{"id":1011,"date":"2013-06-21T21:32:54","date_gmt":"2013-06-21T21:32:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bringitusa.com\/live\/?p=1011"},"modified":"2018-06-27T14:33:14","modified_gmt":"2018-06-27T14:33:14","slug":"pitaya-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bringitusa.com\/live\/pitaya-festival\/","title":{"rendered":"Pitaya Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Debbie Nova photo credit \/\/ Justin Courter<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Drive 6.6km south of San Juan del Sur and then through a jungle of howler monkeys over multiple dried river crossings and you eventually arrive at a 3km-long\u00a0gorgeous sandy white beach producing enough variety of right and left breaks to satisfy the soul of any surfer. Mostly restricted until about two years ago, Playa\u00a0Hermosa has opened its gates for locals and tourists of all ages and is a perfectly positioned beachfront rock n\u2019 roll paradise. This was the backdrop for the 5th\u00a0annual Pitaya Festival.<\/span><\/p>\n

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photo credit \/\/ Justin Courter<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

During the full moon next March, the community of El Carizal will transform into Nicaragua\u2019s premier music and sustainability festival with a renewed level of\u00a0commitment to community development, recycling initiatives, and art, in addition to local and international musical talent. The next Pitaya Fest is set for March\u00a015, 2014.<\/span><\/p>\n

Last year\u2019s festival featured a guest appearance from the Costa Rican sensation Debi Nova, a Grammy artist with the #1 dance hit single \u2018Drummer Boy\u2019.\u00a0Pantalones Calientos came all the way from Mexico to funktify the festival with a Jazz sound never before heard in the region. Nicaragua\u2019s beloved Milly Majuc\u00a0got the crowd jumping to their unique ska beats and rock grooves. And as the full moon rose, El Tercer Ojo and Claro presented the festival headliner, Run Dun\u00a0Crew (Bluefields Sound System) bringing their good vibes, passionate lyrics and Afro Caribbean reggae beats to the Pacific. Costa Rica\u2019s Ojo de Buey followed\u00a0and took us through midnight with their afro-\u00accaribbean-latin rock\u2019n\u2019roll grooves and good luck charms. 9mm DJs (feat. DJ Johnny G) shut the festival down in\u00a0the early morning hours.<\/span><\/p>\n

The best part about it all is that the Pitaya Festival is a party that you can truly feel good about. Every beer you buy and all proceeds from the festival go toward\u00a0the\u00a0Casa Llanta Fund. The Casa Llanta Fund helped fund the construction of the local pre-school and community kitchen in El Carizal and initiated the successful\u00a0women\u2019s co-op locally known as Condimentos del Carizal. It hosts weekly English Classes and this year provided scholarships for 7 students in the community\u00a0to go to high school and university for a full calendar year in 2012, a program to be continued in 2013-2014 with funds from anticipated festival proceeds. The\u00a0Fund also covers school bus transportation costs and teacher salary of the San Juan del Sur chapter of Los Pipitos, the center for children and adults with\u00a0disabilities. The Casa Llanta Fund has a strategic partnership with Comunidad Connect who plays an integral part in most of the education and recycling\u00a0initiatives.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Pitaya Festival is made possible each year through the support of volunteers and sponsors. \u00a0Frozen pitaya drinks are made available during the festival\u00a0season thanks to donations from\u00a0PitayaPlus.<\/span><\/p>\n

Stay tuned for more announcements on next year\u2019s performing artists as the date approaches. For more detailed information on the performing artists, concert\u00a0schedule, shuttles and volunteering, please visit the Pitaya Fest Facebook page.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Drive 6.6km south of San Juan del Sur and then through a jungle of howler monkeys over multiple dried river crossings and you eventually arrive at a 3km-long\u00a0gorgeous sandy white beach producing enough variety of right and left breaks to satisfy the soul of any surfer. Mostly restricted until about two years ago, Playa\u00a0Hermosa has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":1012,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[54],"class_list":{"0":"post-1011","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-giving-back","8":"tag-casa-llanta-fund","9":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bringitusa.com\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bringitusa.com\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bringitusa.com\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bringitusa.com\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bringitusa.com\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bringitusa.com\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1011\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bringitusa.com\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bringitusa.com\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bringitusa.com\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bringitusa.com\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}