Day 15/16/17

What a weekend!

We travelled to Rivas Friday afternoon (an hour long bus ride), and from Rivas, we took a taxi to the Hotel Brio (where we were staying for the weekend). We arrived at the hotel (although it was definitely more like a hostel) around 5:30. We dropped off our bags, and then walked to the beach (about a 5 minute walk). Hotel Brio is just outside of Gigante (pronounced "Higante"), which is a very small fishing community. Gigante consisted of 2 restaurants (and not our North American restaurants - it's families cooking the fish they caught earlier that day for you...it takes at least at hour for them to prepare everything!), one or two shops (again, out of people's homes), and several small fishing boats!

We ate a very delicious dinner on the ocean, and watched the sun set. It was beautiful! We went back to the hotel and played cards and talked with the staff at the hotel. This beach is well known in Nicaragua for surfing, so there were many local Nicaraguan's surfing! However, there were also a few small groups of caucasian surfers there as well. This was really the first time I've seen caucasians in Nicaragua (other than the volunteers at BaseCamp, of course!). It was so strange to be surprised by their presence! Nicaragua is not exactly a prime tourist location, so these American travellers seemed out of place (although one could say that they were no more "out of place" than we were!).

Saturday morning, we got up fairly early and ate a hearty breakfast. We spent the entire day out at the (completely deserted) beach. It was wonderful! Although, not even 5 minutes after we had got there, we were all swimming in the water when an especially large wave came. It wasn't until it was too late that we'd realized it had completely soaked all of our stuff (which we thought would be completely safe where we had put it!). All of our clean, dry towels were drenched and sandy (and of course, in Nicaragua, everything takes FOREVER to dry). My book is still in the process of drying out... Besides the harmless damage, it was hilarious.

We played in the waves and the sand all day. They buried me in sand (which was surprisingly heavy!) and we read and talked and just relaxed. It started to rain at one point (it had been overcast all day), and it was at this point we decided to pack up and head in for some lunch.

Now, despite the fact that it was completely overcast, and that I had applied SPF 30+ sunscreen, I was more or less torched. Luckily, the aloe vera lotion has helped to heal it pretty quickly, but I am still pretty sore! We all got a fair amount of sun...I still can't believe it, considering the cloud coverage!

Saturday evening, after dinner, we went back to the hotel and played cards again. We practised our Spanish with the staff again, and then went to bed early, as we had to wake up bright and early Sunday morning for our fishing trip!

We had wanted to try surfing, but the locals said that the waves were just too rough to learn on (so my surfing adventures will have to wait for another day!). For one reason or another, I thought that, despite the roughness of the water, it would be a great experience to go deep sea fishing! We asked a local fisherman if he would allow us to accompany him out on his morning fishing trip (we gave him $35 an hour...).

So there we were, 7am and ready to go out fishing! We were just being pushed out into the ocean (and the waves were violently pushing back at the boat) when I realized "You know, I don't generally like boat rides on lakes in Canada...", but of course, by that point, we were already well on our way out into the deep sea. You may or may not know this about me, but I have serious motion sickness issues...as in nearly every time I get in an airplane, bus, boat, or motorized vehicle of any sort, I throw up. I was so excited for the experience (I'd never been fishing!), and I was overly optimistic about my motion sickness (considering I've miraculously hardly been sick on this trip!), that I majorly underestimated my motion sickness.

I enjoyed about the first 10 minutes of our 3-hour boat ride, before I started vomiting. I threw-up 4 times. I was BY FAR the most motion sick I've ever been...oh dear...haha. I'm sad to say, but I'm not sure I'll ever be able to do deep sea fishing again.

Once we were back on shore though, I was back to normal (thank goodness...). I was pretty weak for the rest of the day, and I couldn't stomach much food, but I was definitely okay. I don't regret going, despite being sick...it was still a neat experience. One of the other girls even caught a swordfish - so cool!

We eventually had some brunch. We talked to an American fellow at the hotel who had started an ecodevelopment project with the University of Managua. It fantastic to hear all about his experiences!

We went into town for the afternoon, and walked along the beach. We met some local friends, and spent a good portion of the afternoon talking to them. It's been great to practise Spanish!

The ocean was good to us. It did take a pair of sunglasses and one of the girls bikini bottoms (and almost one of my sandals), but overall it was a great weekend.