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Today we headed down to the beach. We'd heard of a nice relaxing spot on the Pacific coastline called San Juan del Sur. The town played a part in the California gold rush in the mid 19th century. Cornelius Vanderbilt brought potential prospectors from the eastern US ports up the Rio San Juan to Lago de Nicaragua, then across the 20km of land by stagecoach to the port of San Juan del Sur where ships would then transport them to San Francisco, California. This option was considered to be quicker and more comfortable than traveling across the United States by land.

Costa Rica

Dbg
2005-11-04 20:08:56

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April 4, 2005

Today we headed down to the beach. We'd heard of a nice relaxing spot on the Pacific coastline called San Juan del Sur. The town played a part in the California gold rush in the mid 19th century. Cornelius Vanderbilt brought potential prospectors from the eastern US ports up the Rio San Juan to Lago de Nicaragua, then across the 20km of land by stagecoach to the port of San Juan del Sur where ships would then transport them to San Francisco, California. This option was considered to be quicker and more comfortable than traveling across the United States by land.

On the way we could look out to the Isla de Ometepe, an island in Lago de Nicaragua. The island was formed by two volcanoes. When we looked out, we got a big surprise, we could see steam rising from the larger of the two, Volcán Concepción. It wasn't erupting but it was sure being active.

Consulting our map, we found what looked like a back way to the beaches north of San Juan del Sur that looked promising. We decided to give it a try. The first part was actually paved and we thought we'd hit the jackpot. However the pavement soon ended and we struck out across the hills on dirt roads. The signage was poor so we keep stopping to ask locals the way to the beach. Well, you ask three people, and you get three different answers. So after an hour of driving this way and that, we gave up and drove back to the highway and took the main road. Well it was a good idea as we later found out, because we'd probably have missed the turn off to our destination, Playa Majagual, as it too was poorly marked. But we did make it to the beach, arriving just as the sun went down.

April 5-6, 2005

These two days were just a break from traveling around. We find that every now and then we really have to take a couple of days off from driving and negotiating the roads and towns along the way. Even though we drive slowly and we try not ...