Some things to know about Nicaragua:
-Everything has 2 prices, some have 3
-Buying from street vendors is liking giving a crumb to a single ant...before you know it, half the mound is there...same with street vendors
-"no gracias"
-"es muy caro, mas borato?
-When you tell a horse drawn carriage guy no, he'll respond with, "Maybe tomorrow. We can lock in a good price for you right now with your hotel..." without fail, every one of them, every time will respond to you this way.
-Its best to move quickly though the Cental Plaza, the street vendors work in a circle, if they catch you on your side of the Plaza, you better hope to beat them across the Plaza before they make the half circle...they're nothing if not tenacious.

We met some folks at the hotel that were from Austin, and they told us about an art gallery behind the Cathedral San Francisco, where they got some great art at incredible prices, so we decided we needed to go check it out before we got out of town. Gallery Ugabo (sp?) is definetly a great art gallery, with something like 8000 pieces of art from 140ish artist who work exclusively for the gallery...but once inside, we realized why our Austin friends liked it so much, the art is definitely centered towards the eccentric mindset of Austin as well as being in the style of high-end commercial building lobby art. But there is always a diamond in the rough, so we set the gallery owner and his 2 assistants on a mission to find us some authentic looking Nicaraguan art amongst his vast stock of naked women, abstracts, and chaos paintings. Th owner kind of looked at us a little strange and explained that this wasn't a gallery of fruit and parrots, but he would see what he could find. We scored with a charcoal sketch of some doors (Granada is famous for it doors) on a pressed banana leaf canvas, and an realistic painting of the streets of Granada. Originally marked at $220 total, we walked out for $70!

Back to the hotel to get our bags and say good bye to the staff, who were all there to see us off...or more accurately to see Maclaren one last time! No need for a driving directions conference today, I checked the map and directions online this morning over coffee!! Its a 1.5 hour drive to San Juan del Sur (from here forward referred to as SJdS), but I tell Heather 45 minutes to check if she is paying attention...most of the time on our trips, she is just along for the ride, and I worry if she doesn't pay attention and something were to happen to me. But sure enough, she is paying attention and wants to know why we're still 40 kilometers away after almost an hour! The drive down the Pan American Highway is quite enjoyable, and other than Rivas and a couple small towns along the way, its an open freeway, well paved, signed, stripped, and well maintained. Most of the drive is spent working your way around Lake Nicaragua and Ometepe, but you are rewarded with an amazing view of Ometepe's twin volcanos right at the turn off to SJdS. There is supposed to be a lookout point right there, but we couldn't find it and I had to get that photo...so I pull off the road and jump out into the knee high grass, scale a small hill, snap a few, and get back in the truck covered in little pissed-off red ants who are busy turning my flip flop clad feet into mince meat! A few minutes of killing the meanest little ants you've ever come across and we're back on the road to the beach. I can't quit scratching my feet for the last 20 kilometers, but it was worth it, I got a great photo of the island!

We decide to skip a drive through SJdS and opt to go straight to the hotel to check in, drop off our lugage, and catch the sunset on the beach. The directions to the hotel on its website go something like this, "take the road right before the bridge into SJdS, it turns from paved to dirt road, go until you cross the bridge, you'll see a sign, take a left there and go until you see the hotel"...which it turns out is exactly the directions to the hotel; however, on the initial drive in, its a little disconcerting when you've gone about 10 minutes down a fairly rough dirt road and not see the bridge yet! So I hollar out the window to a kid riding his bike down the dirt road, "donde Mango Rosa?" and he replies, "directo!" and gestures in the direction we're going...guess we're headed the right way! Sure enough, another minute down the road and we see the bridge and the sign and shortly we're at the hotel.

