09/07 I’m having the hardest time figuring out if I like Nicaragua or not. Things I don’t like: explosions at 4:30am every morning, incessant honking, car alarms, high hotel prices, constant staring, people are not as friendly and a little bit of corruption. Things I do like: amazing food, good roads, light traffic, not too many crazy stray dogs and the garbage situation on the roads isn’t that bad. I guess I’m leaning toward not liking it mostly because of the people situation. Prior to Nicaragua (and El Salvador) it was exceedingly rare that someone wouldn’t wave/nod back if I make the first move. That happens a lot here and now I don’t even bother. That’s not to say everyone thinks I’m here to steal their kids because a fair number of people still honk and wave even if I don’t.

Mentioning car alarms made me remember something. This might make me sound like a bit of a lunatic though. About a week ago this stupid truck in the hotel courtyard (right next to all the rooms) had a car alarm that was so sensitive that rain falling on it would make it chirp. This went on until I fell asleep but then the rain came back at 1:30am and the stupid alarm kept beeping. Finally I snapped and figured if the thing is going to chirp at least I could make it go off all the way so the retarded owner would have to come out and I could yell at him (in English which would have done nothing). So in the pouring rain I went out and tried for the life of me to get that stupid alarm to go off. I hit the windows, rocked the entire truck up and down by pushing on the bumper and tried to open the door handles. Nothing. This was also the only place I stayed where the owners didn’t live there so I couldn’t even get them. I gave up and went back to bed.

Rode like a madman and made it 66 miles today. I think that’s pretty good with 4600 feet of climbing too. The sun about to go down was the only thing that kept me from making the Leon to Granada run in one day. I think it’s pretty much all downhill tomorrow so it was doable. It poured for 2 straight hours starting at 11am this morning. I can’t remember ever having it rain that hard for that long. Traffic was almost non-existent on the old highway #3 which was good because visibility was horrible. The cool temperature was a nice treat. Riding on the PanAm uphill with no shoulder for 10 miles was a lot of fun. Just kidding. It was brutal.

Not sure where I’m staying but it’s the first hotel coming into El Crucero. It’s way overpriced I think. For US $20 there should at least be hot water. All the rooms sit right on top of the very busy PamAm highway so it’s not even in a good location that would justify the price. Most hotels also have the standard room prices on the back of the door so when they don’t, like this place, I always think I’m getting the special gringo markup. The food in the restaurant was delicious and 3 beers helped take the edge off. The Nicaraguan beer Toma is pretty decent.

[osm_map lat="12.821" long="-84.859" zoom="6" width="400" height="250" gpx_file="http://www.powercycle.net/maps/leg2/090710.gpx"]

09/02 Back in Honduras, but only for the night. It’s a short run to the border with Nicaragua along this stretch of CA-1–most riders only ever see this little section of the country since they tend to skip the northern section and ride the PanAm all the way down. Not me though (or Karin and Marten who ride all over the place like I do). I’m out of the mountain (elev: 434 feet–been a long time) which is kind of sad.

My worries about crossing from El Salvador were unfounded. The border agents spent quite a bit of time examining my passport but they didn’t say a word about the missing entry stamp. I handed over my $3 to the Honduran customs people and sped off.

Some police stopped me at a “checkpoint” not too far after crossing. There were 2 of them but only the younger one came over to talk to me. The other older, chunkier officer didn’t get up the whole time. At first he wanted to know where I was going so I told him. Then he asked to see my passport. He flipped it open and looked at it for 10 seconds before giving it back. For the next 5 minutes he basically just looked at my bike while letting all the cars/trucks go by without so much as a second glance. I knew something was up at this point and this was confirmed when he pointed at my bike and said, “mucho dinero” and then clearly checking out my gold necklace. He asked for my passport again and read off my name for me immediately followed by a request for a $10 exit fee. I looked at his name tag and read his name (Roberto, R) and then asked if I could have a receipt. I guess saying his name and asking for the receipt did the trick because he waved me off and went back to looking for more bribe money suspicious vehicles.

