W-w-w-wipeout!!!

We hopped into the truck to head to the beach for our surf lesson, unfortunately there was no more room in the back so we had to ride up front, with air-conditioning.... shame. We were particularly grateful when our short journey to the beach turned out to be an hours ride on another wonderful Nicaraguan dirt road. It was worth it though, as when we arrived we were treated to a great view of the secluded beach we were to spend the rest of the day on.

After a quick how to with our instructor, an older local guy, we were in the water, floating on our boards with him holding us. As a wave came along he told us when to start paddling and gave us a nice push onto the wave, all we really had to do was stand up! It wasn't quite that easy but we gave it our best shot and both of us (in fact Jen before I) were standing on our boards, wobbling along within 15 or 20 mins. It was now time to try it on our own and 2 and a half hours later our bodies were battered and broken but content (edit: Jen just wants me to recognise here that she was the only one in the water the whole time and the teacher said she was the best student.)!

We spent the whole afternoon in the water, trying again and again, succeeding and failing! The most frustrating thing was that even if one was successful, for 30 seconds of standing up we had to walk/swim/paddle for 10 minutes to get back to the same spot to start over again! It was great fun and we both surprised ourselves as to how well we took to the water, we did suffer though - sore knees, bruised ribs and especially for Jen, more bruises unaccounted for! Who knew it would be such a brutal sport?!?

After another long truck journey back (again, we were a little slow getting into the back of the trucks and just HAD to sit in the cab!) we knew it was time for a big meal and several beers, so the group of us went to Jerry's Pizza and feasted on good slices and great company...... and cold beers! We hung out for the evening, played some crazy 8 countdown, and headed off to bed after a grueling game, as we were getting up at 6am to the bus to the border of Costa Rica!!