August 12
Ernie and I officially started on the PanAmerican Highway this morning. Woop! (Yes, we have not yet ridden on PanAm Hwy 1). I must give Honduras (back?) some props as the drive from Choluteca to the border of Nicaragua is stunning. Jungle on the mountain top ledge, a very cool and stiff breeze, lots of horses, and plethora of beautiful colored houses.
We were early to bed and early to rise today. In part because we were so exhausted from the hella day we had yesterday, but also in part because it was Saturday, and we heard that maybe perhaps the border crossings close their banks at noon (and thus unable to pay for vehicle stuff after noon), which meant that we should get to the Honduras border by 9am if we wanted to give ourselves the usual three hour border cross time. We arrived at 9:30 and had little problems with the first of our four tasks (i.e., passport stuff for leaving a country). But when it came time for “vehicle stuff leaving a country” the customs officials had an emergency in some other town and had to leave. I am very curious about what sort of customs border emergency would be more important than events at the actual border (see definition of “customs border”), but whatever. They told us to wait a while and they will come back. In the meantime, one of he helper-scammers I shut down decided to make a scene of me... I had a whole song and dance. (Someting like) "Don't step on my toes, lets dance but don't step on me I'm white woman". He and I made nice by the time I left but he had clearly practiced that song and dance before. After an hour of waiting and being laughed at the guy who originally looked at our papers an hour and a half ago takes our vehicle stuff into a room, and comes back in a few minutes with everything done and good to go. Okey dokey then and off to Nicaragua. We had to do passport stuff first and (of course) there were men with badges around their necks wanting to help. We did our usual “no gracias”, but it turns out there was one man with a badge we actually needed… opps. And really Nicaragua? You let the scammer hombres wear the same thing as the official Inspector hombres? You are a country in the middle; no matter which direction tourists are driving they are just now getting trained in the differences between real and fake aduana! Luckily we were very nice to him - lots of “No gracias, no necesitamos ayuda” with lots of smiles, but ultimately we still turned our backs to him pretty bluntly at the passport migration window. Anyway, turns out it was he who needed to do the inspection on our motos, and we had never had an inspection of anything other than the VIN before. He made us take all the hard cases off the bike and open them, and he very intentionally took everything out and made a bit of a mess on the street while giving us looks of power and disdain. He could have been way worse about it for sure, but clearly he didn’t know what good packers we have become ha ha! Regardless… he made his point.
Three and a half hours later (and with seemingly no noon closures on either side of the border) we were on our way through Nic Hwy 1. We aren’t sure why, but both Ernie and I were expecting Nicaragua to be… mediocre. We rode ~50 km to Esteli, and the ride was lovely. Great roads, clean/no garbage, colorful, lots of shout outs and smiles and waves from passers by. One of the crops of Western Nicaragua is grapes. Sold by young people in the shade off the side of the road - huge bunches of grapes hanging from their swinging arms. Muy bueno. We hope the rest of Nicaragua is like this!
We found a hotel in Esteli that is right in between the Pan American and Central Ave of Esteli, so perfect location for getting back on the Hwy tomorrow as well as for walking around town, catching up on our incessant-honked-at by taxis and local shoe prices and styles. And stores that sell nothing but plastic. There is new food for us to try here in Nicaragua (and there probably was in Honduras too, but we only ate food out of bags in Honduras… opps). We stopped at a street vendor and there were ~12 items in a case that, once ordered, would be put back on the flames to reheat. We picked two kebabs and three ??? One was shaped like a tennis ball and basically potato, one was triangle shaped and filled with chicken and rice, and one was basically taquito. Crazy cheap! The tennis ball potato thing, which could easily be a lunch (or two for Ernesto), was 15C (30C = 1US$). And of course, a new country with its own specific, mild, and low ABU cerveza. Nicaragua is home to Tona (with a tilde). It is not as good as Tecate of Mexico, but better than the Pilsener of El Salvador or El Gallo of Guatemala. We need to look harder for “Predator” as we still have not seen it sold in stores.
