"5 minutes" the driver of the five dollar "gringo shuttle" to the surfing beach tells me will be how long until we arrive. Exiting the town about five minutes into the ride the truck, loaded with Europeans and Americans with surfboards strapped above us, takes a hard left onto a dirt road. Thirty-five minutes of dodging huge holes in the road, cutting through a small river, and stopping every time another vehicle needs to pass and we finally arrived at the beautiful secluded beach. No electricity, no hotels, no vendors, just hills of trees surrounding a beach and a poorly built wooden shack with a tiny kitchen.
The waves were small, but perfect for me. The surprisingly cool water cleared my sinuses and just floating on the board past the tiny breakers was bliss. Staring back at the shore I could easily imagine the beach in ten years: hotels or condos taking the place of the hill bordering the water front, a Ron Jon Surf Shop takes over the character of the falling apart surf shack, and a Western style bar is where the outdoor disco consisting of nothing but plastic chairs, a table, and two locals with a microphone, radio, and two large speakers once sat.
The talk amongst the surfers is Madera Beach and the other surf spots just north and south of San Juan del Sur, look just as the Costa Rican shore did 10 to 20 years ago. The idea of investing in beach front property is exciting, but I have to deeply hope that whoever invests in the Nicaraguan coast does so with an attempt to preserve its character.
As the sun began to set the largest rainbow I have ever seen formed looping from the north side of the cove to the south (one after another surfers joked that a pot of gold was beyond the hills), and as the sunset in the opposite direction the sky was full of colors. The last time I saw such a beautiful sky was 5 years ago in Costa Rica and while I am full of wonderful memories from my two weeks there I have to hope Nicaragua stays just the way it is.
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