Late last night, everyone staying at the hostel decided to take the 9am ferry back to San Jorge. Morgan, gentleman that he is, offered to take us. So once again, we all piled into the back of his truck and headed off, making it just in time to board.
The same group that went horseback riding also decided to head south to San Juan del Sur and soon found a small, relaxed looking place called Hostel Esperanza. We walked around the small beach town, ate some terrible pizza (not even sure how we ended up at a pizza place – 3 of the 5 of us are NYers and should know better), and decided it was time to hit the beach. Though there is a small sandy beach right in front of our hostel, we decided to go to Playa Madera, a beach not too far away which is supposed to be great for surfing.
We piled into a cab for what was supposed to be a 30 minute ride to the beach. At around the 45 minute mark, we encountered a fairly impassable pothole and the driver let us out saying the beach was a 400 meter walk straight ahead. Instead, we hiked for another 25 minutes, in the midday heat, getting lost and needed to ask directions twice.
However, when we did arrive, we were treated to soft sands, blue water and great looking waves. We swam around a bit to cool off before Sara and Alec, the two surf vets, rented a couple of boards. Alec gave me a quick lesson and I was nearly able to stand on the board after catching my 3rd wave. Unfortunately I was too exhausted to go out for enough waves to really get the hang of it.
We were all pretty well exhausted when we got back to town, so our plans to cook a grand meal went out the window. Instead, we went to a small restaurant and ate a bundle of cheap food.