PLAYA GIGANTE

Gigante is the first beach you come to after Tola and is named after the Punta Pie de Gigante (The Giant’s Foot). This is a beautiful crescent beach well off the beaten track. The community of Gigante consists of a few dozen poor homes and about 500 locals. At the beach, there are a few traditional food shacks (and one place to play pool), usually owned by folks from Tola. From February through May (especially on Sundays), you have a great chance of buying fresh whole fish right off the boat, which the local folks will cook up just for you with rice, salad, and plantains for under $3. During Semana Santa, the food gets even better, and more plentiful; poke around.

  To get to Gigante, take the La Salinas bus from Tola or Rivas and get off at either of the two entrances to the beach (the second one is a bit easier to follow). If you are not traveling by car, you’ll need to walk or bike about seven kilometers to the beach on a hilly dirt road. Look for Rivas–Tola–Gigante buses, leaving around 8 a.m. and returning late in the afternoon to Tola and Rivas. Travelers pay one price (under $1) and go on the same bus both ways. During Semana Santa, the buses run daily and the beach gets crowded with people from all over Rivas. At this time, many locals set up camp under the trees and spend the week at the beach sleeping in hammocks or under black plastic tarps. Also during Semana Santa, expect to see daily cockfights and a lot of phenomenally drunk Nicaraguan men, every year several of whom overestimate their swimming prowess and drown.