Popoyo to Las Flores

Following a building swell north to El Salvador, we had a night in Managua before getting the 5am bus. Contrary to what Lonely Planet told us, Barrio Martha Quezada - the area around the bus terminal was a full on ghetto. I’d reserved us a night at a reputable hostel, only to have a street hustler direct us into his building telling us it was the same place. Out of pure laziness, even though we were pretty sketch on the place and the shady characters around it, we decided to stay the night - would allow us to get on the beers earlier.

 

By chance we stumbled upon a German bar on some random street, greeted by owner ‘David’. Telling us he only opens the doors when he feels like it, we followed him into his empty bar. Clearly drunk by his slurring and decision to wear Ray-Bans inside the dark room, he cracked open 4 Tonas and slid them across the bar. Proud of the fact his fridge was set at -7 degrees C, we got down to storytime. Our travel stories, his impressions of our personalities on face value, suicidal surfers, conspiracies of the world, his story (fighting for a rebel army, robbing banks, opening bars, his Nica family) and other general crap. After a whole heap of beers, dinner at a restaurant around the corner, then more beers at ‘David’, the man himself vanished into the darkness - his ex-wife who was looking after the bar had no idea where he was.

 

Next morning at 4am, we were stoked to awaken unharmed with all our gear untouched. For an 8 hour travel day including border crossings though Honduras and El Salvador, everything went relatively smooth. Eventually touching down in tiny coastal village Las Flores, we were all very impressed to see the place was sporting an epic right point break. Getting a place 50m to the water and next door Adam and Nick - 2 Americans we met in Popoyo, a fiesta was in order to celebrate new waves ahead. Who would have thought that beer, rum and a tazer gun could prove so much fun.

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Visions of Popoyo

Along 1 dirt road rivaling the Kokoda trail is the tiny surf village of Popoyo. Virtually untouched apart from a few surf camps, restaurants, a ding repair shop and a bunch of houses on the hill, Popoyo has such a laid back vibe with incredible surf only metres away from where you sleep.

There are a massive selection of waves in the surrounding area from:

• Playa Popoyo - 1km of beach breaks right on your doorstep
• Popoyo reefs - A fun left and right at Inner reef 50m out, then a fast heavy/ sketchy/ square/ hollow barrel at Outer reef about 200m paddle. Needs 7ft+ swell
• Playa Sanata - 30mins walk south, Sanata breaks left onto a cobble stone like rock platform mixing with sand inshore to give shape to a fast barrel
• Playa Rosada - South around the headland from Santana, Rosada is a little cove that breaks as a fast left wedge at low tide and left and right peaks on high
• Playa Colorado - we didn’t make it here, but you need to take a private 4WD taxi or a boat from Giagante. From the photos some of the Brazilians showed us its a pretty awesome beachie which holds some some big swell, barreling right the whole way from the point
• Playa Astillero and Astillero reef - 20min drive north to this tiny fishing town also built around 1 dirt road. The reef and the beach break work on 7ft+ swells and are also the launch beach for any boat trips north
• Lances left - 15mins walk north from Astillero, Lances is a fast left point barreling on take off and a long inside section. Needs 7ft+ swell
• Vera Cruz (Playgrounds) - 20 min boat trip from Astillero, this reef breaks so consistently on a 6ft+ swell its unbelievable. 3 left and right peaks break as huge walls and barrel on the inside section. Every session here we spent close to 5 hours in the water.
• Panga drops/ panga left - Didn’t make it here, but hearing stories of this place, its a very hollow barrel breaking on a rock platform. North boat trip from Astillero.

Of the 20 days we spent at Popoyo equal parts were spent cruising (quality hammock time, eating huge feasts, countess fiestas, sunset sessions) and equal parts getting the heart rate up (massive surf sessions, beach fitness sessions, 6ft+ bodysurfing championships, ocean swims). We created Onshore PT - the beach fitness organisation responsible for regulating fitness when the surf is ordinary. It had an overwealming response, growing 100% in the past 3 weeks (from 1 to 2 members). Onshore PT even saved a life. One session Taylor and I were running along the beach when a frantic woman came screaming up to us that her husband had been swimming and got swept out. Jam to the rescue - tearing up the beach baywatch style, charging through surf I reached the old guy, eventually getting him to shore after about 10mins. On struggle street, it took a while to get the guy breathing properly, but in the end the old bugger pulled through, even busted out a smile.

