Teresa got tired of waiting for her donkey, lost somewhere between Lisbon, Newark and San Jose, and decided to meet me and buy a new bicycle in Granada. With her choice limited to the national brands: Rally USA, Linx or Toby Trek the choice wasn’t difficult. Teresa opted for a silver Linx “Desierto Azul”, which costed 1100 cordobas. Chains sets and gears changed to Shimano, back pannier rack, some handle bar extensions and the price rose to 1800 cordobas a mere 70 euros. We baptized it Tona, in honour to the National Beer and to the unique cycling experience it enabled.
Our first stage was to reach Omepete (80 km from Granada with a boat crossing from San Jorge), an island in the middle of the Lake Nicaragua, that my travel guide described as an “ecological jewel”. It is the biggest island in a lake; it is in a shape of “8” and has two volcanoes on each side. The volcano Maderas to the south and Concepcion in the north rose 1610 metres above the water in what resembled an almost perfect cone.
We left the Pan-American using a secondary road that ended by the lake to reappear 25 kms further south. The beach was the road. We followed the banks of the lake above the hardened sand, with the waves crushing on the wheels.
A punctual arrival to San Jorge port and we were on board of the ferry to the island contemplating the volcano in the distance and trying to spot sharks on the lake.
The Lake Nicaragua is the 10th biggest sweet water lake in the world, 117 km length and 58 km of width.
Its waters are inhabited by sharks that were imprisoned when the pacific bay was separated from the ocean by the raise of the earth’s surface, forming the lake, the sharks adapted slowly to the changes in the waters from sweet to salty.
The island deserved more than the night we spent there, however there are only two weekly boats to San Carlos island the frontier port in the south east coast of the lake and losing this boat would meant 3 days of wait for the next one.
The boat stopped twice in the eastern part of the lake. The first stop was in Morritos port (the beginning of our pedalling incognito) and the other in port Miguel. This part of Nicaragua wasn’t on the travel guide which is always a good sign.
It was already dark when the boat left, it was packed with tourists, locals and merchandise such as fish, bananas and other things that the locals were transporting and that seemed to be enough to cater for a nuclear winter. Our donkeys were left to the end after the loaders in bare muscled sweaty chests had loaded what resembled to me half of the banana production of the island with branches and leaves included.
The boat sled the dark waters to the rhythm of life in these part of the world, it moored swiftly in Puerto Morritos into the night. The night felt thick and heavy and only a few locals, us and our donkeys landed, to the incredulous looks of the tourists wondering what we were up to, after all Puerto Morritos wasn’t in the Lonely Planet guide why stop in that small village lost in the middle of the darkness of this unexplored (by tourism) part of Nicaragua? That was just what we planned to do.
When we queried the locals in Omepete about this part of the lake we got little or no information. Most of them never have been there, however it was only 5 hours away by boat.
- “the road is bad” – said one local, “very bad” – said another one, “it can be flooded at this time of the year”, why didn’t we take the boat like all the rest of the tourists?
I was worried with Teresa and her Tona. We’ve been travelling together only for two days and I didn’t know her enough, besides her bicycle was starting to present us with the first problems. I was wrong!
No other travel companion on this journey showed so much determination and adaptability for travelling in two wheels.
To our surprise the village was “full” of life at that time of night. The frenetic sound of frogs rose above challenging the music coming from a local bar with only 4 people seated around a table full of bottles of Tona. We were approached by two policemen that enquired about the reasons of our presence there then they registered in a loose piece of paper, using the light of my head torch, the details of our passports, we never found out why.
We stayed overnight in the “hospedaje” Jimenez. A smooth introduction to the lodging that awaited us – a small room where we stuck the donkeys that looked kind of clean, shared with the resident population of insects and cockroaches. The “Indian bath” was at the end of the corridor without light, in the centre of a dark compartment, a bucket with a small plastic recipient floating in the water – our head shower. We paid 3 euros for the facilities.
The sunrise revealed a humid day full of sun dispersing the morning fog and the inhospitable atmosphere of the previous night. We had breakfast with cereals that Teresa brought from Portugal (also sold here!) followed by a second breakfast – as it became the habit – eggs with Gallo Pinto (rice with beans) fresh cheese and coffee.
We tried to fix, with no success, Tona’s breaks in one of its morning moods. A boy with pliers in his hands was the solution. It reminded me of my journey in India on “board” of a Royal Enfield motorbike and its constant mechanical problems, and how any Indian with a hammer in their hand branded themselves as “mechanics”.
We were on the road again.
The first 15 km from Morrito weren’t very different from what I was already used in Nicaragua – but what were loose stone roads, became big loose stone roads near water lines, cutting the landscape without an effort to contour the hills, some had ascents of 15%, 20%.
