were immediately taken with the several very small hotels (I think they were called tiendas, but I'm not sure about that) with just a few rooms opening onto small courtyards with narrow pools and fountains. They were furnished in simple but beautiful Nicaraguan style. Then we saw several simpler hostels and were beginning to wonder what the draw was in San Juan del Sur. Another block down we figured it out; there were dozens of 20-somethings from all over the world gathering at adventure shops and loading school buses and pickup trucks with surfboards for trips to the nearby beaches. The area is a worldwide Mecca for surfing. Finally, all the hotels and hostels made sense.
Hostel row
We walked though several markets (mercados) to look at what they sold (and thought of you Marlene). They were similar to the small stores we saw on Rapa Nui (Easter Island) with enough food to live on but most of it processed. On a bench outside of a store was a lady selling avocados out of a bag. I saw an English speaking guy wearing flip flops drive up on a dirt bike and buy 7 or 8 of them, hang the shopping bag over a handle bar and leave again. The whole place had a very laid back and hippie-ish atmosphere.
We saw a father and son with a cart filled with oranges and they were making fresh squeezed OJ they served in sandwich-type plastic bags knotted around a drinking straw. We had seen others drinking these and wondered what they were, so we each got one. Yummy! Eventually we were getting tired of walking and hired a taxi on a corner in town. Jorge offered to drive us up as far as he could to a tall statue of Jesus high on a mountain overlooking the bay. Called Christo de la Misericordia, it stands 24 meters high and is 110 meters above sea level. For comparison, Corcovado (Christ the Reedemer) in Rio de Janeiro is 38 meters high and stands 709 meters above sea level. Christo de la Misericordia was opened in October 2009 and houses a small chapel at its base.
Jorge drove us up extremely steep and broken roads and then we climbed up about 100 extremely steep steps to the base of the statues. It was very windy up there, but the views were spectacular. We could see the entire bay with the Pacific Princess at anchor and the surrounding mountains dotted with houses. The houses on the nearby hillsides were large and new and many had pools, but they must have been second homes. The locals live way more simply. We spent about 20 minutes taking photos and climbing even higher up the base of the statue and then walked back down those extremely steep steps (always harder) to where Jorge was waiting for us.
There was a tiny chapel at the base of the statue
From a photo in the chapel, an aerial view of the hill on which the statue is located
He drove us back into town and dropped us at a restaurant with seating right on the beach, and we ordered local beers and plantain chips and settled in to uss their fairly high speed WiFi. Though we had had great (but windy) weather to that point, every so often the winds picked up even more and rain showers moved in, and the waves crashed even harder on the beach. The last tender back to the ship was at 4:15pm, and at 3:30pm we settled up at the restaurant and walked back to the tender loading area. We were in our cabin by 4pm and washed up just enough to crash for a few minutes before we got cleaned up for the evening.
We skipped the PES Lounge and went directly to dinner in the Club Restaurant. As soon as we had eaten, we realized how tired we were and decided to skip tonight's entertainment (comedy magician Martin Lewis) and the Festivals of the World Day of the Dead party afterwards (some passengers made masks in a craft session hosted by Entertainment Staff members yesterday) and simply returned to our cabin to watch some video I'd downloaded in Fort Lauderdale. Tomorrow is another new port for us (for the life of me I can't remember the name of the El Salvadoran town we'll be at) to be followed by three days at sea. If they are as smooth and sunny and warm as what we've enjoyed so far on this cruise I think I'll manage just fine. And if they aren't...well, a week from tomorrow we'll be home. It won't be warm but it may be sunny and it will definitely be smooth.
Life is good. :-)