Rained all day and quite hard for a good bit of it. I was warned to stay away from one motel here (Hotel Bonsai) so I found a place called Hotel Kali that is amazing. All new furniture, clean bed, great wifi, AC and friendly owners. No hot shower. Only $14 and change. The place last night was bad. Spotted 3 cockroaches, one was so big I thought it was my bike moving across the floor. The AC was horrible and I ended up turning it off at 1am because it was so loud.

I’ve been reading all these weird books lately: An Inquiry into the Nature and Wealth of Nations, The Earth as Modified by Humans, Youth, The Invisible Man and The Science of Human Nature. I downloaded War and Peace but I can’t bring myself to stare at the screen for that long. Grabbed them for free using the Stanza app for my swell iTouch. I kind of wish I had a Kindle…

[osm_map lat="14.04" long="-88.023" zoom="7" width="400" height="250" gpx_file="http://www.powercycle.net/maps/leg2/090210.gpx"]

09/01 I did end up riding into town both to check out the museum and to find some new brake pads. Failed on both. I couldn’t find the museum but then again I suppose I didn’t try very hard. The rear brake pads I bought like 2 weeks ago wore down to the medal which has me wondering if I was ripped off. I’ve never had brake pads wear out that fast and it wasn’t that hilly. The front ones were OK so I popped them on the back. The first 12 miles was all downhill but nothing one set of brakes couldn’t handle. I had to walk my bike down the hill leaving Hotel Lenca this morning. No way was I riding down that steep, wet, cobblestone monster.

Depending on how nice the border guard is I might be back in Honduras tomorrow. I didn’t get stamped into El Salvador and even with CA-4 I think you have to get an entry stamp. Since no one was stationed at the crossing coming in I might have to either pay a fine or be stuck here forever. I have a note ready in Spanish professing my ignorance but hopefully I won’t need it.

Being in El Salvador for such a short time kind of stinks but this border agreement (CA-4) where you only have 90 days to spend in 4 countries sucks. Why on Earth would they want to drive out tourists so fast? Every day we’re here we spend money. I didn’t really get a taste of the culture or the people either. I came in at a place that probably has more reason to be anti-American than anywhere else in the country and I did notice that drivers didn’t wave/honk as much as in Honduras but 2 days is hardly a good time frame. Everyone waved back if I waved first so that was good.

Nothing exciting on the road today. It’s getting flatter (and hotter) so I can get more miles in. It’s also 5pm and the sun is still out–amazing. When I arrived in Santa Rosa I hit an ATM and went looking for a hotel. Oh, and why on Earth do stupid ATMs have to say “Insufficient funds available” when the actual machine is out of money? That scared the crap out of me. El Salvador also uses the US dollar as its currency so I have some green backs again. Speaking of money problems, I didn’t notice a $0.24 balance on my credit card so they hit me with a $30 fee when it was late. I emailed them and told them how sorry I was and they cleared the fee and the $0.24. Thanks IBM Credit Union.

Anyway, a kid asked if I was looking for a hotel so I followed him over to the one his mom manages. Decent enough place for $15. Even has AC. The same kid also walked me over to a bike shop to get 2 new sets of brake pads. I bought him and his mom 4 Cokes to say thanks.

A couple days ago something kind of cool happened that I forgot to mention. It was on the crazy road just before the border in Honduras. At the top of a hill a car stopped and the driver gave me a bunch of bananas. We talked for a bit (Spanish) and he took off. That was pretty nice.

[osm_map lat="14.04" long="-88.023" zoom="7" width="400" height="250" gpx_file="http://www.powercycle.net/maps/leg2/090110.gpx"]

Paid US $47 for another week here at Posada Don Carlos. No word on the rack other than what it says on the tracking page for USPS: Your item left the United States from ISC SAN FRANCISCO at 4:44 PM on July 11, 2010. If it happens to get here before the week is up I’ll leave and try to get the difference back on the hotel bill. I’m really anxious about getting back on the road. I think it’s because of how slow I’ve been moving for the past couple weeks and now that I’m healthy I want to take advantage of it.

