As we crossed the border from Honduras to Nicaragua we were hit with the mouthwatering smells of roasting coffee beans - a delicious scent present all throughout the mountain range we rode through those first few days. While riding in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras it was mostly the harvesting season when the coffee beans were picked, the fruits were peeled and the beans were left out to dry all over the roadsides and rooftops before being roasted - the smell of the piles of rotting fruit peels was not so appetizing. The change in coffee season was a nice welcome into this pleasant country that would become one of our favorites so far.
We biked through rolling hills of coffee plantations, through the moutains to a small town where we were greeted with friendly faces and had a wonderful lunch - fried plantains, boiled yucca, beans and rice with delicious fried yucca balls dipped in liquid sugar for desert! Camping was beautiful in the mountains of Miraflor National Park with lots of plants - flowers, big trees, grass pastures. It was nice to get on the bikes again for more serious riding after our long breaks in Honduras. There were a few days going through tough climbs that we hadn't experienced since Guatemala, but the pay-off was the 45 km/30 mile descent going at speeds up to 68 kph (~40mph)!
We managed to get farther than we were expecting that day and made it to an interesting thermal bath outside of Managua to soak our tired muscles. As we got there late, we asked and were allowed to camp there for the night. This way we had plenty of time to relax our bodies in a sweating hut built right on top of a very hot-steaming thermal spring. Loads of Nicaraguans, mostly overweight, seemed to come here every day as part of their dietery program, exercising in the hot steams and massaging each other with essential oils and honey - it was very nice to experience this tradition with all the locals, being the only foreigners there (even though in non-traditional surrounding, as the baths were rather modern).
We had a very early leave in the morning to get to the city of Masaya, 20 km east of the capital Managua (which we skipped as we didnt hear much positive about it from tourists and locals). Masaya is famous for it's big artesania market, located in an old fortress that looked like an old castle. It wasn't the nicest city, but an interesting one, as we walked and biked around town. We spent 2 days there in a nice hostel with a nice courtyard garden and were able to take a few hours to ride out (without our luggage!) to active volcano Masaya 6km outside of town. It has a road built up to its rim, offering beautiful views all around and - most impressive - a look deep into its steep crater, with sulfurous smoke billowing out of it constantly, stinging our eyes and hurting our throats whenever the wind blew our way. There was a museum in the park as well, offering some of the best natural history displays we have seen in Central America so far, including plate tectonics, volcanology, botany and zoology, 3D-models of the area, as well as helpful and friendly rangers showing us around!
Nicaragua has the biggest lake in all of Central America, Lago Nicaragua, 58km in length and 177km long (35 x 110 miles). We planned to ride to Granada, a colonial town on the edge of the lake, and take a ferry from there to Ometepe island. The island, formed by twin volcanoes raising over a thousand meters out of the lake, was part an old Mayan prophecy of two volcanoes that will be found within a freshwater ocean. And indeed, crossing the lake by ferry you could easily feel being in the middle of the open sea, as the far shore is mostly not visible. As we arrived in Granada there was unfortunately no ferry until 3 days later: we had been misinformed by the Masaya tourist office and our guide book! So we rode around a little to see the colonial town center, and then raced about 60 km and hitchhiked 35 km more to get to a town that definetely had a ferry leaving that day. We made it and were on the island by early afternoon, camping on a lonesome beach.
The island was great - we spent almost a week there, the first few days on one side, and the last 2 on another. In the middle of the huge lake, and 18km (12 miles) away from mainland by the shortest route, we felt like we were on an island in the ocean - except we swam in freshwater! We got in some nice relaxing time of doing nothing but reading, swimming, cooking, and chatting with some other travellers and natives we befriended. Swen went for a hike up the lower of the two volcanos, Volcan Madera, with organic coffee fincas, beautiful cloudforests, lots of monkeys, great views and a crater lake on top on the way, while Kat preferred relaxing a little more. Especially nice - and rather good timing - was meeting up the last 2 days with Kat's friend and former colleague Maura, who was in Nicaragua on her vacation - Kat got updated on all that has been going on with mutual friends and the midwifery world!
We decided to skip through Costa Rica and get to Panama City by bus to meet up with Swen's friend Alex from university who is living and working there, so the day we left the island we made it to the border, crossed, and took a bus all the way to San Jose, capital of Costa Rica. We spent the evening wandering around a bit - and surprisingly met a cyclist we met two weeks before in northern Nicaragua. Late the next morning we took our connecting bus to Panama City and the rainforest research community of Gamboa where Alex lives - our adventures there will be described in the next blog entry!
