This year's "get out of the cold winter" trip was to Nicaragua. We bought a package through Living Social that included 4 nights stay at the Villas De Palermo in San Juan Del Sur (SJDS, for short) and a number of activities. While I really wanted to travel around Nicaragua more (particularly visit Lake Nicaragua and some of the many volcanoes in the area), Mike was worried about safety concerns and I didn't really have much vacation time to work with, so we ended up just staying in SJDS. In this post, I'll do the overview and then I'll do more detailed postings about the various aspects separately.
Safety
Nicaragua is a pretty poor country, so obviously tourists need to be careful. Petty crime is common and violent crime, while getting better, still happens. However, I think much of the warnings you'll read on the internet about it are based on how dangerous it
was, not how dangerous it
is. We got all freaked out when reading about how dangerous it is but we had no problems and SJDS in particular seemed pretty safe. I think Managua might be a little rough (but my impression was that there isn't much to see there, anyway). Oh, and don't go to the Caribbean side of the country - there's big drug cartel problems there and apparently those regions are actually autonomous regions. Managua, Grenada and SJDS are all on the Pacific coast and they are probably the areas you should stick to.
The 2-2.5 hour drive from Managua to San Juan Del Sur was actually one of my main worries about the trip because everything we read said one of the most popular forms of robbery was to put roadblocks up (such as a big tree branch in the road) and then rob you when you stop to move it and we were in what was obviously a van for tourists. I was more than a little nervous but we encountered no problems. SJDS itself is filled with tourists and American expats and I guess they've been cracking down on crime there, so it seemed perfectly safe to me. Of course, don't be an idiot: don't flaunt your money, don't be out late at night (but there's no reason to be because there is not really any nightlife), keep your belongings close to you, etc. We had also heard that taking taxis was a bad idea (that the taxi driver or some other robbers would take you to the middle of nowhere, rob you and leave you there) but we took several taxis and had no problem. Maybe that's a problem in other areas but labeled taxis in SJDS are generally considered safe. Once the guy did pick up a few other people, which wasn't ideal because the small cab got quite crowded, but whatever.
History & Language
Nicaragua is a small country with a population about the size of Philadelphia but it has a complex and violent history of wars, uprisings, and international politics. I suggest you look into it to learn more about the history but the main reason I mention it is that there is still some political unrest so you need to be careful not to end up in the midst of a protest, which often turn violent. It seemed like these mainly happen in Managua, but a fellow traveler said that they had to take a detour on their way to SJDS because of a strike.
Spanish is the language, but Nicaraguans (or Nicas as they say for short) actually pronounce it a lot differently than I had ever heard before so I had a very hard time because I don't know Spanish that well as it is. For one, they drop a lot of their "s" sounds, particularly at the end of words. There were a few other differences that someone explained to me but I honestly can't remember them now... People who spoke better Spanish than I didn't have as hard a time, but I definitely had issues and so did Mike who has a lot more Spanish experience than I do. Also, I assumed a lot more of the hospitality (hotel and activity) people would know more English than they did. Most of them actually spoke little to no English.
San Juan Del Sur
There is sort of a finite number of things to do in SJDS: surfing is the primary activity (which actually takes place at beaches north or south of SJDS but SJDS seems to be the hub where everyone stays/lives); then there's boating, fishing, turtle or whale-watching (if you're there at the right time), zip lines and horseback riding. Unless you
really like surfing, I would honestly recommend you only spend a few days there (3-4 seemed to be about the right amount). There's not much to see in SJDS itself, though it's a cute little town (population 2700). It has a central "downtown" area with lots of shops and restaurants. I will say, the food was amazing. I had one mediocre meal my whole time there (not including breakfast at the hotel which was always mediocre). The town is also beautiful and almost anywhere you go from the center of town by the bay, you're going to be going uphill so you will have beautiful views.
Cost
Nicaragua is pretty cheap, although accommodations don't always seem to match that price. But we would have amazing gourmet meals for two people with booze for about USD$30 and you could get really good meals from smaller food stands or market shops for C$60 (about $3). Taxis weren't as cheap as I thought they would be, but they weren't bad... The taxi between town and where we were staying, the Villas De Palermo, (about 3km) cost us C$60-80 ($3 or $4 - they also usually take USD too) depending on how willing the driver was to negotiate.
Things I Wish I'd Done
If I were going to go back to SJDS, I would stay in town. Most of all, I really wish I had gone to Grenada and spent some time at Lake Nicaragua and the various volcanoes there. There's a cloud forest that sounded cool at the top of dormant Mombacho, but you can also take tours of active volcanoes. The island of Ometepe in Lake Nicaragua also seems worth a visit. Also worth a visit I've heard is the massive market in Masaya, which is sort of between Managua and Grenada.