Staying here hasn’t been so bad. My only complaint is that it gets a little loud sometimes with the kids playing and people talking on the couch that sits right outside my window. The windows are those kind with glass slats that don’t shut all the way so it’s like they’re sitting right there in the room with me. It helps with my Spanish so it’s not so bad I guess. The weather has been a mix of sprinkles all day or mostly cloudy with steady rain in the late afternoon/evenings. The cool weather is nice though. Been a couple nights now when I wish I owned a pair of pants.

Lot’s of good places to eat around town. I’ve been hitting up the street vendors a lot more since a good meal with a couple beers can be had for $5 vs. the $12-$15 for a restaurant meal and drinks. There a couple ice cream places that I’ve been frequenting quite a bit too.

I haven’t had much of a desire to hop on a boat and visit any of the villages that surround the lake since I’ve seen a good share of quaint Mayan villages and I don’t need to be buying anything. That might change if the weather looks like it might cooperate for the day. Lounging around watching movies on TV, catching up on Entourage and The Office and web surfing from the comfort of a warm bed is enough excitement for me when I get to take breaks like this.

Been doing a lot of reading about Guatemala and Russia (Stalin mostly–what a freaking monster and Time magazine even made him Man of the Year–twice). It’s funny how differently he was portrayed back in school (Canada) when we studied Russian history. This ended up starting a Wikipedia link bonanza where I’d being reading one article, see another interesting reference and open that up in other tab for later reading. Killed the entire day doing that yesterday.

Grabbed a bunch of free books using iBooks on my iTouch that I love so much (even though iOS 4 sucks–poor battery life, lame multi-tasking and app crashes, folders are awesome though). One of the books was a report prepared by the United States Army on the effects of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Talk about chilling. We sure do a good job of blowing the crap out each other.

Not sure if I’ll do this yet but I might end up just hitting Antigua for a volcano tour and then just riding into El Salvador and skipping the run up to the northeast to see the ruins at Copan. We’ll see what happens with the rack delivery and how it messes with my 90 day travel limit.

06/22 I’m just tearing through the countries now. Hola Guatemala! The pants exchange went fine this morning but my plans for an early departure were foiled. It was funny because I actually woke up on my own at 5:45am. Still had to hang around until the store opened at 9am.

The border crossing was a little messed up. The lady who took my departure fee seemed surprised that I didn’t have a stamp on my passport for my bike. She waved me through but I figured I’d better ask this time. At the customs counter in Guatemala they stamped me in for 90 days and said I didn’t need to get anything special for my bike. Works for me. I found a guy to exchange my Belize dollars for some Guatemalan Quetzals and was off.

The first couple miles after the border crossing are unpaved and I thought I’d be riding on gravel all day. I wouldn’t have cared because riding on gravel isn’t as hot as riding on blacktop; you just top out at 10 mph because it’s bumpy. The gravel eventually gave way to smooth pavement which turned out to be a good thing because it started getting a bit hilly. There were a couple more sections of gravel along the way but only for a mile or so. It’s been a long time since I climbed over 2100 feet in a day but I didn’t do too bad thanks to some well-placed little towns where I could get some cold water. My handy new umbrella also provided some shade at one impromptu stop where there were no trees.

The scenery is pretty nice looking. The land doesn’t seem to be nearly as developed (crops) as Belize. There are lots of cows and horses running around. The people I passed all waved and I had lots of honks and thumbs up from passing cars. The kids that saw me all yelled “gringo” which was cute. One kid yelled, “Give me a dollar!” in perfect English. The garbage situation isn’t bad at all. Couple bad places here and there but nothing like what I’ve seen. One thing they do differently here is they sell water in plastic bags the size of sandwich bags (1/2 liter maybe). My skills at opening the bag and dumping the water into my bottles without spilling any is going to need some work.

Staying at the El Muella for US $25 (AC/internet). It’s right on the shore of Lago Peten Itza. Tried some local beer called Gallo. I like it. Good sunset over the lake to end the evening.

GPX Track