Stop The Semana Santa Madness!
It is a Nicaraguan tradition to head to the beach for the Easter week holiday. Nicarguans get Thursday, Friday, and the weekend as vacation days, so many take advantage of the time off and head the the beaches even earlier in the week. The little town we live in, San Juan del Sur is the #1 spot to party in Nicaragua for what is called Semana Santa (Holy Week). Last year, listening to the advise of veteran Expats and being new to Nicaragua and San Juan del Sur, we decided to vacation at a friend’s surf camp in Northern Nica where we felt safer from the mayhem.
This year we decided to stay in San Juan del Sur and experience what everyone was talking about. We had seen pictures, but were still stunned to see the large stages beginning to be erected in mid March. Over Christmas and New Years I had seen our grocery store packed with visitors and quickly running out food, so we planned ahead and bought groceries early in the week with the plan of eating at home for every meal.
Stocked up and within the confines of our home outside of town, things were actually quite peaceful. When we did venture out with the kids, we went to places out of town like Eden on the Chocolata for their pizza night, and Surf Ranch Resort & Villas de Palermo for a swim. Our grounds keeper’s daughters were out of school like Azalea and she had a blast playing all day with the older girls and jumping on our new trampoline. We also enjoyed a nice Easter day egg hunt with friends at our house.
We dropped our son, Titus, off with Juanita on the Saturday and headed into the mayhem with a small camera and very little money. Here are some of the pictures we took.
To give you an idea of the difference between Semana Santa & a normal Friday afternoon. I took these pictures of the same locations to compare the two occasions.
