We had no rain for two days with bright sunshine and blue skies. Then it rained to remind us rainy season is going long this year. 
Our heavy van can get stuck in wet grass if there’s mud or a hill but around here the ground seems solid. Hugh and Sue (“we rhyme!”) from British Columbia are also enjoying the sound of surf crashing on the nearby beach but they have a Land Rover so rainy season is less of a problem for their rugged four wheel drive.
They’ve wandered further afield than we have exploring the village of Popoyo across the river estuary and taking surf lessons as Plsya Popoyo where we are is known as a surfer’s training ground.
The Magnificent Rock is a big projection off the beach that can throw waves in spectacular arcs if the ocean is in motion, while the hotel looks to me like a Hitchcock creation; surf country definitely.
Our place is at the bottom of the hill,
…Rusty is too smart to climb the hill for no reason! English is the visitor language here. Surfers surf and they chase waves not foreign cultures.
Online they show rooms at eleven bucks a person. In Nicaragua the tourist economy runs on dollars not Cordoba.
The pool is vast which makes for excellent swimming as we are usually alone in it.
We are planning on staying here the weekend and leaving for Costa Rica early next week.
It will be interesting to see how busy this place gets at the weekend which is usually when locals flood pools and bars.
Right now it’s us and the Canadians while the workers are spiffing the place up.
We haven’t even met the boss yet. iOverlander has led us to believe the cost is $10 for GANNET2 and five bucks for the pool and perhaps we will pay five more as we have used electricity. That amounts to $20 a day or four gallons of gas. So by sitting still we save money! Especially as Layne likes to cook.
Eric came by and we bought a huge flank steak and a giant fillet of fish for $13, enough food for four meals.
Later he came by with a loaf of bread we asked him to bring. The other delivery trucks use loud speakers and Layne has snagged some fruit and vegetables from passing sellers. Now all we need is the water truck as we are half way down our thirty gallon tank.
We swim, read and watch some TV shows using streaming services and a Virtual Private Network to give us access to US services.
And the indispensable Starlink which has a reasonable signal despite the trees. The cell signal here is feeble.
Our plan is to get Rusty his health certificate for Costa Rica on Monday or Tuesday as well as his exit papers required for Nicaragua though we are exporting cattle. Apparently Costa Rica won’t let him in unless Nicaragua gives him an export certificate. Bureaucracy gone berserk as Webb put it when I told him.
Then my cunning plan is to drive around Lake Nicaragua and enter Costa Rica by the smaller inland border crossing called San Pancho. The main crossing near the ocean, Peñas Blancas (white sorrows!) is usually busy especially with trucks and commercial traffic of all sorts.
The situation in Panama, not reported in the foreign press continues chaotic. The PanAmerican Highway from Costa Rica to Panama City is blocked all the way from David to Santiago making travel impossible for vehicles. Pedestrians and motorcycles can walk around the blockades and catch buses and taxis on either side but cars and trucks are stationary on the main road.
We have looked into shipping from Costa Rica or even Veracruz Mexico but prices are astronomical quoting close to ten thousand dollars for a journey that would cost us less than three in normal circumstances from Panama. Overland travel is stopped at the moment and it seems lots of people are planning to do as we are going to do and are waiting in Costa Rica for the situation to calm down, and right now road blocks are numerous:
Panama’s Supreme Court must vote as soon as next Friday on the controversial mining law and if they abolish it the barricades could end. If they don’t no one knows what will happen. We plan to watch comfortably from the sidelines. We have not discarded the option of returning to the States and shipping from Florida direct to Colombia. For now we think we can out wait the Panama situation.
