The best surf is not in San Juan Del Sur. To reach any one of the best surfing spots north and south of SJDS you have to take a shuttle. For modest dollars, you load into trucks, jeeps, vans, and are driven through back country, down winding dirt paths in four wheel drive, and eventually stop at a beach with only a few conveniences. The surf in Nicaragua has a good reputation and, on this week, the waves are anywhere from two to five feet. Not being a surfer, the waves don’t seem like much, but for Central America, on the Pacific coast, they aren’t bad, according to insiders riding in the back of this open truck with their surfboards close at hand. Much of Nicaragua is undeveloped countryside and many citizens live at the end of dirt roads or no roads, pulling water from rivers or wells, transporting with horse drawn carts, watching television courtesy of electricity brought by the government. There is an encroachment on the land by housing developments geared to Norte Americanos and Europeans and signs on barbed wire fences sell fincas that have been in someone’s family for generations. Surfers roam the world looking for good waves, and, today, they are talking excitedly while we bounce on the wooden benches in the back bed of the old military truck that used to transport revolutionaries.. Riding the waves will be an all day affair.