Paradise

A week and a half ago I had the great opportunity to go to San Juan del Sur with a couple of friends from my training group. My friend Danielle (who was my neighbor in my training town) had her parents visiting Nicaragua for 2 weeks and her parents rented a villa in this beautiful Nicaragua tourist destination. You may have read about this beach on the south western coast as ¨the next Costa Rica¨ and the ¨great new place for Americans to retire¨. There is a lot of development going on in that area, but luckily it isn´t overrun by tourism...yet. There are a lot of foreigners around in this small town which is nice because it causes coffee shops and english language bookstores to exist (whereas they are non-existent in the rest of the country).

Anyways, these pictures are part of my response to the people that said ¨Why the hell would I want to go to Nicaragua?¨ when I tried to convince them to visit me.


This is our ¨family dinner¨ cooked by Danielle´s stepmom. As you can tell we had bottles of wine, nice dinnerware and delicious chicken cacciatore. It was a nice break from rice and beans eaten alone at my plastic table and chairs on Winnie the Pooh plastic plates (that makes my life sound really sad, but honest, its not!).


This is me, Danielle, Lisa and Jonathon in the wonderfully American kitchen.

The villas are built into this hillside. The brand new Villas de Palermo are only $130 a night (two bedrooms, two bath, kitchen, living room and a gorgeous pool...do you see my future as a travel agent?)

This was our view from the villa. You can see the reception/restaurant and pool are in the bottom left corner. You can see the ocean in the background. The only drawback was that the ocean (and town) was a 5 minute drive away. But to us it wasnt a drawback because the pool overlooked that beautiful green landscape so we were more than content to spend our time lounging by the pool.

The PCVs poolside.

As you can see it was a beautiful spot and we were very lucky to be invited by Danielle´s parents to spend the weekend with them. It was also a great chance to just relax with some of my friends here. Usually when we see each other we are in a big group and rushing around somewhere so this was a nice break. Anyways, your trip to Nicaragua to visit me can clearly be as luxurious as you want (as long as you´re paying). Think about it...

p.s. for you future retirees: these villas are also for sale and San Juan del Sur is supposed to be a good investment right now. I´ll even offer my services of ¨taking care¨of the villa during my time here...