Ernie has a very good working hypothesis about how the weather and our sweat have physically and chemically changed the composition of quick dry material. I’m not sure it is possible to get the stink out of my green shirt. Ever.
We are definitely ready for some more wildlife. Mexico really spoiled us with insects, birds, and reptiles. The epiphytes are fun (the telephone wires are full of them), and the geckos are still everywhere and fun to watch (even migration shacks).
Ernesto says “Nicaragua is beautiful and so far we have had a very good experience with the country and its people.”
August 13
Nicaragua, we heart you. You and your people are so beautiful, awesome, and lovely. We are ashamed we had little to no expectations of you. I hope white people don’t come ruin this. Nicaragua has the most land AND the fewest people out of any of the Central American countries, and I have no doubt the vibe of this country is directly linked with that fact.
Today we drove from Esteli to Managua. Hotel don Vito was very nice and very Christian. We got daily proverbs on our bed and permanent daily proverbs on the wall of our room. Got out of Esteli no problem (even had some free coffee and eggs with our morning proverb at the hotel) and very much enjoyed our ride. So much pride in almost everyone's home, regardless of how poor or wealthy the property seemed to be. Very few piles of garbage, and almost all highway-side animals (cows, goats, horses, etc.) had a human who cared for them in the shade nearby. Lots of men on horses and families of three or more on motos. We even rode through a parade! Which, in NE Nicaragua means about a half dozen pick up trucks covered silly with balloons and lots of people following behind in their bicycles. Woop! The crops of today were tobacco and some sort of grass-grain, and the entirety of it smelt pleasant and felt great. In and in between each town we experienced more waves, smiles, and shout outs than perhaps collectively on the past six weeks. They were so excited for us! We aren’t sure if it was just because we were tourists or because we were on motos, but regardless I will freely admit it was fun to get all the encouragement. Heck, we even got shout outs from the Nicaraguan police! They are about every 20 km and everything we have read and heard from other gringos at border crossings has informed us that the Nicaraguan police will be “the worst”. Well, not only have we been waved through at every crossing so far, but at one stop, after seeing Ernie’s tag that said Oregon (we ride about 5 km/h at the police stop things) the one guy gave us pumping arm waves and smiles. I consider that a feather in our caps.
OH. And ask and we shall receive. Today we got three flamingos. Ernie saw them first and was like “those look like pink ones over there”. Flamingos!
We enjoyed a gas and snack break in Tipitapa, and while sitting in the shade we got another visit and shout out from some policemen (dos plumas, gracias). Just after we got back on our bikes and were getting ready to head out a motorcycle club pulled in; eight or ten, all Asian but had the look and sound of Harley’s/American motos. We had a nice and funny visit - I’m going to take some credit for the flow and momentum of the conversation after we were talking about roads and I straight up said (in spanish) that “the roads of Guatemala were shit”. They busted out in laughter and after that spoke English.
Managua is the capital of Nicaragua and one of the largest cities we have navigated thus far. But 1) we are getting better at this and 2) we did our homework and studied the map and took good notes. So we rocked it. We made all the right decisions and gut instinct turns to get us in town, through town, and out of town. Absolutely nothing was labeled, which was surprising as everything up until this city has been labeled in Nicaragua (not a joke - true dat). It probably also helped that our shout outs not only continued but increased exponentially. From bus drivers to moto drivers to taxi passengers, we got some great waves and peace signs and fist bumps. My favorite was a bus driver who honked at Ernie several times, but Ernie was concentrating on the road and the stop light. Then the bus driver and I made eye contact and the bus driver wanted me to get Ernie’s attention so he could tell him he liked him and his bike… and all at a stop light in the capital of Nicaragua! Too surreal and too great.