We bunked down at at Popoyo Loco surf camp - $5 a night beds run by all round champion Paulo. Hailing from Italy, Paulo’s been running the surf camp for about 9 months. He’s the kind of bloke who drop everything to help out from local intel, cars, supplies to organising as much fish as you can eat. Popoyo Loco is an epic set up, 50m from the water, kitchen, BBQ, social area where you can paint the walls and a hammock domain. We had an awesome crew for our time there - a mix of US, Brazil, Uruguay, NZ, Germany. Everyone keen to surf hard and fiesta hard.

With such a good set up of waves, its only a matter of time before this place becomes more and more developed. Foreign buyers are already snapping up land for super cheap (some blocks without water/ electricity for $20k). In the last few years the Nicaraguan government’s realised surf tourism accounts for a major part of the countries economy, so Popoyo’s enviable future (like much of the Nicaraguan coastline) will be that of beaches in Costa Rica - Hermosa, Santa Teresa, Tamarindo. At the end of the day, Popoyo’s future is at the mercy of one piece infrastructure - something that resembles a road. Until then it will remain a sleepy little surf village.

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Last Outers session

Our last few days in Popoyo were met with constant offshore winds and about 5-6ft of swell. Inner reef was breaking a little fat with the west swell - a more south west to south swell and it has a much more hollow shape breaking left and right. JL still did his part in carving up some chocolate brown walls.

200 metres away, Outer reef continued to pump - pretty much heavy as the last 5 days. With alot more water on the reef at high tide, it was much more makable. In saying that, the wave was still 4ft below sea level and with barrels sizey enough to slot a couple of cars inside. Not a bad wave to split between 3-4 people for the whole session.

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Last Outers session

Our last few days in Popoyo were met with constant offshore winds and about 5-6ft of swell. Inner reef was breaking a little fat with the west swell - a more south west to south swell and it has a much more hollow shape breaking left and right. JL still did his part in carving up some chocolate brown walls.

200 metres away, Outer reef continued to pump - pretty much heavy as the last 5 days. With alot more water on the reef at high tide, it was much more makable. In saying that, the wave was still 4ft below sea level and with barrels sizey enough to slot a couple of cars inside. Not a bad wave to split between 3-4 people for the whole session.

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Getting down to closeout town

Taylor working on his skills in some claustrophobic barrels at Popoyo beachie.

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Ode to Tona Grande

“Tranquilo amigo, there’s nothing to fear, good times and hammocks, oh what a beer” - Taylor ‘Prophet’ Jardine

Standing tall at 1 Litre and a core temperature averaging -2 degrees C, these super refreshing lagers are far and apart the best cervesaz in Central America.

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Trips to Frothinopolis

“We just got another return ticket to Frothinopolis” announced a very satisfied Jimmy Frothernce. Of the 2 trips boat trips we did to Vera Cruz we each totaled:

• 10 hours in the water
• 50-60 waves each
• Plenty of quality time in the greenroom
• Plenty of quality airtime

Also on the brink of dehydration and starvation, we were treated to 2 incredible dinners whipped up at the family restaurant at the end of the street. So cheap and so huge, couldn’t got wrong!

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Heavy to sketchy Outer reef

Very ordinary photos, these pics do the wave no justice. It’s day 2 of the new swell and Outer Reef is breaking about 8 foot on the mid tide. An angry angry wave. Getting out there, it was just me and 2 Portuguese boogers. 

Hands down one of the craziest sessions I’ve had in a long time. The swell would hit this jagged rock platform sucking about half the wave below sea level. Erupting with a deafening roar, the first section would close out, giving way to the next peak which would draw so hard off the bottom of the reef the water looked like pure glass. Paddling your arse off, it would still be a late drop into a square shaped barrel you could easily fit 2 cars into. No need to stall here. If you wanted to keep the skin on your body, you need to race the hell out of this monster until the spray of water on your head gained intensity and a form ball spat you out into the channel at warp speed. Out there for about 2 hours, I locked into 7 or 8 ridiculous barrels and got hammered once - learned my lesson bigtime. Outers at this size, stick with the bigger sets and waves at the end of the set. I got one of the smaller waves, still a solid size, such a nice shape. Coming out of the barrel and onto what I thought was the channel, a raised my head to see a massive wide one building out the back. One of the Portuguese lads dropped in, lining the wave up sweet, but I had no chance of getting under or around before it broke. Bailing my board I dove deep, tunneling for the bottom, but still got dominated by the mountain of water as it hit me. By the time I’d weathered the onslaught, I was up on dry reef, but escaping with only 1 cut on my leg. Drifting into the shallows while the rest of the set broke, I got my breath back and paddled back out - just in time to watch Portugal number 2 drop in late, lose control and get swallowed into the reef. Tough break son.

