More Around Leon and Poneloya

  Leon, Nicaragua
Tuesday, August 29, 2006

So, the next day in Leon (Saturday) I slept in since I was tired from dancing until 3 am and finally got out the door at 11 am. I called Marta and asked if she wanted to take me to the beach and she said that she would be ready in about two hours.

Food Stand and Cooks - Dinner Time

I decided to walk around the city a little more, check out some of the streets that I hadn't walked down and just sort of wander. At noon, I sat down at a nice restaurant for lunch (easily one of the nicest, most expensive restaurants in Leon and still only $12). As I was finishing lunch, Marta called me and said she was ready. I told her to meet me at the restaurant and when she got there I asked her if she'd like anything to eat since it was lunch time and we were about to leave for a few hours. She said sure I and treated her to lunch for being so nice, but while we were sitting there, a guy walks by the restaurant and looks at us and says, "Be careful! You're not the first!" and something else that I didn't understand. Marta gave him a dirty look and then ignored him. Hmmm...

Poneloya Beach

That was strange, so I decided to keep an eye on my bags and my wallet while we went to the beach. We went to a little town just south of Poneloya, which is almost directly west of Leon. The bus ride there was the first time I had been on a "chicken" bus. The kind of local bus service that commonly has residents carrying live chickens, produce, etc. on it. Luckily, there were no chickens on my bus and the music was great. They attached big speakers to the front and back of the bus and play loud music for the entire ride. They were playing a mix of rege and latin music and since I was standing on the packed bus for about the first 30 minutes, until people got off, I had a hard time not moving a little to the beat. As you can imagine, as the only white guy on the bus, standing up groovin to the music, I got a few simles and laughs.

One of Many Vacant Beach Homes

We finally get to the beach and it was a grey and windy day. The seas were rough and there was a rip tide. I was more interested in the beach homes anyway since I knew this wasn't a great surf beach from my guide books and the Internet. One writer even called this beach the worst surfing in Nicaragua and only worth paddling out into if you were seriously desperate. Anyway, we ended up just walking down the beach for about 2 km. She said that the water was too cold for her, but if I wanted to swim, I should go in. There was only one other person swimming on the entire stretch of beach that we walked, and the waves were violent enough that I didn't want to go in, so I decied not to go more than about knee high to feel the temperature and it felt great, probably around 75 degrees.

*DANCE BREAK* (the hostel I'm at is playing Swing music)