With smiles on our faces we arrived to hotel around 1 (yes! Lots of time to take a cab into town and explore!). No one home… the man at the gate called. We waited. Waited… We waited for the ripe avocado to fall from the tree in the alley but it didn’t. Ernie played some guitar… By 2 pm or so the family arrives and seemingly opens the hotel. By 3:30 we were in a taxi headed for the malecon, but in that half hour we have mixed reviews of what happened. The family is very religious and clearly wanted to talk to us about religion and had high respect for others who wanted to talk about religion (they said repeatedly that many of the guests here are missionaries, and FYI, I’d like to talk to the church who sends missionaries to a $50 USD per night bed and breakfast in Nicaragua/the cheapest country in Central America.). They have two sons (Old son liberal/conservative/philosopher/artist and Young son attending Wharton) who are dual citizens of Nic and USA, and they are not shy or lacking in confidence.
I duck away to pee.
Old son, “What are you going to do with your future?”
Ernesto, “You mean tomorrow?”
Old son, “No, your future”
Ernesto, “You mean when we get back from our trip?”
Old son, “No, like your Future” (I.e., future with a capital F - a.k.a. “life after death” or “let's talk about Jesus”)
Tara enters the room and Ernesto ducks out.
Bullet dodged.
The rain started and given the delay in checking in I think they felt bad for us, so the young son and the father drove us (in their own car) to the taxi area where we hopped a cab to the malecon (i.e., boardwalk/downtown area) of Managua. After we hopped in he went no more than a half kilometer and picked up some more - a man, his wife, and their six month (?) old. She sat in back with E and I and he sat up front with the baby. He must have turned back to look at us proudly holding up his baby girl a half a dozen times. Was very endearing. Hispanic men take a lot of pride in their offspring. I was glad Ernie and I smiled at the baby because I think that was what prompted the wife (in back with us) to point out that my door was open… And with the way these cabbies drive, if a door was open the passenger squeezed in could easily tumble out.
We get dropped off at this area that seems almost like an amusement park… there are tents selling traditional food, bright colors, maybe some bouncy castles… We ask the cab driver (basically) - is there food and beer here? Si si. Sigue. We buy two tickets (about .30 cents USD each, probably not enough to cover the pieces of paper the tickets are printed on and the price to pay the people that are cleaning them up). The malecon is three or four blocks of loud restaurants and bars. Ok! Let’s be the only gringos and the only ones in rain coats and pretend they aren’t laughing at our Keene’s! We had as nice of a dinner as could be expected… E didn’t get what he ordered so we traded plates (and mine was smaller than his). As we were headed back out to catch a cab Ernesto says “I’m still hungry”. Ha! So we head to another restaurant and have dinner take two. We paid a made up gringo tax there that was equally funny and infuriating… the receipt has a tear off portion on the bottom and only the top is official (i.e., the eaters have to pay what is at the bottom of the whole sheet). So basically the business adds the automatic 10% tip and then the waiter can add whatever he likes to the table and the patrons have to pay. So our bill, the business mandated tip was .98 cents (USD) and the waiter mandated tip was .58 cents. No problemo. We mostly wondered where and to whom does that money go to? Does the extra go to the waiter himself?
Still drizzling but satiated we walk down the actual malecon. The artistic tree things that we thought were just metal and plastic have lit up. (See google map pics). Fantastic! Well done Managua. We heart Nicaragua even more.
Caught a cab ride home, and as we should have expected, about three minutes in we were sharing it with some other people. This time it was a nice lady, her chicken (alive and for sale), her bucket of limes (also for sale), and her husband. Mr. Suave, who sat in the front, talked the whole time and we were nodding as if we understood everything he said. We got most of it: his limes and chickens are sold all over for great prices, and we should totally visit Granada/Lake Nicaragua.
We were almost back to our hotel and given our Christian accommodations for the night, we figured we dare not sneak out and go back to the mini-mart for a few more cold beers. We decided we best ask the cabbie to stop at the mini mart and wait for us, and bribe him with the drink of of his choice. He chose a 1L bottle of coke.
Also, Ernie and I both bashed our heads pretty hard getting into the cab. We are giant and tall US Americans.
Ernesto says, “My favorite thing about today was riding in the taxi with the chicken that was going to be made into soup and the three gallon bucket full of limes and the woman holding them both.”
“And the bear at the pier… it looks like it waiting for friends that will never come.”
“And as far as this hotel, at least there aren’t crucifixes everywhere.”