The greeting at the hotel was a little less than welcoming, "Hi, follow Dexter, he'll show you to your room. Dexter, they are in P3." ...would have been nice to get something more along the lines of, "Hey how's it going? Welcome, how was the drive? Did you have any issues getting down here? Let me get the guys to get your bags into your room, sit down at the bar and have a welcome drink. Let me show you around the place. Here's the activities we have available. If you need anything, my name is Greg, just ask for me if the staff can't take care of it." Nope...nothing like that. But the hotel is pretty and our casita is really nice and quite large which is going to be a nice change from the much smaller hotel room we just came from. A few photos of the place, and its time to get to the beach!

From the info I was able to gather from the bartender, there are 2 beaches within a 5 minute drive from the hotel, the road to Playa Marsella is quick, easy, and flat; while the drive to Playa Maderas is a little tougher, quite a bit rougher, and might require 4x4 to get back up the hill. So we opt to go to Marsella as its already about 5:30 and sunset is literally starting now. Jump in the truck and head down to the beach! You can drive on this beach as its not one of the turtle egg laying spots and I see a jeep on the beach already so I decide to just head straight onto the beach from the road...yep...not so much...we made it about 30' and ran out of steam in the soft sand. What the hell kind of crappy SUV are we in??? I get out to survey how much sand we are in and see if I need to do anything extraordinary to get us unstuck...rule #1 of getting vehicles unstuck from sand or mud; never assume you know what you're in, get out and survey it first, otherwise you can easily get yourself more stuck. We're in literally 3" of soft sand, barely up to the letters on the tire wall...are you friggen' kidding me!?!?! How the heck are we stuck in this?!?! Then I notice the tread on the tires, they have to be the most plain jane, street tread tires I have ever seen! Note to self, don't take this SUV on the beach again and don't drive fast in a big rain or through a big puddle. So I get back in and rock it back and forth a couple times in 2 wheel drive but don't get anywhere and decide that this piddley situation requires the use of 4 high to get out of...so embarrassing, but luckily no one was on the beach to see us! The 4 high does the job, I back it out to the road and parallel park it up against the stone wall. Finally, time to get on the beach! Heather is so happy and of course we have to get her customary pose walking onto the beach for the first time on our trips; hands spread wide, head up, walking toward the water, as if to say "God, thank you for the beach and thank you for finally getting me here and out of the miserably hot jungle and cities!"

Each and every beach in the world is unique and has its own special thing to offer, our list is as follows: white sand (Maya Bay, Thailand), blue water (Pingeon Point, Tobago), best look-out point (Patara Beach, Turkey), best diving beach (Ambergis Caye, Belize), best path to the beach (Olympos, Turkey), most secluded (side beach of Grafton Beach, Tobago), best beach town (Olu Deniz, Turkey), most interesting beach (Krabi, Thailand), longest beach (Patara Beach, Turkey), most memorable (Grafton Beach, Tobago). We quickly decide that we'll remember this beach for 2 reasons; first and foremost, this is our daughter's first beach, and secondly this beach has the best sunsets of any beach we've seen. 

SJdS and the beaches in either direction as known for their amazing sunsets, and we're not disappointed on our first experience. We snap photos and enjoy the sun sinking into the water until its almost pitch black on the beach (no moon tonight) and then we head back to the hotel to freshen up and go to dinner. Heather and I have a rule or maybe its a tradition now, that we pack nice clothes for dinner and always try to dress nicely for dinner each night on our trips regardless of where we are eating that night. So tonight is no different, its not like we put on a tux and evening gown, but a nice collared shirt, a beach dress, freshen the make-up and hair, put on some jewelry and we're off to the hotel's ranchero to try the food. Man are we overdressed! People are still in their board shorts and t-shirts from a day of surfing, I think one lady is in her pj's, and there are half a dozen kids on the couch that look like they spent the day rolling in the dirt and playing soccer. But no one looks at us funny as we certainly don't mind what others are wearing...we're kind of used to this by now. Our waiter's name is Indelesio (I'm sure I spelled that wrong) and we can quickly tell that he is going to become our friend over the course of this week; he's very friendly and entertaining throughout the night. The food turns out to be of excellent quality, on par with any 3.5-4 star hotel restaurant in the States, and its reasonably priced for the quality and portion size (but quite expensive by Nicaraguan standards).