Day 6 of Nica

We booked a boat trip ($90) to Manzanillo. Manzanillo is a left point about 20 minutes from Playa Colorado. The boats leave from Gigante and come pick you up in front of your beach. We woke up at 5:00 AM and cooked a good breakfast to last the long surf session. Larry triple ziplock bagged his camera and we paddled out to the boat. The cliffs just south of Gigante have some amazing homes. We are talking million doller homes in Nicaragua. The boat driver told us they belonged to Americans. Upon getting to Manzanillo, we did not see any waves. It was high tide and we thought it might start breaking as the tide lowers. The boat driver said to wait 30 minutes and sure enough, he was right. The wave stated firing off the side of the cliffs. The break is a rock bottom point that is a little tricky as the tide lowers. Matt didn't see the rock head jumping out of the water when the wave sucked up. He started paddling and didn;t even know it was there. I yelled at him, "no, no, no!!!" but he thought I was saying, "go, go, go!!!" Matt saw the rocks at the last minute and pulled out right before dropping in.

It was much better at high tide. I got some really good waves all the way to the beach and two little barrels. We surfed for 6 hours and my ribs were feeling a little better. We all got a lot of sun and the backs of my legs were really fried. Great wave and I am going to go again when John Haan gets here and there is bigger swell.

In the afternoon we ate burgers and hot dogs at the Playa Colorado grill. I found out that the tax and tip are included in every bill at 25%. Larry and Matt had several beers and had to sober up before going out to surf later.

There was a killer sunset that night, I ran to the beach to take some photos. I missed the best time by about 5 mintes.

We heard that there was going to be a party with a DJ at Gigante later that night. We arranged a taxi for $40 round trip. Our driver, Ariel, was awesome! He played some great Nica music in the car the whole way. The trip was 30-40 minutes even though the town was maybe 3 miles away. The roads go way inland and over before it cuts back to the beach. The roads are also dirt and have huge potholes. If it wasn't dark, the walk is way better. At Gigante we went to a restaurant and had Burritos Grande, but they ended up being more like chicken tacos. Still, very good. We met a local kid named Lenny and he knew about the party and took us there. We ended up hanging the whole night and learned his family owned the restaurant on the cliff and served lobster meals. I found a local little shop with an open window that sold odd and ends stuff. Our friends we were with bought a bottle of rum and I saw the hot sauce I like that we ran out of. I bought the hot sauce for $1 from a guy wearing a towel around his waste. The party was at a hostle and there were maybe 75 people there. It was a good time except for the two guys trying to sell us cocaine all night. We got the same awesome ride back from Ariel around 11:00 PM. Larry made oatmeal and peanut butter pancakes when we got back to our condo. Best pancakes I ever ate.