Ernie and I officially started on the PanAmerican Highway this morning. Woop! (Yes, we have not yet ridden on PanAm Hwy 1). I must give Honduras (back?) some props as the drive from Choluteca to the border of Nicaragua is stunning. Jungle on the mountain top ledge, a very cool and stiff breeze, lots of horses, and plethora of beautiful colored houses.
We were early to bed and early to rise today. In part because we were so exhausted from the hella day we had yesterday, but also in part because it was Saturday, and we heard that maybe perhaps the border crossings close their banks at noon (and thus unable to pay for vehicle stuff after noon), which meant that we should get to the Honduras border by 9am if we wanted to give ourselves the usual three hour border cross time. We arrived at 9:30 and had little problems with the first of our four tasks (i.e., passport stuff for leaving a country). But when it came time for “vehicle stuff leaving a country” the customs officials had an emergency in some other town and had to leave. I am very curious about what sort of customs border emergency would be more important than events at the actual border (see definition of “customs border”), but whatever. They told us to wait a while and they will come back. In the meantime, one of he helper-scammers I shut down decided to make a scene of me... I had a whole song and dance. (Someting like) "Don't step on my toes, lets dance but don't step on me I'm white woman". He and I made nice by the time I left but he had clearly practiced that song and dance before. After an hour of waiting and being laughed at the guy who originally looked at our papers an hour and a half ago takes our vehicle stuff into a room, and comes back in a few minutes with everything done and good to go. Okey dokey then and off to Nicaragua. We had to do passport stuff first and (of course) there were men with badges around their necks wanting to help. We did our usual “no gracias”, but it turns out there was one man with a badge we actually needed… opps. And really Nicaragua? You let the scammer hombres wear the same thing as the official Inspector hombres? You are a country in the middle; no matter which direction tourists are driving they are just now getting trained in the differences between real and fake aduana! Luckily we were very nice to him - lots of “No gracias, no necesitamos ayuda” with lots of smiles, but ultimately we still turned our backs to him pretty bluntly at the passport migration window. Anyway, turns out it was he who needed to do the inspection on our motos, and we had never had an inspection of anything other than the VIN before. He made us take all the hard cases off the bike and open them, and he very intentionally took everything out and made a bit of a mess on the street while giving us looks of power and disdain. He could have been way worse about it for sure, but clearly he didn’t know what good packers we have become ha ha! Regardless… he made his point.
Three and a half hours later (and with seemingly no noon closures on either side of the border) we were on our way through Nic Hwy 1. We aren’t sure why, but both Ernie and I were expecting Nicaragua to be… mediocre. We rode ~50 km to Esteli, and the ride was lovely. Great roads, clean/no garbage, colorful, lots of shout outs and smiles and waves from passers by. One of the crops of Western Nicaragua is grapes. Sold by young people in the shade off the side of the road - huge bunches of grapes hanging from their swinging arms. Muy bueno. We hope the rest of Nicaragua is like this!
We found a hotel in Esteli that is right in between the Pan American and Central Ave of Esteli, so perfect location for getting back on the Hwy tomorrow as well as for walking around town, catching up on our incessant-honked-at by taxis and local shoe prices and styles. And stores that sell nothing but plastic. There is new food for us to try here in Nicaragua (and there probably was in Honduras too, but we only ate food out of bags in Honduras… opps). We stopped at a street vendor and there were ~12 items in a case that, once ordered, would be put back on the flames to reheat. We picked two kebabs and three ??? One was shaped like a tennis ball and basically potato, one was triangle shaped and filled with chicken and rice, and one was basically taquito. Crazy cheap! The tennis ball potato thing, which could easily be a lunch (or two for Ernesto), was 15C (30C = 1US$). And of course, a new country with its own specific, mild, and low ABU cerveza. Nicaragua is home to Tona (with a tilde). It is not as good as Tecate of Mexico, but better than the Pilsener of El Salvador or El Gallo of Guatemala. We need to look harder for “Predator” as we still have not seen it sold in stores.
