Personal Narrative: It's 4 Am In San Juan Del Sur, Nicaragua

It's 4 AM in San Juan Del Sur, Nicaragua and I'm shivering from a fever of 104 F. Traveling alone in a foreign country, a fever's dreadful. A glass of orange juice becomes unfathomable as everyone else is whooping it up. At the time, it was the worst. The next days plan for my birthday was to salsa the night away. Instead, I had my own pity-party. An onlooker would view this as the saddest moment of all time, but with only two words of Spanish - hola and cerveza - I thought c'est la vie.

Until this point, Nicaragua enchanted me. Granada, a vibrant Colonial city. A boat trip on Lake Nicaragua, to the perfect volcanic double cones of Ometepe. The Caribbean vibe on Little Corn Island. SJDS for surfing and nightlife. Granted, there were some hiccups like a sunburn, but who doesn't love peeling layers of dead skin to get that one perfect sheet? For the first foray into Central America, I fell for everything Latino; the warm people, dancing and music, tasty food, and spectacular scenery.
The hostel owner translated the symptoms and I dragged myself to the pharmacist. His English matched my Spanish. Weeks later I was sure pleased to discover the meds banned at home and elsewhere. I'm able to find the comedy in this and tell a humorous story to you now (twitch twitch).

Finally moving, one foot in front of the other, I reached cabanas right on the beach. In an instant, the new environment and people brought energy back into my step. The motley crew that became fast friends, pretended it was my birthday a week later. Lobster dinner, music, cervezas and laughter. Plus a couple new Spanish words - fiesta and tortuga.

You may wonder why I'd learn turtle so early on, for which there is a riveting answer. After dinner, we moved to the beach and there she was, laying her eggs. How extraordinary to watch this mama lay 92 of them. Witnessing this was one of those unexpected moments that I know why travel is so