San Juan Del Sur, Nicaragua – We Got A Little More Than We Bargained For

Oh San Juan Del Sur (SJDS), this leg of our trip was a DOOZY. We arrived in SJDS super optimistic and we were looking for a bit of a break from the rat and cockroach situation in Ometepe. We booked six nights at a boutique hotel right on the beach called The Beach House. We were hoping for a more social atmosphere with good beach access for some “relax” time. The room was really cute and we could literally just step out the door and lounge in a hammock right on the main beach. The hotel had good security so we felt safe. The first four days were lovely. Ewan went for beach runs every morning, I took Spanish lessons every day with a local tutor, I worked on my tan, we read our books, hiked up to The Christ of the Mercy Statue, ate amazing food, had great cocktails – our favourite was the Hakuna Matata (yum yum yum), and had plans to go surfing and attend the Sunday Funday Party. Our plans in SJDS were looking pretty great at this point.

The surf at this time of year in SJDS turned out to be really big. Ewan booked a private lesson on Friday afternoon, and the swell was 8-10ft. A friend told us afterwards that the swell made the news and was in a few surfing magazines. Ewan and I are alright surfers, but I wouldn’t say amazing. Ewan is better than me and more aggressive in the water. We both have done a week long surf camp in Oaxaca – Porto Escondido, Mexico. I’ve gone surfing in Tofino multiple times and Hawaii, Ewan has surfed in Portugal and the UK. Needless to say, we can get up on a few waves. However, this swell was something to be seen, especially for our level. To be completely transparent, the break terrified me. I can’t duck dive or turtle roll so I gracefully bowed out. Ewan was much braver than me and gave it a go with an instructor, which made for an interesting day. I would still love to do a private lesson and learn to duck dive and turtle roll, so if anyone has had a good experience or recommends an instructor let me know! I really want to get over my fear of getting past the break.

After surfing on Friday, we decided to go out for a few beers and met some Americans at a bar called Big Wave Daves. We had a good night and retired to our beach bungalow around 11pm. We didn’t have a real crazy night, or so we thought. That night I woke up really hot, and in my half asleep half awake state, I noticed the sliding glass door to our bedroom was open and thought “oh that’s weird, we must have forgot to close it”. I closed the door and went back to sleep, not thinking much of it. That morning we woke up around 8am, I told Ewan about the sliding glass door and we both thought it was weird. We never forget to shut the door. He got up to grab us some breakfast, still a bit concerned and went to grab his wallet from the table at the end of our bed. He couldn’t find it, so I got up to look and noticed that my wallet, my credit cards, and my fanny pack were gone as well. Then we noticed Ewan’s backpack, his fanny pack, my kindle, my Airpods, our cash, his water bottle, his shoes, and my sunglasses were also gone. Now realizing that we’ve been robbed while sleeping, we started to panic a bit. We got the hotel involved (which had a security guard, who was probably snoozing on the job), and walked the beach to see if we could find any of our belongings. I luckily found Ewan’s passport in a flower pot beside our unit. Knowing that we had both passports, we were able to relax a little bit. The hotel pulled the CCTV footage and saw a hooded man entering our room around 3am. He had the pick of our goods as we slept, and when he left he knocked the security camera so you couldn’t see his face. The police were called and they did a “canvas” of the area, saying they had 4 or 5 suspects. If you’ve dealt with police in a 3rd World or even 2nd World country, you probably know what I am going to say. We quickly realized the police didn’t give two shits about us, and we were going to be on our own. The faster we could accept that we weren’t going to see our stuff again the better. It’s a stinger but we were both unharmed, and I was grateful that we didn’t wake up while it was happening. Who knows what would have happened if we did. I think the alternative would have been more traumatic. It was still a huge violation of our safety. If we were robbed on the beach and forced to give over our wallets I feel like that would be a bit easier to comprehend. You can almost expect that in a sense, but just hope it doesn’t happen to you. But while you are sleeping, vulnerable in your “safe place”. Both are absolutely terrible, but being robbed while sleeping that messes with your head a bit more. Needless to say, that weekend facking sucked. It took us a couple days to get our bearings again and build our trust back.

We decided to lick our wounds by renting a few motorcycles and getting out of town for the day. We went to Maderas Beach for the afternoon to soak up the sun and play in the ocean. We also stopped at Tree Casa and swam in the pool, went down the waterslide, and just tried to have fun with each other again. Tree Casa really lifted our spirits. Just swimming in the beautiful pool felt like we could wash off the events of the night before. We caught a beautiful sunset on our ride back to town and tried to remember that it was just “stuff”. Both of us were healthy and in a beautiful country, and we still wanted to make the most of our time.

When we got back to SJDS, The Beach House set us up in another hotel because I was too scared to stay in the same place. I couldn’t sleep and just needed a new environment. We talked it over and decided we needed to move along and get out of SJDS in order to feel good about our trip. We decided to skip Popoyo and head straight up to Leon. We needed to be around good people with fun activities. So we booked a week in the Poco a Poco Hostel, caught a shuttle and got out of town.

In hindsight, there was a lot to learn from this experience. It wasn’t all bad. I’ve always been afraid of something like this happening when I travel. Now that it has, I’ve learned there is always a solution. If your passport is stolen, you go to an embassy and get an emergency passport, you can always change your plans, your credit cards can be replaced and couriered out to you, your family can always wire you money through Western Union, and the locals and expats are extremely helpful. We were offered free safe places to stay and people willing to sort us out with money if we needed. In the end, it was a learning experience. I am less afraid of being robbed, which is never a fun experience but I won’t be as stressed in the future because now I know what to do. Travelling always comes with some inherent risk, and I refuse to let this one punk thief ruin my fun. We will both bit a more mindful of our surroundings in the future and book places that are harder to access, but other than that I feel like this was an unfortunate circumstance and a story to tell.

On a more positive note, SJDS had some amazing food and drinks. I highly recommend everything on the list below.

1. The Beach House – amazing cocktails and awesome sushi. Maybe don’t stay here.
2. Simon Says – great breakfast and smoothies
3. The Art Warehouse – great breakfast and coffee
4. Ding Repair Cafe – amazing smoothie bowls. Thanks Katie for the recommendation!
5. Dale Pues – they had caesars! Awesome dinner too.
6. San Juan del Sur Cervecería – cool brewery
7. Wrap and Roll – good lunch spot

Our last stop is Leon, Nicaragua! Here we come!