Playa Popoyo

My first night in Popoyo I stayed in the weirdest hostel: the Melting Elephant. More people had recommended it to me so I wrote them an e-mail asking about a bed without really looking at pictures. When I got there I suddenly realized that they had literally built a melting elephant. The whole house looked like it was slowly melting. Also inside lots of furniture were built in the walls with melting shapes. Actually the hostel was quite nice with a big kitchen and some hammocks in the back towards the beach. But when I got there I didn't really meet anybody and it felt the Popoyo Beach Hostel next door was much more social. So I booked only one night as I thought I could easily change to the Popoyo Beach Hostel the next day. Turned out the whole "town" was pretty much fully booked and I ended up staying in a room above the super market. Sounds weirder than it was. There were a few rooms and it was actually quite useful to have the tienda just downstairs for late night chocolate cravings ;) And I mostly spend my days hanging out at Popoyo Beach Hostel as they didn't really mind.
Guasacate (which is the actual town at Popoyo Beach) was not much more than a dirt road along the beach with a few hotels and restaurants. It had the vibe of a surfers home. Opening hours of the super market would vary depending on the tides.
For me it was the first time surfing by myself after a week of lessons at the surf camp. Luckily Kajal was here and gave me a proper tour of the different surf spots. For me only one was of interest: beginners bay.
I was super proud after my first session as I caught a really nice wave and people actually cheered me for it when I paddled back out afterwards. So it must have even looked good 😏
I was spending most of my time with Kajal and his friends. One of his friends made a super nice yoga session on the beach for us one morning. A perfect way to start the day!
My last day here I was having breakfast at this little hat when a taxi stopped and Jens, a guy I had met in the surf camp, jumped out. It's always nice to see familiar faces. We spend the day hanging out at the Popoyo Beach Hostel talking about what had happened at the camp since I left. At night we went all together to the Magnific Rock Hotel which has a party every saturday night. On our way back we walked out on the magnific rock which goes pretty far into the ocean. It was amazing standing there in the moonlight while the waves were crashing against the rock everywhere around us. When we turned around to walk back we realized that the tide was coming in and we couldn't make our way back with dry feet 😬 Luckily the water hadn't risen to much. But this is why you should always be aware of the tide at the ocean, right?
The next morning I wanted to catch the bus from Las Salinas back to Rivas. There were 2 options to get to the bus. Walk for about 25 minutes over the beach or go the other way around along the street which takes about an hour but here you have the chance to catch a ride with a car passing by. I decided to try to hitch hike but was actually walking for a while till the first car past by. It was a police truck and somehow they didn't wanna take me. The next car was a guy stopping every 100 meters to write down some numbers. He wasn't much faster than walking and was not really going to Las Salinas. I already thought I would have to walk the whole way when an air conditioned hotel shuttle pulled to the street in front of me. He stopped without me even giving a sign and even offered to take me all the way to Granada. This felt a little weird so I declined but was happy to have him take me to Las Salinas.Read more