the truman show - nicaragua

More shady characters meet us at the Honduras-Nicaragua border. They must have been given the heads up that we were easy target from his brother at the border we had just come from as we pulled up and they were already asking for Benjamin. Not in the mood for more scamming hustlers we gave it a shot alone trying to decipher the correct order and office to complete the legalities of getting ourselves and the car across the border. 4-5hours later, exhausted but very happy with ourselves we carried on our journey into Nicaragua, sadly there was to much cloud to see all the volcanic peaks that escort you in.
First stop was Granada, another cute colonial town full of plazas and cathedrals set by a huge lake. Once again the natural beauty of the place was undone by complete disregard for any sort of rubbish disposal which sadly has been a common theme throughout our trip. The next day we found our way to the coast, it had been three weeks since our last surf and we were hanging out to get our feet wet. On arriving to a small beach settlement, Pochomil we were greeted with complete chaos. The local horse show/rodeo had just finished and everyone was partying in the streets, even horses were dancing. Somehow stuck in the heart of the parade it was a situation of “can’t beat ‘em join em”. After finally navigating through town we made our way up the coast on the search for more promising surf.
As it was getting dark all hope was entrusted that the bumpy dirt road we were heading down eventually reached some sort of surf and accommodation, then disaster…. we hit a massive rock on the roadside and fully blew out one of own brand new front tyres, to make matters worse the wheel brace we had bought wasn’t the right size and was stripping the nuts. We had lost all hope of sorting the wheel that night and were beginning to get ready to hike the rest of the road and night was coming in fast when around the corner came a car hooning to our rescue complete with a proper wheel brace and cold beers. Once we had the spare on, our new friends Marcus and Sapphire invited us back to their place to stay and also mentioned that their was a good surf spot close by. Once again we were sitting pretty after only a couple of hours before being lost with nowhere to stay and a broken car that we couldn’t fix.
Their pad just happened to be in a huge, fancy gated community with what turned out to be one of the newly discovered best waves in the country right out front. We surfed the next morning and it was pumping but only small, rumours of bigger swell in a couple of days meant we had to decide if we were to stay or go. The only catch was it was kind of pricey to stay in the “Truman Show” setup which if it hadn’t of been for the surf would have been pretty claustrophobic. After much discussion it was decided that it was worth the extra cash to see just how good this wave could get. More good fortune came our way, meeting Mike and Den. Mike owned a house in the development and had a self contained unit we could rent at a discounted rate so we could stay to surf the point. Two more days of small but fun waves and hope was fading that the predicted swell would even turn up. On our last day however all our dreams came true, and what followed was one of the best surf sessions of our lives! It was hard leaving it behind but the show had to go on… two weeks and counting.