Here Comes the Best and Worst Part of Traveling

On Saturday, Bryce and I left Ometepe & caught a taxi to SJDS. We shared the taxi with a couple of guys whose names we caught just as they got out of the taxi and I promptly forgot because of who I am. They were scouting & “researching” activities, hostels, etc. because they would be guiding a group of ~20 later this month through the itinerary they create. Basically, they’re living my dream and just planning cool things and then doing all the cool things they planned. I mean cmon. COME ON.

When we got to our hostel, Naked Tiger, I could tell bryce was a bit nervous. This hostel, and Sunday Funday in particular, is pretty famous for being both incredibly fun and also an absolute shit show, so he wasn’t too excited to be surrounded by what he expected to be frat house air heads. As soon as we got there, we grabbed a beer and sat by the pool while we waited for Alison to arrive. That night, we met some of the best people, but unfortunately I only know a few names either because we never bothered introducing ourselves, I can’t remember, or-most likely-I couldn’t understand their names when they said it. I thought this kid’s name was Barn for the longest time because Australians make no bloody sense when they talk (in a nice way.) We met a Canadian lawyer, a German Production Manager, an Australian Accountant— basically a bunch of normal people with normal jobs who were not even close to frat-boy air heads slamming empty beer cans into their heads (though the Australians were pretty close at times.)

It was refreshing to finally talk to people besides Bryce and Australians have a terribly sarcastic sense of humor so I was 100% back in my element bantering with them for a few days. There’s nothing worse than people who don’t get my humor, because I just come off as a bitch until I catch on and shut up. Never goes well.

On Sunday Funday, I had my first beer somewhere around 10am, followed by fresh coconut water out of a coconut and shotgunning a vodka redbull by 10:30/11. The rest of the morning was spent dancing & drinking & putting glitter on our faces before heading to the first stop on the pool crawl. At this point, I was thoroughly enjoying watching everyone else make drunken fools out of themselves. Apparently some famous DJ was playing (What’s So Not) and everyone, mostly Australians, were fan girling pretty hard at this point. For sunset, we were back at Naked Tiger. I went upstairs to put my purse back and looked down at the patio to see hundreds of people below. If you think I’m exaggerating— they sold over 500 tickets to Sunday Funday this weekend. Five. Hundred. After Naked Tiger, everyone who was still alive and kicking boarded shuttles to a bar on the beach, where we spent the rest of the night dancing & drinking & sitting under the stars. (Some of you *ahem* will be pleased to know that I did not puke on the beach this time & I do, in fact, have full memory of the night thankyouverymuch.)

Everyone I met was awesome and even the kind of crappy people weren’t even too bad. “No” meant “no” for everyone there (without having to have a reason for saying no—how refreshing!), there wasn’t any pressure to drink more or do any drugs, & anytime anyone drunkenly grabbed my ass, they were pretty accepting when I slapped them (hard) afterward. In Chicago, slapping guys who grab you usually results in those guys getting pretttttty pissed and generally makes the situation worse, so it was refreshing to be able to smack anyone dumb enough to grab at me without worrying that they’d end up just trying harder. So basically, even with twice the alcohol, everyone was generally more civilized than some people back home.

Somewhere around 3am, I retired to the room, somehow convincing myself to take a shower (& shave my legs?¿?¿) so it seems that even Drunk Andi is pretty smart. *hair flip*

The next morning, the whole hostel was moving slowly. More accurately, most of the hostel was not moving. Some, including our Aussie friend, Barn (aka Byron), hadn’t even slept yet but according to our Kiwi friend, Rebecca, the quality of his conversations declined rapidly throughout the day. I hope, for his own sake, he got some sleep and stopped believing that sunscreen is a myth.

The verdict: best Sunday of my life (probably partially because I didn’t have to work on Monday but hey.) We actually had so much fun with our new friends at Naked Tiger that we were dragging our feet when it came time to leave. We had splurged and booked an Airbnb in the city near the beach to recover in peace and quiet, but when we finally left Naked Tiger, we found ourselves wishing we had just one more night.

Having said that, our Airbnb, Elementos Del Sur, was so amazing. We’re already trying to plan to go back. The hosts were incredible, the breakfast was to die for, & the amenities were on point. Also, softest sheets I’ve ever felt so obviously I was in love. You can rent the whole place out for like $590ish/night and it easily sleeps 16 guests, so you do the math.

More bruises on my backside from sliding down the Volcano.

As excited as I am to head to Leon, weekends like this remind me of the awful part of traveling: making so many new friends that you might never see again. So many of the people we hung out with, while I may have given them loads of shit all day, were people that I’d love to hang out with back home. It’s a major bummer leaving them.

In other news: will we ever get to Leon? Our shuttle was an hour and a half late, took us to Granada, we changed buses, and then an hour into the drive, my bag rolled off the roof of the car. I guess I’m glad I didn’t put anything fragile in it…

#SanJuanDelSur #PoolCrawl #Nicaragua #Hostel #HostelLife #NakedTiger #Travel #SundayFunday