It was 2023, I landed in Managua with a roller bag, a backpack, a boyfriend I hadn’t seen in months, and genuinely no idea what I was doing next with my life.
That last part isn’t the dramatic version — it’s just the honest one. I’d come off a few years in Vail, spent the winter in Mexico doing what I always do there (surf, decompress, spend almost nothing), and somewhere in February my boyfriend and I had met up in Mérida, Mexico for a week and started talking about Nicaragua. He’d always loved it. I’d never been. We both wanted to keep surfing and we both wanted to actually learn Spanish, not just get by on it. Nicaragua checked every box and it was close enough from Mexico that the flights, while annoying, were manageable.
So we booked a month in a tiny surf town called Playa Gigante, enrolled in a Spanish school called Pie de Gigante, found an Airbnb with a shared pool and good WiFi, and committed to it. April in Nicaragua. Let’s go.
Getting There
You fly into Managua and then it’s about two hours to Gigante — longer than you’d think because the roads get rougher as you get further from the city. I’d recommend booking a car service for the arrival leg, especially if you’re coming off a long travel day. We paid $100 for a driver who not only got us there but stopped at a grocery store in Rivas on the way so we could stock up. The town has two tiny markets and that’s it — no pharmacy, no big grocery run available without a trip to Rivas — so stocking up on arrival is genuinely useful advice. Proteins especially. Chicken, eggs, whatever you cook with. Grab it before you get there. I will caveat the bus is an option but do your research, there’s no direct bus so you will need to know where to get off and transfer and be ready to use whatever Spanish you know..
One thing nobody mentioned to us: we were arriving the Thursday before Easter. In Nicaragua — and really all of Central America — Semana Santa, Easter week, is bigger than Christmas. Beaches are where everyone goes. This quiet little surf town of maybe a few hundred people was suddenly packed. Parking lots full, every accommodation sold out, energy completely different from what we’d signed up for. It lasted about four days and then it was like a switch flipped. The parking lots emptied overnight. The town went back to being exactly what we’d come for — quiet, unhurried, a little removed from the world.
If you’re traveling in late March or early April around easter in Central American, just know what you’re walking into. It’s not a bad thing. It’s actually a great cultural experience. Just don’t expect peace and quiet that first week.
The Spanish School
Pie de Gigante sits right by Playa Amarillo. You can hear the ocean from your chair. The teachers are all local and the classes are conducted almost entirely in Spanish — not because they don’t speak English, but because that’s the method, and it’s the right one.
What that meant in practice: if I didn’t know a word, I couldn’t just ask what it meant in English. I had to use the Spanish I did have to get there. So if a teacher said mochilla and I had no idea what that was, I’d say ¿qué significa? and she’d explain it using simpler Spanish words I already knew until I connected the dots. It sounds harder. It’s actually faster. In Mexico I’d been crutching on English for years and it was keeping me stuck. Here that crutch was gone and my Spanish moved more in three weeks than it had in three winters in Sayulita.
We did four hours a day, five days a week, for three weeks — two weeks straight, then a week off, then a final week. Private lessons, one teacher, fully personalized to where you actually are. By the end of week two my brain was genuinely fried. The week off was not optional. Take it.
Classes started at 8am and finished at noon. Cost was under $200 for the week for privates — I won’t quote exact numbers because pricing changes, but it was remarkably cheap for what you were getting. The school also offers homestay housing with local families if you want full immersion. We stayed in an Airbnb, but looking back the homestay would have pushed my Spanish even further. Worth considering if that’s your goal.
Surfing Playa Amarillo
This is the main break in Gigante and it’s a beach break — which if you’re coming from a gentle point break or reef break like Sayulita, will feel like a completely different sport for the first few days.
I was scared my first session. I’ll just say that. I’d been surfing in Mexico where the waves are long and forgiving and you have time to think. Playa Amarillo is punchier. The takeoff window is faster. On big swell days it closes out and you just have to commit or get eaten. I paddled out, got rattled, paddled back in, and went to find the local instructor who rented boards from the hostel on the beach.
Best $30 I spent in Nicaragua. One lesson, one hour, and he gave me everything: where to sit in the lineup, how to read the break, when the tide was right, what to look for before you paddle. The key thing he told me was that on a beach break you just have to commit — no slow cobra push-up, quick pop and go. Once that clicked the wave made sense. I was out on my own the next morning.
I’d say this to anyone regardless of level: take a lesson from a local instructor in any new surf spot, especially in another country. You’re not paying for beginner instruction. You’re paying for local knowledge — tides, timing, where the wave actually works — and you’re putting money directly into someone’s livelihood. It’s one of the better travel investments you can make.
