Day 1: Bad; Day 2: Good, Day 3: Recovery

Greetings to you from San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua.

I arrived here on Wednesday after a multi-hour trip from Granada. SJdS is set in a natural bay on the Pacific coast. Quite a beautiful spot.

On the 1-1/2 hour bus ride from Rivas (30km away), I met a danish guy. After we arrived here and checked into a hostel, we walked out to where the ocean meets the bay. As we were somewhat close to the furtherest point, we passed some spear fishermen, some gringos and a lone guy sitting on the rocks.

We hung out at the point for a bit and then i headed back alone. I had some sort of cautious feeling as i headed back. I decided to pick up a rock as I made the way toward. As i rounded a corner, I saw the lone guy with his back towards me. he appeared to be headed in the direction of town, too.

I walked passed him, possibly too close. I could have gone a bit wider around him but I did not have much room to maneuver. As I passed, I gave a general ¨hola que tal?¨ greeting. He may or may not have said something in response. Moments later, he was saying ´donde vas?´ ¨Donde vas?´ (Where are you going?). Iwas about to answer him in my best Spanish when he jumps out in front of me with a knife and says somehing about ¨dinero¨.

I am not sure if he used the formal or informal command of ¨dar¨ (to give) or not. I was not about to argue grammar with him. I did not need my dictionary to understand his words - he wanted my money.

The general rule in this situation is, give up the money and get out of there. For some reason, I do not always follow the rules. In this case, I did not happen to have much money, I´d say less than c200 (less than USD 10) but I did not feel the need to give it to him.

When he jumped out in front of me, he seemed to end up more than 6 feet away. While I was scared and nervous, I felt I had a little rooom in which to operate.

I may or may not have lifted up my hand with the rock. For some reason he seemed to hesitate. In either case, i ran like a scared rabbit one way (back toward the dead end of the ocean, but also back to where the Danish guy was) and he ran the other way. Prior to his turning and running really running away, he threw a good-si9zed rock at me. Not to be outdone, I tossed my rock at him.

I do not know if i did the proper thing or not. I got away unharmed and with all my money. I hope it will make hesitate before he tries this again. However, I am sure he will try it again. He never got too close to me with the knife. He could have grabbed me as i passed but he didn´t. i think it was a crime of opportunity by an inexperienced thug.

I won´t let it dampen my spirits but it was hard to get the vision of the knife out of my mind the rest of that day - especially when i saw the guy standing on the corner in downtown near the central market. after i saw him, I went to the police station to inform the proper authorities. by the time 3 cops and i got back to the coner where I last saw the thug, he was gone. i am not sure what would have happened if he had been there.

The second day here, I went to the surf beach, which is a 30 minute truck ride north of town. I did a bit of body surfing and played some beach soccer. My team was a Swede and an Irishman. Our opponents were two Argentinians and an Italian (who wore a tiny orange Speedo. And when I say ´tiny´, I mean much too tiny). It turns out, I am not that good at soccer. I played a game and a half and then I was done for the day - sore feet and sore legs.

The next day, I was a bit sunburned and I had trouble walking. Maybe I should not be playing games with those 15+ years younger than I.

It is saturday, I will stay here one more day. It is tough to leave the sun and the sand.

more later

bjm jan 12, 2008