San Juan del Sur - A Global Community
On any given night around 5 p.m. expats, vacationers and local people assemble at the shoreline in San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua to enjoy a cocktail, a beer or a rum and watch the sunset. Some people have even seen the green flash as the suns final rays touch the horizon. Kids play soccer on the shoreline while a yoga group performs, meanwhile only 50-feet from shore paddle boarders are enjoying the last sun rays of the day., all under the gazing look and pointed finger of a Goliath 24-meter-high Jesus statue named Christ the Mercy. Roosted 134 meters on a slope over the harbor it is the second tallest to Rio de Janeiro's Christ the Redeemer.
Like a great part of the southwest shore of Nicaragua, only 20 miles north of Costa Rica on the Pacific Ocean, it is a place that draws thousands from the colder northern countries of Canada and the United States and numerous from all over the world.
Call it the Nicaraguan Riviera, the Emerald Coast. San Juan and the dozen or so shorelines both north and south of the town give pleasant scenes, warm water, and an average temperature of 30°C (86°F) in April and 27°C (81°F) degrees in January.
"I lived in Costa Rica for a long time," says a local New Yorker who now sells property in Nicaragua "This is greatly improved."
Sixty-five years before the Panama Canal was done more than 100,000 individuals looking for their fortune in the California Gold Rush traveled from New Jersey by ships down the Rio San Juan and got passage on ships that would take them to San Francisco. Mark Twain made that same excursion and many years before that Christopher Columbus.
Nicaragua tourism numbers keep on growing as the nation depends on explorers for a substantial piece of the nation's economy. In 2010 the nation outperformed the 1 million voyagers check and in 2013 more than 1.2 million travelers arrived. While most are from Central America, around 300,000 are from North America and thousands more are from Europe.
What's more, from San Juan it is simple to go anyplace, including Granada, the first Spanish capital in Central America, Ometepe island on Lake Nicaragua, Leon, Managua, the Corn Islands and the 19 volcanoes that spot the nation.
It is a photographer's dream.
