Seems like another era looking back at this past month and a bit of traveling. We were on the go go go and crossed through 4 countries, gathering a fair amount of stories. We last left off somewhere in El Salvador where we were skirting the mountain sides and ended up in the German influenced town of Berlin where we were welcomed in by the sweetest cafe owner, David of Cafe 303, and we’re given refuge in an unused business locale in the nick of time before a torrential downpour. The next day we travelled a short distance to the neighboring town of Alegria where we detoured to see the Lagoon resting inside of the volcanic crater.
The road up to the lagoon was a steep cobble stone adventure and soon we found ourselves asking for a ride up. After jumping on the back of pickup truck and descending in the crater we found a little spot to chill and enjoy the rest of the day. We swam in the sulfuric waters of the lagoon and also found some nice squishy clay to cover our faces in and make a clay mask. Wandering about, we found the source of the thermal waters and made little nests for ourselves in the bubbling sand. As we lay there in our diy spa we were approached by two Salvadoreño dudes who had just gotten there on motorcycles. We got to chatting. One of them had lived many years in Chicago and spoke fluent English. He told us he made his own adventure blog and he interviewed us for his YouTube channel.
Here is the video. Skip to minute 5:32 for our interview :)
It started raining on us so we went to seek shelter. The first spot we took shelter was shoddily put together and as the downpour turned torrential we huddled together in the only semi dry spot as water began to flow everywhere. We then relocated during a brief respite from the storm under a corrugated metal roof next to a soccer field. As we began to setup our tent the storm picked up again and quickly the winds took us over and soaked it through. We finagled a way to keep it up and using our clothes we were able to mop up and wring out the flood inside. The winds had gotten the best of our tent poles, however, and had snapped one of them in half. Luckily, we repaired it easily and drifted off to sleep, warm and dry. The next morning, we returned to the hot spring for a quick spa in the morning before heading back out on the road. After a long day of riding in the rain we arrived in the town of San Miguel where we realized the firestation no longer hosted cyclists. We went to a police station where they let us rest for the night inside one of their offices and take refuge from the rain. The woman in command was a very knowledgeable and interesting person and talked freely about ongoing political issues in El Salvador. She also told us she had gotten a scholarship and was going to Russia to study her masters. We rode the next day to the Honduran border and swiftly crossed into this new country. After feeling slightly under the weather most of the day we didn’t ride too far past the crossing and just asked at a house if we could sleep on their porch where the family was chilling. They let us sleep on one of their hammocks and the next day we took a hitch ride to the next big town where we stayed at a big fire station. We spent the day there catching up on laundry and hiding from the heat. Later in the night we met a French traveler who was backpacking and was also staying with the bomberos. We camped together in a back part of the station. Our time in Honduras was pretty brief but we enjoyed the flour tortillas and the friendliness of the people. We stayed another night at a firestation, 30 miles from the border, and then made our way towards the Nicaraguan border. We first went through customs on the Honduran side and then proceeded to the Nicaraguan customs side which was under heavy construction. After a bit of a misunderstanding (apparently they needed an online request in order to enter the country), they processed our visa and asked for $24 to pay the entry fee. This 24$ ended up being a huge fiasco. You see, we had zero cash on us. We asked if there was an ATM nearby or if we could pay with card but there was a solid negative on both ends. The nearest ATM was in the town where we had started our journey that day!! (Sad Trombone playing). We scrambled a bit trying to figure out what we could do - part of the scrambling included trying to sell a disposable camera and one of our t-shirts to a Nicaraguan dude. Big surprise: he didn’t want any of our dirty, travel-worn gear. Still in a limbo, the sun began to set and we were forced to cross the bridge back to the Honduran side. We returned to the customs office in Honduras, rolled out our sleeping pads, and set up on the sidewalk outside. Amidst the whir of passing 18-wheelers and ambient chatter, we cooked a quick pot of instant ramen while simultaneously being swarmed by mangey, tick-infested street dogs. We had been told there would be some tourist buses arriving later in the night and that we might be able to ask for help to get across the border, so we asked the customs agent at the window if he knew about that. He confirmed that there were a few buses arriving and that we could also sleep inside the hallway of the customs offices. So we went inside and set up behind an unused desk. From there we awaited the arrival of these mythical buses. We decided to make a spectacle of our situation and performed our little acro-music routine after the first bus arrived with a group of Australian travelers. They ate it up and were all taking photos and videos of our performance. We made out with $8 on that first round.