After several stops to attend Tona’s moods: unscrewable screws, lost breaks, gears that don’t work we reached the main road that connects to all this vast eastern region of the country. Two loose stone roads and the other to South to San Carlos. The road was larger however it was also more degraded, after all the “bad road” and the “very bad road” actually existed.
Nicaragua is a very poor country, but in these areas poverty has different eyes it is in harmony with the land. Wooden huts with roofs made of hay populate the road sides; its residents share their space with cows, chickens, pigs and cats. There are also the fewer domestic animals such as parrots, monkeys or iguanas and the stray, starving and diseased dogs, unlucky for being born in these parts of the planet.
From the intimacy of a home we could see the curious, at times, incredulous looks. A “hola” in tone of a question. A break. A foot on the floor. A look with a smile. An exchange of ideas and some small talk. This is after all the great advantage of travelling by bike: to stop, to feel, to smell, to talk at any time. The feeling of “reflexion” is immediate!
In the afternoon we prepared ourselves for an uncertain night. We filled the bottles with water from someone’s well and bought some vegetables with the smell of earth in a “tienda” by the road. We arrived to El Tuli the sun had set on an uncertain dark horizon heavy with clouds. The tropical rains came late that day allowing us to cycle all day.
We didn’t need to camp. The owners of a little shop had built, in an organised way, 3 spare bedrooms in their backyard, sharing with all their animals. They had done it not thinking about the tourists’ but in all the Nicaraguans that visit the village on its festive dates. The house wasn’t very different from the ones we’ve seen through out the day, the main difference was that it was built in cement – solid.
Underneath a mango tree there was our bathroom, or rather a plastic bucket and a loo located across the garden and the pig sty, the bathroom was made up of a hole on the ground and a wooden platform. There were pieces of newspaper stuck on the wall by a rusty nail. It is a bathroom like so many around this area only different in very small detail: there was not one, but two holes on the wooden platform, one next to each other as if the owners thought that their guests would fancy going to the loo in pairs? Or perhaps to accommodate their guests and their extended family at the same time?
San Carlos is a warm and swampy port in the southeast coast of Lake Nicaragua next to San Juan River. From here boats depart to the Caribbean Coast trough San Juan river and also trough Los Chiles, in Costa Rica. There’s not much to see or do in San Carlos, but after 2 days in bumpy Nicaragua roads the city felt full of life and I even dare to say – modern.
An hour boat trip by Rio Frio and we were in Costa Rica. The bike computer had showed that afternoon a 20.000 km mark. This was the first time I entered south into a more wealthy country…
The differences were visible: tarmac roads in very good condition (if only a bit too narrow and without verges), supermarkets with imported goods, hotels without daily cuts of electricity and water, coffee shops with espresso machines! And green, lot’s of green! So much green that one feels intoxicated. Welcome to the world capital of Eco-Tourism.
Eco-tourists (mainly Americans) love Costa Rica. Probably it is one of the safest countries in the whole Central America. The armed forces were abolished after the civil war of 1948 and the country has been avoiding the dictatorships and the rebel groups that has affected life in the neighbour countries. The “Ticos” were quick to understand the benefits of preserving their natural wealth, at the moment 27% of the surface of their country is protected area. This guarantees that a citizen from New York or Lisbon will see a monkey or a toucan in their natural habitat, and often without having to leave the balcony of their resort.
The problem is that for us vagabonds in two wheels Costa Rica is expensive! Much more expensive that its neighbour countries, according to my index in the Pan-American a coca-cola in “Tico” territory is three times more expensive than in “Nica” territory.
The first night spent in Costa Rica was in Los Chiles, and in the following day we started our cycling towards San Jose. In a few days my cousin Pedro Pedrosa was arriving in the capital. The plan was to head the 3 of us towards Panama, where I would have to make the hardest decision of this journey: Darien or not? But about this later.
On the way to San Jose, Teresa would put herself and her problematic donkey to the test, showed her determination in being successful doing the cruel “trepadas” of Costa Rica. I can’t imagine a more suitable name for those high hills with uninterrupted ascents of 12% and 15% and 20%. One of the hardest so far. Half the way through we stopped in the dream like lagoon of Hule. An oasis full of peace on a country full of mass tourism. One more day of “trepada”, then a deserved break and then downhill to San Jose.
I had left Nicaragua few days ago but I was already looking forward to return. Nicaragua is one of those countries hat leaves one wishing for more.
As another cycle-tourist that I met in the Pan-American described: "cumplicidade ininteligível que arde em saudade". Ruben Dario certainly wouldn't disagree
Nuno Brilhante Pedrosa
In Chitrè, Panamá.
1 comment:
I found your blog yesterday. I think I was searching for nicaragua. We've been once, and may go again in January. After I read this post, I went back to the beginning. I'm up to Oct 2006 and will continue to read old and any new ones that come in. Best wishes for a continued safe trip and a successful completion to your trip. Thank you for posting this. Gerry
Post a Comment