Ernie has a very good working hypothesis about how the weather and our sweat have physically and chemically changed the composition of quick dry material. I’m not sure it is possible to get the stink out of my green shirt. Ever.
We are definitely ready for some more wildlife. Mexico really spoiled us with insects, birds, and reptiles. The epiphytes are fun (the telephone wires are full of them), and the geckos are still everywhere and fun to watch (even migration shacks).
Ernesto says “Nicaragua is beautiful and so far we have had a very good experience with the country and its people.”
August 13
Nicaragua, we heart you. You and your people are so beautiful, awesome, and lovely. We are ashamed we had little to no expectations of you. I hope white people don’t come ruin this. Nicaragua has the most land AND the fewest people out of any of the Central American countries, and I have no doubt the vibe of this country is directly linked with that fact.
Today we drove from Esteli to Managua. Hotel don Vito was very nice and very Christian. We got daily proverbs on our bed and permanent daily proverbs on the wall of our room. Got out of Esteli no problem (even had some free coffee and eggs with our morning proverb at the hotel) and very much enjoyed our ride. So much pride in almost everyone's home, regardless of how poor or wealthy the property seemed to be. Very few piles of garbage, and almost all highway-side animals (cows, goats, horses, etc.) had a human who cared for them in the shade nearby. Lots of men on horses and families of three or more on motos. We even rode through a parade! Which, in NE Nicaragua means about a half dozen pick up trucks covered silly with balloons and lots of people following behind in their bicycles. Woop! The crops of today were tobacco and some sort of grass-grain, and the entirety of it smelt pleasant and felt great. In and in between each town we experienced more waves, smiles, and shout outs than perhaps collectively on the past six weeks. They were so excited for us! We aren’t sure if it was just because we were tourists or because we were on motos, but regardless I will freely admit it was fun to get all the encouragement. Heck, we even got shout outs from the Nicaraguan police! They are about every 20 km and everything we have read and heard from other gringos at border crossings has informed us that the Nicaraguan police will be “the worst”. Well, not only have we been waved through at every crossing so far, but at one stop, after seeing Ernie’s tag that said Oregon (we ride about 5 km/h at the police stop things) the one guy gave us pumping arm waves and smiles. I consider that a feather in our caps.
OH. And ask and we shall receive. Today we got three flamingos. Ernie saw them first and was like “those look like pink ones over there”. Flamingos!
We enjoyed a gas and snack break in Tipitapa, and while sitting in the shade we got another visit and shout out from some policemen (dos plumas, gracias). Just after we got back on our bikes and were getting ready to head out a motorcycle club pulled in; eight or ten, all Asian but had the look and sound of Harley’s/American motos. We had a nice and funny visit - I’m going to take some credit for the flow and momentum of the conversation after we were talking about roads and I straight up said (in spanish) that “the roads of Guatemala were shit”. They busted out in laughter and after that spoke English.
Managua is the capital of Nicaragua and one of the largest cities we have navigated thus far. But 1) we are getting better at this and 2) we did our homework and studied the map and took good notes. So we rocked it. We made all the right decisions and gut instinct turns to get us in town, through town, and out of town. Absolutely nothing was labeled, which was surprising as everything up until this city has been labeled in Nicaragua (not a joke - true dat). It probably also helped that our shout outs not only continued but increased exponentially. From bus drivers to moto drivers to taxi passengers, we got some great waves and peace signs and fist bumps. My favorite was a bus driver who honked at Ernie several times, but Ernie was concentrating on the road and the stop light. Then the bus driver and I made eye contact and the bus driver wanted me to get Ernie’s attention so he could tell him he liked him and his bike… and all at a stop light in the capital of Nicaragua! Too surreal and too great.
