San Juan Del Sur

Day 417.

It was the run up to Xmas which meant we were on our way to the beach - wisely deciding to opt out of hostel life for a few days we found ourselves our own little slice of luxury up in the hills of San Juan Bay.

To my great disappointment we were unable to source our annual xmas hats, literally not one store. Short of robbing the local Santa outside San Juan Church we were going to have to make do this year.

Xmas isn't xmas without food after all, and so after a quick check in we headed out to raid the local stores for bread cheese and wine - which we have been looking forward too for oh so long. Sadly to our great disappointment (this is putting it gently - Ellie nearly had a breakdown instore) there was none of the fancy cheese we had been banking on, it was burger slices or nada. However we weren't to be defeated so easily and managed to leave with a new plan and plenty of rum, wine and giant passion fruits in hand.

The one advantage of being by the sea was the abundance of fresh fish, so we headed straight to the local fish port. A couple of back and forths later, which was us mainly trying to avoid buying a full size mahi mahi to feed 100 people and we had a lovely red snapper hand picked for our bbq the next day. Limbster had to rein me in I must admit, if I had been left to my own devices I think I would have returned with at least one lobster and two dozen jumbo prawns, absolute minimum.

Decided to treat ourselves to a real night out come Christmas eve, first time a shirt has come out for many a week and Limbster looked incredible. Headed straight to the beach for one of the most gorgeous sunsets to date on this trip - great company, plenty of cocktails, a fair few chicken wings (serious understatement), topped off with fresh lobster to finish - it certainly made for a night to remember.

Come xmas morning we opened the curtains to total peace and quiet with amazing views of the coast - it was perfect, and we stayed exactly where we were for family Skype calls home. Strolled into town for a traditional xmas morning swim with all the local families before getting back up to our terrace to crack open that white wine - it was xmas after all!

You can't beat xmas at home that's for sure - but today certainly wasn't far off. We fully managed to out-do our own expectations with the Red snapper, and it didn't take us long to forget about that fancy cheese entirely - we had put on a bbq feast. Fried Platanos certainly left room for improvement, a little bbq fire never hurt anybody after all...

Once we watched the sun come down again we retired to bed, ice cream and pizza in hand for the obligatory love actually showing - the perfect way to end the day. This was post a rather large bug extermination spree to ensure a comfortable showing - I must have just missed the scorpion we woke to find crawling inside our bathroom towel...

We came here with good intentions, spear fishing activities, booze cruises, surfing etc etc but actually we did little more than eat, drink and swim together all day long and it really couldn't have been better. Another xmas has been and gone just like that - plenty of reflecting on the year we've had this xmas and it's hard to beleive a whole 12 months has passed since Sri Lanka- both praying time starts to slow down now!En savoir plus