Board rentals are limited — maybe ten to twelve boards at the main hostel, a few more at another spot in town. If you have a preferred size, rent it for the week. Don’t day-rent and risk finding nothing left when the swell picks up.
The other breaks nearby — Playa Colorado and Panga Drops — require either a long walk through a jungle trail or a boat. Colorado is world-class and completely private, accessible only by hiking through from Amarillo or staying at one of the accommodations on that side. Panga Drops is more mellow and longboard-friendly when it’s working. If surfing variety matters to you, look into the surf camp at the main hostel — they run boat trips to the other breaks as part of their weekly package and it’s genuinely worth it if you’re a surfer who wants more than one wave.
The Rhythm of the Days
When you’re doing four hours of Spanish in the morning and surfing in the afternoon your body just gives up fighting it and falls into the rhythm. Wake up, surf if the tide was right at 5am (and in April in Nicaragua, it’s light by 5am — fully, blindingly light — so you go), get to class by 8, finish by noon, eat something, surf again, cook dinner, sleep. That’s it. That’s the whole day and it was somehow both exhausting and exactly what I needed.
We were in a spot in our lives — me and my boyfriend both — where the next chapter wasn’t fully written yet. His path and mine weren’t pointing the same direction and neither of us was pushing the other toward their choice. That kind of uncertainty is easier to sit with when you’re tired from surfing and your brain is full of verb conjugations. Nicaragua didn’t resolve anything. But it gave me enough quiet and enough routine that I could actually think.
Around week three I started opening my laptop in the afternoons while he did the same. That’s actually when this blog started — sitting in our little Airbnb in Gigante, writing the first articles, figuring out what I wanted to say and who I was saying it to. And somewhere in that same week the idea of New Jersey clicked into place. Seasonal bartending, close to my family, a known quantity. Once it landed it felt obvious in the way that only the right ideas feel obvious. I booked housing before I left Nicaragua and flew home in May with a plan for the first time in months.
Day Trips: Rivas
About twice during our month we took the local bus into Rivas, the nearest city, about an hour and a half away. The bus leaves from in front of the Blue Sol Restaurant at 7:30am, Monday through Saturday, costs about $2, and is one of those converted school bus situations where by the time you hit Rivas it’s completely packed and someone near you has a container of rice they’re bringing to the market.
The bus drops you at the central market which is loud and colorful and overwhelming in the best way. From there it’s walkable to the big grocery stores — La Colonia and Maxi Pali — where you can stock up on everything the town markets don’t have. We’d do the grocery run, hit a gym called Muntogi Fitness (a surprisingly well-equipped spot, friendly owner, worth the few dollars for a day pass), grab lunch somewhere off the main road, and catch the return bus at 1:30pm from the central market.
The 1:30 return is the only direct bus back. Don’t miss it. Confirm with the driver when you board in the morning. It gets crowded and you may stand for part of the ride home loaded down with groceries but that’s the experience and it’s worth it.
Where to Eat
The town is small — maybe five or six options total — so if you’re staying a month you’re cooking most of your meals. Make sure your accommodation has a kitchen. The spots worth knowing:
Junto Beach Bar is right on the sand, good fresh seafood, great sunsets. El Pozo has decent pizza and bar food for when you want something easy. Giant’s Foot — the main surf hostel — runs Monday Burger Night every week, and the whole town shows up. Chicken burgers, specialty burgers, fries, very reasonable, a genuine community moment. Don’t skip it.
For groceries in town, Cool Place Market inside Dale’s Cool Spot Hostel and the market next door cover the basics. Verdulería Maga near the main Gigante sign has the best produce selection.
A Note on Ometepe
After our three weeks of school we spent a few days on Ometepe, the volcanic island in Lake Nicaragua near Rivas, before I flew home from Granada. It deserves its own article — the scooter day around the island, the hostel with the mango trees and fresh coffee, the Mexican restaurant owner with the backstory that stopped us mid-meal. I’ll write it separately. But if you’re already in Nicaragua, add it to the end of your trip. It’s worth the ferry.
The Bottom Line
Gigante is for a specific kind of traveler — someone who wants to slow down, learn something, and be a little uncomfortable in the good way. It’s not a party town. It’s not a destination with a lot of options. The surf break is one, the restaurants are few, the WiFi is unreliable some days, and the bus to the nearest city runs twice.
But if you want a month of Spanish school with teachers who are genuinely great, locals who are super kind, surf break near by, and the kind of quiet that actually lets you think — it’s one of the better months I’ve spent anywhere.
I left with better Spanish, a healed fear of beach breaks, the beginning of this blog, and a plan for what came next. Not bad for $200 a week Spanish lessons, $30 surf lessons and a $2 bus rides.