With smiles on our faces we arrived to hotel around 1 (yes! Lots of time to take a cab into town and explore!). No one home… the man at the gate called. We waited. Waited… We waited for the ripe avocado to fall from the tree in the alley but it didn’t. Ernie played some guitar… By 2 pm or so the family arrives and seemingly opens the hotel. By 3:30 we were in a taxi headed for the malecon, but in that half hour we have mixed reviews of what happened. The family is very religious and clearly wanted to talk to us about religion and had high respect for others who wanted to talk about religion (they said repeatedly that many of the guests here are missionaries, and FYI, I’d like to talk to the church who sends missionaries to a $50 USD per night bed and breakfast in Nicaragua/the cheapest country in Central America.). They have two sons (Old son liberal/conservative/philosopher/artist and Young son attending Wharton) who are dual citizens of Nic and USA, and they are not shy or lacking in confidence.
I duck away to pee.
Old son, “What are you going to do with your future?”
Ernesto, “You mean tomorrow?”
Old son, “No, your future”
Ernesto, “You mean when we get back from our trip?”
Old son, “No, like your Future” (I.e., future with a capital F - a.k.a. “life after death” or “let's talk about Jesus”)
Tara enters the room and Ernesto ducks out.
Bullet dodged.
The rain started and given the delay in checking in I think they felt bad for us, so the young son and the father drove us (in their own car) to the taxi area where we hopped a cab to the malecon (i.e., boardwalk/downtown area) of Managua. After we hopped in he went no more than a half kilometer and picked up some more - a man, his wife, and their six month (?) old. She sat in back with E and I and he sat up front with the baby. He must have turned back to look at us proudly holding up his baby girl a half a dozen times. Was very endearing. Hispanic men take a lot of pride in their offspring. I was glad Ernie and I smiled at the baby because I think that was what prompted the wife (in back with us) to point out that my door was open… And with the way these cabbies drive, if a door was open the passenger squeezed in could easily tumble out.
We get dropped off at this area that seems almost like an amusement park… there are tents selling traditional food, bright colors, maybe some bouncy castles… We ask the cab driver (basically) - is there food and beer here? Si si. Sigue. We buy two tickets (about .30 cents USD each, probably not enough to cover the pieces of paper the tickets are printed on and the price to pay the people that are cleaning them up). The malecon is three or four blocks of loud restaurants and bars. Ok! Let’s be the only gringos and the only ones in rain coats and pretend they aren’t laughing at our Keene’s! We had as nice of a dinner as could be expected… E didn’t get what he ordered so we traded plates (and mine was smaller than his). As we were headed back out to catch a cab Ernesto says “I’m still hungry”. Ha! So we head to another restaurant and have dinner take two. We paid a made up gringo tax there that was equally funny and infuriating… the receipt has a tear off portion on the bottom and only the top is official (i.e., the eaters have to pay what is at the bottom of the whole sheet). So basically the business adds the automatic 10% tip and then the waiter can add whatever he likes to the table and the patrons have to pay. So our bill, the business mandated tip was .98 cents (USD) and the waiter mandated tip was .58 cents. No problemo. We mostly wondered where and to whom does that money go to? Does the extra go to the waiter himself?
Still drizzling but satiated we walk down the actual malecon. The artistic tree things that we thought were just metal and plastic have lit up. (See google map pics). Fantastic! Well done Managua. We heart Nicaragua even more.
Caught a cab ride home, and as we should have expected, about three minutes in we were sharing it with some other people. This time it was a nice lady, her chicken (alive and for sale), her bucket of limes (also for sale), and her husband. Mr. Suave, who sat in the front, talked the whole time and we were nodding as if we understood everything he said. We got most of it: his limes and chickens are sold all over for great prices, and we should totally visit Granada/Lake Nicaragua.
We were almost back to our hotel and given our Christian accommodations for the night, we figured we dare not sneak out and go back to the mini-mart for a few more cold beers. We decided we best ask the cabbie to stop at the mini mart and wait for us, and bribe him with the drink of of his choice. He chose a 1L bottle of coke.
Also, Ernie and I both bashed our heads pretty hard getting into the cab. We are giant and tall US Americans.
Ernesto says, “My favorite thing about today was riding in the taxi with the chicken that was going to be made into soup and the three gallon bucket full of limes and the woman holding them both.”
“And the bear at the pier… it looks like it waiting for friends that will never come.”
“And as far as this hotel, at least there aren’t crucifixes everywhere.”