We woke up and gathered our stuff up so that we could head out directly after breakfast. The hotel included breakfast, it started at 7:30, and our ferry reservation was for 10. The dock is around an hour drive from the hotel, and we wanted to get there about an hour early (wed read that if youre not at least 40 min early, you can lose the car reservation).
We decided wed drive a different way than we originally came, to see a bit more of the island. it looked like it just took about 10 min longer than the other route. Unfortunately, there was no way for us to see that half of the trip was on dirt roads. Poor Gertie! She had already been such a trooper with all the bumps and ruts, and here we were, subjecting her to more.
The bumps added to our time. I looked at the clock. It was now 9, and Mabel was showing that we still had 20 min to our journey, which was cutting it close. We bumped along, but its pretty hard to make up time on a dirt road! Thankfully, we made it to the port
at 9:20. It ended up being a pretty quick procedure for the trip back, so we could have been later and we would have been fine.
The ride back was uneventful. As soon as we landed, we headed to San Juan del Sur, with a brief grocery store stop to pick up a few snacks.
We followed Mabels instructions to San Juan del Sur beach, but she put us at the very far north end of the beach. We decided just to park the car there, and walk along the beach, as it wasnt all that big.
I had envisioned lots of surfers in the water, and lots of people on the beach- there were neither. It was very, very quiet. We walked along the beach, then went up to check out the little town area. I had brought some hostel flyers along, so I found a few hostels to leave them in. We stopped in a few shops, then found a restaurant for a late lunch. After lunch, we walked back to the car, then took our bumpy road back to the beachhouse and made it before dark, and in time to head down to the
As I had been steadily collecting phone numbers along the journey (whatsapp contacts for taxis, tours, the border crossing etc), Sylvia teased that I hadnt yet gotten one today. I asked if it was a challenge, and she implied it was. Challenge accepted! The guys walked passed us again as the sun was going down. I asked if they had brought along a camera to take photos of the sunset, and they said no. I kindly offered to send them some photos of the sunset on whatsapp if they wanted to give me a number to send them to, and Sylvia just couldnt help laughing. Challenge met, phone number added to the collection!