We biked through rolling hills of coffee plantations, through the moutains to a small town where we were greeted with friendly faces and had a wonderful lunch - fried plantains, boiled yucca, beans and rice with delicious fried yucca balls dipped in liquid sugar for desert! Camping was beautiful in the mountains of Miraflor National Park with lots of plants - flowers, big trees, grass pastures. It was nice to get on the bikes again for more serious riding after our long breaks in Honduras. There were a few days going through tough climbs that we hadn't experienced since Guatemala, but the pay-off was the 45 km/30 mile descent going at speeds up to 68 kph (~40mph)!We managed to get farther than we were expecting that day and made it to an interesting thermal bath outside of Managua to soak our tired muscles. As we got there late, we asked and were allowed to camp there for the night. This way we had plenty of time to relax our bodies in a sweating hut built right on top of a very hot-steaming thermal spring. Loads of Nicaraguans, mostly overweight, seemed to come here every day as part of their dietery program, exercising in the hot steams and massaging each other with essential oils and honey - it was very nice to experience this tradition with all the locals, being the only foreigners there (even though in non-traditional surrounding, as the baths were rather modern).
We had a very early leave in the morning to get to the city of Masaya, 20 km east of the capital Managua (which we skipped as we didnt hear much positive about it from tourists and locals). Masaya is famous for it's big artesania market, located in an old fortress that looked like an old castle. It wasn't the nicest city, but an interesting one, as we walked and biked around town. We spent 2 days there in a nice hostel with a nice courtyard garden and were able to take a few hours to ride out (without our luggage!) to active volcano Masaya 6km outside of town. It has a road built up to its rim, offering beautiful views all around and - most impressive - a look deep into its steep crater, with sulfurous smoke billowing out of it constantly, stinging our eyes and hurting our throats whenever the wind blew our way. There was a museum in the park as well, offering some of the best natural history displays we have seen in Central America so far, including plate tectonics, volcanology, botany and zoology, 3D-models of the area, as well as helpful and friendly rangers showing us around!
Nicaragua has the biggest lake in all of Central America, Lago Nicaragua, 58km in length and 177km long (35 x 110 miles). We planned to ride to Granada, a colonial town on the edge of the lake, and take a ferry from there to Ometepe island. The island, formed by twin volcanoes raising over a thousand meters out of the lake, was part an old Mayan prophecy of two volcanoes that will be found within a freshwater ocean. And indeed, crossing the lake by ferry you could easily feel being in the middle of the open sea, as the far shore is mostly not visible. As we arrived in Granada there was unfortunately no ferry until 3 days later: we had been misinformed by the Masaya tourist office and our guide book! So we rode around a little to see the colonial town center, and then raced about 60 km and hitchhiked 35 km more to get to a town that definetely had a ferry leaving that day. We made it and were on the island by early afternoon, camping on a lonesome beach.The island was great - we spent almost a week there, the first few days on one side, and the last 2 on another. In the middle of the huge lake, and 18km (12 miles) away from mainland by the shortest route, we felt like we were on an island in the ocean - except we swam in freshwater! We got in some nice relaxing time of doing nothing but reading, swimming, cooking, and chatting with some other travellers and natives we befriended. Swen went for a hike up the lower of the two volcanos, Volcan Madera, with organic coffee fincas, beautiful cloudforests, lots of monkeys, great views and a crater lake on top on the way, while Kat preferred relaxing a little more. Especially nice - and rather good timing - was meeting up the last 2 days with Kat's friend and former colleague Maura, who was in Nicaragua on her vacation - Kat got updated on all that has been going on with mutual friends and the midwifery world! We decided to skip through Costa Rica and get to Panama City by bus to meet up with Swen's friend Alex from university who is living and working there, so the day we left the island we made it to the border, crossed, and took a bus all the way to San Jose, capital of Costa Rica. We spent the evening wandering around a bit - and surprisingly met a cyclist we met two weeks before in northern Nicaragua. Late the next morning we took our connecting bus to Panama City and the rainforest research community of Gamboa where Alex lives - our adventures there will be described in the next blog entry!
1 comment:
Dear Swen and Kat,
Thankyou for your beautiful dispatches and photos. You have warmed my little work office in cool, autumnal Sydney, and allowed me to dream up all the beautiful places and experiences you are travelling through. So, cheers!
Best wishes and, if Alex is the same lovely fella I travelled with briefly in New Zealand, please send him my regards.
Ben
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