Having spent an amazing evening watching turtles nest at Playa La Flor, we woke up to our last morning in San Juan Del Sur determined to make the most of our last few hours. We had been talking about hiking up the Christ statue all week and made an unsuccessful attempt to find our way there one morning, so this was going to be the morning it really happened.
We packed up our room to check out of the hostel, although they let us leave our backpacks behind the reception desk until we were actually ready to leave town. We got going later than planned because packing always takes longer than expected, and I had slept in late with Torre after our adventures the night before, so the day was already hot. It was an extremely steep hike, and we tried to keep to the shade but it wasn’t always possible. Torre’s little arms got sunburned in the carrier because I straight up forgot to put sunscreen on this day, and my pulse was literally pounding through my face by the time we reached the top of a flight of stairs that concluded our journey up mansion mountain to this monument.
Once we got there though, after I had time to catch my breath and rest in the breezy shade, it was really cool up there and definitely worth our efforts. I hadn’t realized there was a whole courtyard around the base of the statue, and there were people there with snacks and drinks who were obviously planning to spend a few hours hanging out above the heat. We stopped at the chapel under the statue, and then we headed back down for our travels to Managua!
By now we considered ourselves fairly seasoned in travel through Nicaragua, so we asked a few taxi drivers at the market how much it would cost to get to Rivas where we planned to catch a bus to Managua. One driver told us $15, so we said we’d think about it, but we weren’t actually ready to leave yet because Matt wanted to take out cash in SJDS rather than use an ATM in Managua. When we left the bank, our taxi driver was waiting outside and offered us a lower price of $12 US to Rivas. We were happy with that, so we jumped in his beaten up taxi and sped out of town. Continue reading “Nicaragua Day 13: Travel from San Juan Del Sur to Managua”