San Juan del Sur Archives

Random Things I Love in Nicaragua #8: Non-Consumer Culture

March 15th, 2022susanafield0 Comments

The man in the photo is pushing a cart on wheels down the main road into San Juan del Sur. Stacked on his cart are wooden chairs that have had the weaving redone. I’m guessing he’s walking the cart rather than riding the bicycle that’s attached to the cart for better control of the unwieldy load. Nicaragua is not a consumer-oriented culture. Here things are repaired, reused, recycled. Here things are used up and then likely still repaired, reused, recycled. I have 18” worth of clothes hangers with clothes hanging on them in my closet, and one drawer, versus the …

Random Things I Love in Nicaragua: #6 Permanent Summer

January 9th, 2022susanafield0 Comments

I see Facebook postings by friends in Colorado and Washington State showing luscious white snow against barren dark trees. I do not miss it. Not at all. Oh, I remember the squeak of snow underfoot when the temperatures dropped below Zero degrees F. I remember the stomping of my boots as I’d enter the door. The feel of my ungloved hands held up to the fire. I remember watching the snow flying up and out sideways from the snowblower John was pushing down our walkway. I remember it fondly from the 25 years we lived in the white stuff but …

Random Things I Love in Nicaragua: #4 The Practicality of Solar Energy

November 21st, 2021susanafield0 Comments

Last year we hired Nicamisol, a company out of Managua, to install our home’s solar system. What a game changer! It is hot living by the beach in San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua. Yesterday was one of the few days I can remember in almost 6 years of being here that I hiked the beach mid day and didn’t sweat at all. In other words, most days it’s so hot that I start sweating as soon as I walk out the door. Our house, a modern concrete/rebar structure with lots of glass facing west, was designed more for the views …

Random Things I Love in Nicaragua: #2 Bougainvillea

November 13th, 2021susanafield0 Comments

Tall, bright, glorious Bougainvillea!

Random Things I Love in Nicaragua: #1 Rainbows and Monkeys and Birds

November 11th, 2021susanafield0 Comments

Watching rainbows as monkeys embrace before my eyes and green flocks of parakeets flit and chatter by.

This is Me in 2020

December 31st, 2020susanafield0 Comments

This is me in 2020. It was a year of reading.72 books, or thereabouts, about half of which were nonfiction and most of which were read on my hammock.2 were Classics: War and Peace, and Moby Dick.About 1/3 were audiobooks.All were free (via our son’s USA online library or The Fussy Librarian).My favorite nonfiction book was Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari.My favorite fiction book was The Overstory by Richard Powers.Both made me feel like my brain was gloriously tripping on marijuana out in the wilderness and I was in my twenties. While reading them, I …

A “Too-Hard” November: Nica Nugget #109

December 23rd, 2020susanafield1 Comment

November was just too hard, bracketed early on as it was by two Category 4 hurricanes which slammed into the same place on the northeastern shore of Nicaragua. As if seven months of the coronavirus weren’t enough. And coming right after a rainy month of October already. On November 3, the first hurricane, Eta, hit the northeast coast, miles away from us down here in the southwestern corner of Nicaragua as we are. But it still brought 8 days of torrential rain to us. And cold. In anticipation, fishermen had pulled their boats out of San Juan Bay. Workers had …

Dry Season/Rainy Season: Nica Nugget #108

October 13th, 2020susanafield0 Comments

San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua, has two distinct seasons. They are totally different than the seasons in the more northern latitudes of North America and Europe which experience relatively cold Winters, mild Autumns, hot Summers and mild Springs. Here, in Central America we have two seasons: Dry Season and Rainy Season. Let me elaborate… Dry Season Dry Season coincides roughly with the northern latitudes’ Winter, roughly beginning in mid November and ending in early to mid May. The local Nicaraguans call it their Summer, despite the fact that we are located in the Northern Hemisphere. Dry. Dry Season is dry, …

Digging For Clams: Nica Nugget #107

October 10th, 2020susanafield0 Comments

I’ve been walking laps on the beach at low tide lately with my friend, Maureen, and one or both of “my” dogs. Well, technically I’ve been walking laps on the southern end of the beach since the rains of late have bisected the beach in unequal halves. Maureen lives in town, which sits on the southern and longer (by 1,000 ft or so) continuous stretch of beach that makes up San Juan Bay, than the northern side of the bay where I live. Separating the two sides of the bay and bisecting the beach, is the river. I could walk …

October 2017 Flashback, Tropical Storm Nate hits San Juan del Sur: Nica Nugget #106

October 8th, 2020susanafield0 Comments

On October 5, 2017, Tropical Storm Nate hit San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua. We were spared the severe destruction that impacted many local families and many communities out in the campo. We got off lightly, and we had the resources to survive the inconveniences during the storm, and to hire out the work to make repairs and improvements to our home. But, for us North Americans, unused to flooding and going without electricity and water for days on end, and unused to seeing boats cast up on shore, it was a humbling and scary experience. I wrote about its personal …