San Juan del Sur Travel Guide

San Juan del Sur is not a spectacular but most definitely a charming fishing village on Nicaragua’s southern pacific coast and is well connected to Managua. The town itself offers a lighthouse nearby the William’s walker ruined fort. There are several beaches with excellent surfing possibilities.  The most popular surfing beach being Playa Maderas which is about a 20 minute ride from San Juan Del Sur.  Arenas Caliente is a surf shop near SJDS's enclosed mercado which offers round trip rides to Playa Maderas for US$6.00 round trip.  You'll be dropped off around 10:00 am and picked up at 4:00 - 4:30 pm.  There are also many taxi cabs competing for rides to the beach.  Even if you're not a surfer, the beach is beautiful.  Waves are high quality and a contrast to the seldom surfable waves in the bay at San Juan Del Sur.  Board rentals are available at several shops in SJDS.  Be sure, when out to the beaches of Marsella and Maderas, to stop in at The Empalme a Las Playas (the fork in the road to the beaches) and check out the cabanas or the howler monkeys cruising the canopy along the water course. Lazy Jakes Guesthouse also offers accommodation and is within walking distance to the beaches.

Besides that, you’ll have the chance to see nature at it’s best: forests, fishes and (rare) birds. San Juan is also known for its turtle refuge sanctuary and this is the place where you can spot both enormous and tiny (endangered) sea turtles.

Restaurants and bars dot the San Juan del Sur beachfront and are all quite pleasent.  The main expatriat hangout was Ricardo's  on the beach.  A new bar, Coquito, next to where Ricardo´s used to be offers live music on saturdays and an always enjoyable open mic night on thursdays. the food and beer there is also the cheapest on the beach. Iguana bar has loud music at night and is usualy full, for the latenight partiers there are two discos in town, Jungle Rooms is the funkier of the two situated in an old victorian style beach house on the beach road, a bit farther down is the crazy crab, newly renovated in a local style under a Palapa right on the beach!

SanJuansurf.com