Riding South...: Nicaragua

It's Easter Sunday. I've been in Costa Rica for several days staying at a little B&B on the southern side of Lago de Arenal. It's been really nice to relax and enjoy the cooler weather and to hide from the Holiday crowds that are at the beach. I'll head there tomorrow.

April 12^th Danli to Leon: The border crossing went fine, Honduras was fast and efficient. There were “assistants” that actually made the process really easy. I gave the guy a $5 tip and he seemed really happy about it. Total win. Getting into Nicaragua was fine but not nearly as fast or efficient but what was really interesting about it was they had a DJ spinning tunes at disco volumes. It was really strange because, while I liked the music and it was very festive and upbeat… it made it really hard to communicate with the officials especially with my non-existent Spanish. Anyway, it all got done and after I had an ice cream from the ice cream lady. The roads in Nicaragua are in far better condition than in Honduras and I had a nice windy bit of asphalt for a while. As I dropped elevation the temperature crept up and by the time I reached Leon in the heat of the afternoon it was nearly 100deg F. for a while I drove through a long wide flat valley with lots of agriculture and saw some interesting things: I saw several farm wagons being pulled by teams of Oxen, a couple communities where the primary mode of personal transport was horseback, 4 adventure motos headed northwest towards Honduras, a couple on tandem bicycle that were obviously overland travelers; the bicycle was really interesting because the front rider was recumbent and the rear rider was in a traditional riding position and the bike was very heavily loaded with panniers, Three big Volcanoes two with plumes rising from the top. Because the roads were in good shape I made really good time at maximum KLR cruising speed… 70MPH.

Sunday April 13^th, Leon: Today I laid low… I got up late had a light breakfast and then walked around Leon for a couple hours while it was less hot. The markets were busy and there were lots of folks in the churches for mass. I grabbed a pizza for lunch and then went back to the hotel for a siesta. The rest of the afternoon and evening I spent on the computer prepping for the next few days: things to do, sights to see, places to stay, setting up routes on the GPS. Then just before bed we had a little earth tremor. Nicaragua is has many volcanos along the western part of the country, many of them are active. As the Geologists love to say “Subduction leads to Orogeny!” Nicaragua rocked my world.

Monday April 14^th, I made an attempt to drive the KLR to one of the nearby Volcanos, Cerro Negro. It is one of the active cones near Leon. There are tours that go there frequently so I thought I would drive out and see it up close. I never got there. I had set up a route for my GPS, no problem, I knew the road was dirt but it was a very short distance less than 20 kilometers to the park entrance. What I didn't know was that the road was Very sandy. After 2 low speed tip-overs with the bike (front tire washed out) and the exertion of picking up the KLR and the climbing temps, I decided to return to the hotel. One of my “mantras”: discretion is the better part of valor. Riding in sand on a moto requires technique, one that I never mastered. I know the principle is to keep your speed up so you remain on top of the sand but on this narrow one lane road with blind corners and barbed wire fence on both sides the consequences of making a mistake at speed would be bad. It turns out the sand was from an eruption from Cerro Negro in 1992. One of the employees of the hotel explained that Leon had been buried in ½ a meter of sand. The evidence was still there on the road to Cerro Negro.

Tuesday April 15^th, Ometepe and San Juan del Sur. I wanted to visit Conception, the huge volcano on Isla de Ometepe in the center of Lago de Nicaragua. There is a ferry that can take vehicles to the island and there are a bunch of little hotels and B&Bs on the island. It was the wrong time of the year to go there though. The cooler temps were gone and we were in the hottest part of the year before the rainy season began. I also learned that if you wanted to climb Conception you needed a guide and more than 10 hours to do it. It just didn't sound very appealing to me after my sandy work-out the day before. Still I drove to the little town of San Jorge were the port for the ferry was and took some photos. There is a nice public beach and there were a lot of families just having a nice day at the beach on Lake Nicaragua. This was another moment where I just looked and felt ridiculous, with my loaded KLR and wearing all of my motorcycle gear; I wasn't exactly in beach attire. After getting off the bike and walking around to take some photos (and getting lots of strange looks from the locals) I hopped back on the KLR and headed to the pacific coast, only about 40 minutes away. I spent the night in San Juan del Sur. I paid a little too much for my hotel, but it had A/C, had some mediocre pizza with a great view of the setting sun and then got almost no sleep because the night club next door was Kicking Out the Jams until the small hours…