Honduras to Nicaragua

This posting covers the second half of December.
I also created some maps to show the actual route. I'll include the route from the previous post.

Mexico Leg

Belize to Honduras Leg

Honduras Leg

Nicaragua Leg

So with a fresh hangover in the system (and a really early ferry crossing), we said goodbye to our friends and left the dive centre. Picked up the bikes in La Ceiba and continued south through Honduras.

Here's some Canadians that didn't make it in the hostel business.

The maps don't really tell you the state of the roads, and we saw a nice twisty smaller road that looked like a shortcut. It ended up to be the most beautiful road so far in the trip. It was also the most tiring as we did 140kms in no less than 4 hours on dirt, mud, and generally shitty terrain. But the KLRs are like tanks!

Caroline gets ready for some ass wiggling on mud, there's no thread left in the centre, it's like riding on ice.

Magnificent vista! You could see very far.

This was a very tiring ride, and we got into Tegucigalpa (the capital) late at night. This is a particularly ugly place, and although our guide book says the city is safe due to the amount of police on the streets, it didn't feel safe at all.

Here we parked the bikes on a very narrow street in the morning...

And had lunch right above the bikes, I had to keep an eye on them, people where pressing buttons and leaning against them, as if they were theirs :-)

Yeah right! says Caroline, no even close to a true french boulangerie!

A little plaza with a little old church (much nicer than the main church, on the main plaza). You can also make out in the background the houses on the hills, the whole city spreads on the nearby hills, looks very cool.

Christmas Eve is upon us, and we have to keep on going, there's no way we want to spend it in this dump. Went shopping for some decorations and Caroline beautified her bike.

In the same Holiday spirit, just before the Nicaraguan border, we found this poor skinny soul, and Caroline provided love and a can of sausages. Merry Christmas, dog!

What we thought was the entry moment photo, turned out to be another hour of back and forth paperwork. Every time we tried to cross the banner, some random dude with a beat-up badge would come and ask for form xyz123 and send us back in line...

The beginning of the road into Nicaragua is absolutely brilliant. Perfectly paved roads that twist with a perfect radius, through mountain forests. It was like this for a good two hours until it got dark, then the road turned into the worst nightmare...it looked like the central avenue in Beirut, I thought the bikes were going to disintegrate. Old ashfalt with huge sharp craters, the damping on the suspension did not keep up!
Before that we even got pulled over y 2 cops for a bogus passing on solid yellow ticket. But we stood our ground, and eventually they got bored and let us go.

We got into Leon late at night again, but this time, it was party time!, the whole central plaza was filled with people enjoying the Christmas evening.

Cute little hostal (for locals)
The hostel owner let us park the bikes inside but I had to pry the garage door open cause it had not been in use for a very long time.

Some interesting murals that reflect the turmoil Nicaragua experienced when the CIA got its tail into their affairs. Needless to say, we always made sure we said we're Canadians!

One of the biggest churches I've seen in this trip. Although the outside was not pristine it didn't look bad/falling apaprt, it actually gave it character.

Santa Claus pays a visit to Caroline's parents. Is he holding her mom on his lap??

We liked the place enough that we decided to stay a few more days. Found another hostal (for the backpacker crowd) and we met the guys from the Utila island, completely by chance!! I knew then that more hangovers were on their way.

The ViaVia Hostal is a very cool place, I loved it there, and they let us drive the bikes inside. We splurged on a beautiful $15 private room.

Christmas Day dinner with everybody in the hostel.

A huge tarantula gets this cat very interested, and he started to play with it a bit like the way they play with mice.

Then the guardian stepped on it......yaaack!

I definitively see some resemblance. No he wasn't dead, but is was super gross.

relaaaaaax.....

Caro with "Sombre" and very lovable cat

My turn to do the scratching

A few days later we left Leon (again with a hangover), and started going towards Granada.
This is the great view over the Laguna de Apuyo. The Atlantic at the horizon.

is a great little place as well, with houses simple but cared for. I had a much better feeling about Nicaragua than Mexico, where people just didn't seem to care about the aspect of their houses. We met some people from ViaVia (Leon) and we went dancing that night.

This guy (guatemalan) was crazy, he had a lot of happiness stored in him, and needed to share it with others..!

The "main" restaurant strip, catering to tourists really, it was expensive even for us. Again, neat looking houses, with bright happy colors..

but take a walk a little further and the piles of trash are evident everywhere...They just don't care

Some of those hotels are definitely overpriced, but as long as people will pay....

The next day we went to the volcano Masaya. It's not active but it spits out sulfurous gases, and the crater is pretty big.

Then we went to the second, green crater, it it was epic!

As we were walking away from the first crater, it suddenly released a big cloud of gas, it was awesome and a little scary.

Here's a video of it


Then we hiked the entire circumference of the second crater, and it was breathtaking

Next day we left Granada and continued driving south. We stopped at the ferry for Ometepe island which is in the middle of lake Nicaragua. Great view of the volcanoes on the island, but we're out of time, so we continued south to San Juan Del Sur, which is a seaside destination, close to the Costa Rica border.

We met this american couple who were driving a Russian Ural, all the way from the states! They had a dog and a friend in the attach.

San Juan was getting ready for New Year's Eve, so hotel prices were going up quickly. Found a room for $20, yeah!

The beaches are great, especially the ones you have to drive half an hour through bad terrain, the payback is great!

The tides left a huge beach behind

I'm trying my hands (or my feet) at surfing

I suck at it. Swallowed a liter of salt water, and called it a day.

We stayed in the dorm room with two El Salvadorians (how do you spell that?) Had lots of fun with them, he was an engineering student, and a surfer. He must be the only one.

After recovering from a mild stomach flu, we headed to the New Year's Party, which was an all-you-can-drink beach party, with huge speakers and LCD screens...
Here I get a personalized tequila shot from this Nica hottie :-)

Lobster party....

We had a group of about 8 peoople and some locals joined in as well.

Rob doing something funny for the rest of us.

Yeeehaaaa, man we danced!

Starting to lose touch with reality

It's midnight and we're using beer as champaign

Some people stayed until 6 when they served breakfast, but we left and we crawled back to the hostel. I actually fell asleep on the way home for a little while on the beach . I wasn't the only one.