The day after Christmas I jumped on a plane and headed south for the new years celebration and to surf until I couldn’t lift my arms and stand up on a board anymore. The standing up on a board part is pretty difficult for me anyway but you get the idea. I have been on 4 surfing trips in the past one to Sayulita Mexico, 2 trips to Nosara Costa Rica, and now to Los Cardones Surf Camp in Nicaragua. Each place is really different and have been awesome for learning to surf, but this spot in Nicaragua was fantastic. We had the smallest surf they said they had seen all season and yet there was always something there and I surfed every day until I was beat.
The really nice thing about this spot in Nicaragua was that we weren’t just surrounded by tourists. The Surf Camp is pretty much all alone on the beach and its flanked by fishing villages, and local homes on either side. Everyday we saw the locals out in the surf putting out their bait fish nets, and out beyond the surf there were local fishing boats pulling in our dinners.
The other very cool thing we did was go on a horse back trip through the sugar cane fields. It was harvest time so we got to see the whole process of bringing the cane crop. In the evenings they burn the fields to clear the way for machette chopping and throughout the daylight they take down the sugar cane drop it in rows and the men load it on big ox driven carts that are then taken to a truck and loaded for the road. It was a neat operation to watch.
We did a couple of other fun tours up a volcano, and into the colonial town of Grenada. Both were awesome. Grenada was colorful houses, an awesome market with nice late Christmas present shopping. I liked wandering through the local market.
But the best part of the trip was Los Cardones Surf Camp. The bungalow we were in was 20 yards from the ocean. I would get up in the morning look at the surf and wander out to get the wake up call of the first wave breaking over my head as I tried to paddle out. The surf was perfect for me plus down the beach were several other breaks one of which was a barrelling reef break that I wanted no part of. It would have been like sending a beginner off Gorilla for me to surf that spot. Then after a hard morning of surfing it was breakfast, napping, cards, lunch, napping, surfing, beverages, cards food. It was a tough schedule but we managed. Our meals were served fresh off the grill in a shaded champa over the beach and breaks, and to top it all off the beer was FREE, and we had to do this every day for a week.
Happy New Years Everyone
Shane
March 1st, 2009 | 
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