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Casa de mushroom

On the beach and with full views of Popoyo reef this american lad has built a pretty crazy looking house built shapped like a couple of mushrooms. With the majority of the house built using concrete, its complete with open walk in bathrooms, a bar, stripper pole and an interior which has since been painted like Alice in Wonderland meets the Smurfs.

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Mission back to Popoyo

A pretty ordinary days travel on our way back to Popoyo had us ready to lose it. Add:

- 1 x non-air-conditioned mini bus to Managua sitting next to a funky smelling old lady

- 25 x Nica touts mobbing us at the bus station as they tried to drag us onto different buses to Rivas

- 1 x fuckwit taxi driver who spent the trip from Rivas to Popoyo drinking longnecks getting progressively shit. Halfway to Popoyo and in the pouring rain, Senor fuckstain realises his poor excuse for a taxi can’t cross water rushing across the road. We ended up flagging down a 4WD to take us the remaining 30km, but not before Shitbrick demands twice the agreed amount, going loco and trying to drive off with our bags until we paid him. Close to throwing a punch, we paid the rat telling not to worry about getting any business from Popoyo for a while.

The only plus to this day was getting treated to hotdoggs from the Rivas hotdog lady. So meticulous in the development, its like watching pieces of art take form. And damn did they taste good.

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Volcano luge

After an hour drive in the back of a hybrid cattle truck, we arrived at the foot of Cerro Negro Volcano. There was a 45 minute hike ahead of us up about 700 m to the top of this sulfur seeping hill. Dragging behind us our makeshift Volcano luge boards, we took in some pretty epic views, while we ironed out some finer details of our potential wetsuit company.

As we suited up with our hell jailhouse outfits, our guide let us know 82km/h was the time to beat.

All psyched and ready to go, I hit the slope picking up a heap of speed from the get go. Half way down the volcano I was absolutely hooking, but noticing I was veering slightly to the left. Using my foot to correct, I massively over-compensated, completely losing control. Going into a heavy death roll, I flipped about 5 times, smacking my head hard on the side of the volcano. Thanks to my GoPro cam, I got the stack all on film.

With only a quarter of Volcano to go, I only managed to clock up 38km/h - still enough to beat Dougie’s time so I was stoked. With a mouth/nose/ears full of volcanic rubble, we headed back to Bigfoot for cheap mojitos and Tona Grandes. Keen to get on the loose, we hustled up some ladies from the hostel to join in and hit up one of the clubs. As we walked in, the floor was alive with chickas frolicking to spanish flavoured electro. We dominated the DF pretty hard - notable mentions go to Taylor with his 80’s inspired limb pumps. Learning from previous encounters with Israeli girls, I made an informed decision, introducing myself Jamie instead of Jamil. Worked out nicely.

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Around Leon

The swell took a break for a few days, so we saw it as an opportunity to escape from our nest called Popoyo and see what else Nicaragua had to offer. Bound for Leon in the countries north, we spent a night in the capital Managua before the final leg in morning. Managua is a pretty ordinary city, over developed and sweaty is the best way to describe it. To us it was just a pit stop. The highlight was a handful of awesome burritos for dinner and smoking little waitress with a rig that could stop traffic.

 