We felt the prickling sensation of hope. around 2am, the second bus arrived. We received currencies from Guatemala , Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and the USA. We did the conversions and counted up the change and it added up to $26. Whooohooo! Satiated and secure, we retreated to our nest behind the desk and went to sleep dreaming of crossing into our next country. We woke up in the morning, brimming with joy, and bought some coffee from a lady outside with the extra 2 bucks we had. Smiling at our ingenuity, we strolled back to the Nicaraguan side where we had already processed our entry and were just waiting to pay. The smiles didn’t last too long. There was a big bus load of people when we arrived so we assumed that after we handed over our passports the wait was due to the large influx of people. After the crowd died down however, we were still waiting so we went up to inquire what was taking so long. We were met with a bit of rudeness when the customs officer made remarks about the condition of Annina’s passport. In fact, he called it ugly. We said we had already crossed many international borders with no issue and this was the first place giving us trouble about it. He explained that we needed to wait to have a consultation with The Boss. So we waited again but after what seemed like an unnecessarily long time we inquired about the wait yet again with another agent. They asked us. “what did The Boss say?” We were like, “what?!”. We didn’t know we had talked to The Boss and we especially didn’t know why The Boss was referring to himself in the third person. We turned around to look at the so-called “boss”, he made a gesture and then told the other agent to let us into the country. HA! He was just making us wait for nothing. We paid our entry fee and finally rolled into Nicaragua! Fifteen hour border crossing yeah!!!
We rode across the landscape noticing the big volcanic ranges that were alongside us. We found refuge with the firefighters in the town of Chinandega and witnessed torrential downpours and full blown flooding rivers in the streets. Despite Nina having a cold, we decided to hike up the nearby San Cristobal Volcano the tallest in Nicaragua. It was one of the most treacherous hikes either of us had encountered. The trail was eroded and occasionally would drop off into deep pits. Once we got to the volcanic gravel near the top, every step we took going up felt like taking two steps back. The views were spectacular as the clouds swirled around us and the landscape stretched out in all directions. We were only 20 minutes from reaching the crater when the rains started hard. We had to quickly turn around and start sliding down the volcano to get back to the trail. Soaked and cold, we made our descent trying to avoid big potholes on the trail. Nina actually fell down a hole that was bigger than her.
Finally, we ended up back at the trailhead where the caretaker invited us onto his porch for some hot coffee from his backyard. We chatted for a bit, trying to warm ourselves, and we were joined by his wife and their pet parrot. We made our way down the dirt road and ran into a guy walking up. We got to talking and ended up mentioning our desperate search for a horse jaw. Surprisingly, he said he knew where to find one at the local boneyard. He mentioned, if we came back in two days, he could probably have it for us. So we made a date to comeback in a few days and see what he could find. We left the firestation the next day since we had been chilling there for about 4 days. But then one thing lead to the next and we ended up just biking to the outskirts of the city. As night fell, we rode to the nearest house and asked if we could camp there. In a stroke of synchronicity, we were welcomed in as if the woman, Denia, knew we were already coming. As it turns out, she was a couch surfing host waiting for two other travelers to arrive! Denia gave us a spot to camp after we talked about how funny this strange coincidence was. Later we were joined by a Costa Rican and Argentinian couple who had also been traveling through Central America. The next day we took it chill but also Ernesto biked up to the bone seeker’s house to see if the guy had come up with any good horse jaws. Also we forgot the guys name so we’ll just call him bone-dude. Upon arriving to the village, Ernesto ran into Margarita, the bone-dude’s wife, who mentioned that bone-dude was at their house awaiting Ernesto’s arrival. After getting to the house, bone-dude showed Ernesto the jaw bones he had found. Unfortunately they were both broken but one looked like it could be possibly patched up with some creativity. After leaving Denia’s, we went through the towns of Leon and Masaya, staying with firefighters along the way and avoiding the imminent downpours that seemed to follow us. We also stopped by the roadside to check out a National seed bank and got a tour of their laboratory and how they test for germination rates for different native plants and trees. We stayed in the capital of Managua for a few days with a great host, now friend, Marcos who shared his knowledge of the current political climate in Nicaragua and gave gave us our introduction to the holy food of Güirilas. We made our way south and stayed with firefighters on our last two nights before crossing into Costa Rica. Right before crossing the border we had an encounter with another cycle traveler from Brazil. Although we only talked briefly he did give us good advice about a nice sleeping spot after crossing the border. We scoped out the local firestation but no one was around and we soon learned that in Costa Rica the fire stations no longer host cyclists because of “internal policies”. We made dinner in the local park before heading over to a fancy abandoned lookout/restaurant where the guards allowed us to sleep for the night. In the morning we soaked up the scenery and met fellow travelers who had come to check out the views. We met a refugee from Haiti, a guy from Texas, and a homie from Mexico. We made our way to the town of Liberia where we a sweet Costa Rican family welcomed us into their yard. We met 4 generations of their family on their porch while we snacked on the sandwiches they gifted us.
