Las Penitas Changed My Life

I want to tell you about a small place which seriously, kinda sucks but changed my life forever. It’s called Las Penitas and it’s a small beach town / village / strip on the Pacific coast of Nicaragua not far from Leon. Leon is the old academic capital of Nicaragua, Granada is the commercial capital but enough of that for now.

Long story short, I met another wanderer with a website while living in Chiang Mai and we decided we’d go on a mission sometime. He is from Boston and I have family there; he found $149 one way tickets to Nicaragua; just my style. After a week or two of traveling I was like this is cool but I’m more of a Han Solo than a storm trooper so when he wanted to leave Las Penitas I said, I’m going to stay here…

I had been on the road a while and I was like “what am I doing with my life?” I had no niche or plan, just some guy writing garbage about his day… Also, this was after I had left home and right before I went home, while in Lake Ohrid, Macedonia (you want to go there) I made the biggest trading error of my life which decimated my already shrinking net worth; it was time for some serious change.

In this boring a$$ town I started running on the beach, quit smoking, decided to start writing about golf, fishing and finally got working on some web projects I had. The internet stunk but my resolve was stronger than ever. Then I met these two Spanish girls… They left a few days later and a new friend’s iPhone got stolen. We were sitting on a curb dejected and he said “We should have gone with those Spanish girls!” To that, I quipped “They never asked us…”.

I had no idea where I was going as I’m not a big planner when it comes to travel. I just show up places and wander around eating food and taking photos until I’m bored before going elsewhere. I was in Matagalpa talking to someone on skype and the connection was failing so I went out onto the the second floor patio for a better signal when I saw the girls walking down the streets. I yelled “Hola Chicas” and they came running over and invited me to the Corn Islands.

The rest is history to some extent but I’m telling you this because you never know where you’re going to find that inspiration which changes your life. Many want to go to some big mega destination but seriously, something good can happen anywhere and wherever you are there is meaning in it if you look for it. Las Pentitas, some random spot off the grid with a beach that could kill you changed my life.

That’s the beauty of travel, you’ll never know unless you go…

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