Next morning we mounted a 2 hour aircon bus to Leon. Originally I was just keen to zone out with my iPod, but I was seated next to a pretty interesting character named Osca. With his developing english we briefly spoke about my surf trip, the fact I’m Australian and attractions of Leon. A bit a silence acted as an intermission until we passed the US embassy. “American embassy (pointing out the window) Fucking Americans, wrecked my fucking country” blasted Osca. Interesting, lets delve deeper. For the next hour I got the political perspective of a Nicaraguan civil engineer - his views on the US and the positive outlook for Costa Rica and Nica relations. Couple of take outs were - the US interests in Venezuela after huge oil deposits have been found and that the famed Nicola Peninsula in Costa Rica, home to some of the most famous waves in Central America including Witches Rock was Nicaraguan land in the 70’s until it was peacefully claimed by Costa Rica - a big thorn in the current Nica/ Tico relationship. Next fact that I was amazed to discover was Osca english was only 3 months old. He started downloading BBC english lesson podcasts and teaching himself. Despite the length of time he had been leaning, Osca had no problem with a conversation. On top of that, I was the first person he had actually spoken english with - other than the man inside the podcast. Pretty damn impressive. Osca was off to his property in the mountains near Leon to work on his house and land. A few months earlier, with the increasing demand for Nica coffee, he and his family (with the help of his Japanese High School teacher wife) were developing the land to grow coffee beans. As luck would have it, they dug up gold nugget the size of a 50 cent coin. Nicaragua is apparently known for its gold deposits, so Osca and the fam kept on digging, uncovering a gold field on his property. Already he has had interest from US and Korean miners, which he had pushed aside, opting to use locals, but only when he needs gold to sell and nothing more. We continued to speak of our travels - he’d done Europe, Dubai, Japan (where he met his wife) when it occurred he didn’t know my name (typical move by me). Letting him know my name was Jamil, he replied “that’s an Arabic name yes?” I was having a chronic case de-ja-vu. “We are natural enemies” he stressed. Oh shit, what are you talking about. Turns out his family name is an old Spanish name ‘Mata-Morro’ which roughly translates to ‘Kill Arabs/ Muslims’. The name originated centuries ago when Spanish Christians were locked into a religious war with Arabic provinces. Suss on this new development, I checked to see if he was packing. Osca reassured me that its just a name, and we kept on at improving his english.

After a 2 hour chat, we arrived in Leon. We checked into the Bigfoot hostel, locked in Volcano boarding for the next day and set of in search of ice-cream via the cathedral and central square. Like many central american towns, Leon is an old colonial settlement so the place still retains much of the original spanish architecture. After treating ourselves to ice-cream, we chilled in the central square which is Leon’s afternoon social centre before deciding it was appropriate to get back on the cervezas.

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Afternoon delight

After such a busy morning surfing Popoyo, eating and getting some quality hammock time, news that the local rodeo was going ahead gave everyone a new wave of enthusiasm. We’d missed the last rodeo as it was called due to wet weather which added an extra level of excitement to this one. Local lad ‘Elvis’ was meant to jump on a bull today so he was round in the morning talking it up. A very unique character, ‘Elvis’ is a famed local surfer/ boat trip hustler/ bull rider/ herb cultivator/ go to guy for organising anything in Popoyo - at a price. Operating at a higher frequency that the rest of the laid back locals, his english vocabulary consists of only a few phrases which he strings together to give the illusion he speaks good english - “damn buddy”, “its Nicaragua man”, “boat trip, boat trip?”, “hit that shit”, “roll that shit”, “smoke that shit”. Psyching himself up for his ride, Elvis was walking around Popoyo Loco making a heap of noise and challenging the crew to arm wrestles, just another thing he felt he had over everyone else. So beating him was the first time I’d seen him properly accept defeat - the noise calmed for a good 5 mins.

But today wasn’t our day to experience rustic Nicaragua - another freak storm ripped through the place after lunch, flooding out the rodeo. The consolation was an offshore afternoon session and a pretty epic light show at sunset.

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Sunset Black Grande

The New Booze Development team brought the good people of Popoyo a new game to assist in maximising drink time. Black Grande is a ‘Fuck the dealer’ inspired game of ‘Blackjack’ (best played on the beach on sunset). Like your standard blackjack, the players battle the dealer for a higher hand. In Black Grande, the loser of each hand has to take a scull from a Grande Tona (1 litre longnecks). So if players work well together to screw over the dealer, the dealer is loose after 2 hands.

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Activitio de Popoyo

With the drive to max out every day in Popoyo, a new and improved activity list went into development. The list consisted of daily mandatory activities and extra credit activities which could be used to make some big scores.

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A moustache named Brian

After cultivating a rich, prominent lip beast, Brian went from being a soul searcher to achieving his childhood dream of making it big in the adult film industry.

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Owning the onshore

Itching for some water time, the lads had their way with some beachbreak soup.

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Bashing down the beach

Fun beach session on the morning dead low tide. Just warming up the limbs for mid tide when outer reef gets more water on it and the truck sized barrels start to become makable!

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Pescado fiesta dos

The US contingent returned with a solid haul of fish from their all day aquatic adventure. Combine that with about 10 red snapper we had already bought and there was enough food to sink a ship. There’s no such thing as too much fish, but no joke mackerels, snappers and jacks just kept coming off the grill like a production line.

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All fired up

Last light at Popoyo puts on a pretty epic show as the beach comes alive with people carving waves, yogging and just taking it all in.

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