After making a brief pit stop for the rain, we ran into yet another traveling cyclist duo Tio Jercho from Mexico and Jose Dreamcatcher from Spain. We really clicked right away with these homies and decided to camp altogether in the next town of Cañas. We shared food, exchanged stories, talked to random people who stumbled by and who also asked all the same questions. The next day we had plans to go onwards and our colleagues stayed back to try and sell some of their artisan crafts. We said our farewells and ventured onwards.
Not shortly after the biking had commenced the shoulder went away and we were biking on a two lane highway with heavy traffic. Many times we felt the buses and semi trucks were getting too close for comfort and so we stopped at the next gas station and waited about with our thumbs out. We got a ride to a junction point towards Punta Arenas and found a nice camping spot on the beach near a marina. The next day we rode up to where the highway turns into a toll road and got a ride all the way into the city of San José! We got there a few days ahead of time to prepare ourselves for the family/friend reunion of Annina’s mom, as well as her friends Morgan, Rachel, and Christian. We hopped around different couchsurfing spots and then left our bikes at one of them to go pick up da girls at the airport. We welcomed them into Costa Rica with a homemade sign and excited yodeling. We spent the next nine days riding around in a van and doing a big loop of the north western half. We started off with a day in San José and then left for the misty mountains of Rio Celeste. On the way we stopped at a free hot spring river spot that was bubbling with warmth and people. We stayed at a jungle house we affectionately called “Jesus Camp”. Christian was certain that the house was haunted by evangelicals. Ghosts or not, the house was our jumping off point for seeing and swimming in the turquoise waters of the river. We also got to do a video shoot with Christian in a clown mask which was pretty great. We also did a misty hike through the jungle where allegedly two people in our flock spotted a sloth crossing the trail. We also saw the point at which the two rivers meet to make the Rio Celeste: the mineral deposits of one interacting with the other causes the water to change color. It was some seriously sacred shit. On the way to our next spot we stopped by a labyrinth made by a local Costa Rica man. It was actually pretty difficult to figure out as we spun around in circles for more than an hour, sweating in the midday sun. It was a great way for us to learn to work together during an uncomfortable situation. From there we made our way to the volcanic river near Rincon de la Vieja where we chilled in rivers a plenty and also went to a incredible hot spring/mud bath spot. We had a lot of fun using paintbrushes to lather on volcanic mud and then make weird animal noises while we waited for it to dry.
We ended our grand tour with the homies with a splash on the Pacific Ocean at Jaco Beach. It was Da Gurls in Paradise: lazy dazing and beach glazing. Our last day was spent next to a butterfly garden in a cozy cabin just outside of San José. It was a nice way to wrap up the time we spent together. Thanks to Christian, Rachel, and Morgan for making your way down south to see ya girl. It was such a special n’ precious experience. Many thanks to Deane, Nina’s momma for re-supplying us with goods, for treating us to a little vacay within our trip, and for carrying a bunch of our stuff back. We love our adventures with you.
We made our way back to where we had stashed our bicycles. The next morning was spent packing and repacking and getting ready to hit the road. We travelled to the other side of San José and stayed at a low key couchsurfing spot. We took a day to bike around and visit the incredible insect museum at the university of Costa Rica. It was underneath the school of music so while the sounds of practicing marimbas drifted, we learned about the future of cockroach medicine and their role in being able to digest and decompose styrofoam. We left thoroughly inspired on insects and other Arthropods. Back on the road again we headed toward the eastern coast. Accidentally, we ended up off-road next to a river and camped with a family that lives in a chayote growing community.
After sharing breakfast and conversations we left for the town of Turrialba where we stayed on campus with a guy from Mexico who was studying tropical water and forest management. On the uphill heading East we ran into a crazy Irish cyclist who had biked across the US THEN took a break off the bike to hike the PCT from Mexico to Canada THEN went back on the bike from the US to Costa Rica. He was a wild guy, you could see it in his eyes. We shared stories and talked about his experiences hiking then he rode off into the fading sun. We’re now about to hit the Atlantic coast once again but that’s a story for next month. How’ve the times been treating y’all? Any changes you’ve noticed recently? Anything you’ve been working on we’d love to hear about it.
Here’s the video recap for the months:
Salty sweet swirling song,
Annina & Ernesto
