Those of you who’ve been reading along all these years will understand our trepidation about returning to Nicaragua or even whether we would be allowed back in. I am delighted to report that our visit to that multivariate country went much better this time around.

We had to get PCR tests with negative results before entering, which proved a bit complicado and added a couple days in a difficult region of Honduras. Finally climbing the long hill toward Frontera las Manos, the highway was lined on both sides by parked semi-trucks for at least 5 kms. It was not an ideal place to get several flats as one of my tires shredded but we patched and plugged it through.

I was feeling about as tattered as my tire but we were determined to connect these last 500 kms, if we could. Central America had been a challenge which cost me the past 3 years: financially, physically, psychologically, dignity, and humanity. It had broken me down such that all I wanted was this one thing from it, to reconnect my imaginary line. I kept checking my ego and expectations with Neon, there was cause for hesitation and caution. We hadn’t found much online about lodging options along our proposed route. We also weren’t sure about traveling the eastern side of Lake Nicaragua since all the tourists go to Ometepe on the west.

We did know to avoid the big cities and their outskirts, to stay out of the low places, and we intended to cross as directly and quickly as possible. Our plan was to then fly out from Costa Rica. All of this seemed pretty par for the course based on other accounts of slow travelers. Either folks were running out on their 90 day CA-4 Visa (Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and El Salvador) and had to hurry through. Or, the one other woman we’d found who rode through the area without male company, Heiki PushBikeGirl, was sick of getting stared and cat called at.

After the 3 hours of visiting various governmental outbuildings and shipping containers turned offices, picking up this slip of paper and getting that one stamped, talking to the 3 nurses in the tiny COVID registration office, then the border agent holding our passports while he emailed our information to Managua and waiting for a response (the tensest stretch), then paying $10 USD per person and $3 USD per bike. (It HAD to be in USD. Don’t ask. And don’t even bother gumming for change if you don’t have exact fare.)
I just offered the $4 change on the $20 I had given to the agent as a small gift, saying, “por unos refrescos,”
and the agent nodded his head and said, “correcto.” 

Taking the now stamped slips of paper, relieved to have our passports back in hand, I returned to the first guy who looked at a clipboard and waved us down to the next sawhorse down the hill where then THAT guy took the slip of paper. I was astonished, elated, and couldn’t help but let out a happy whoop when he said we were free to go.

The icing on the cake was that it was all downhill for what remained of the day. We made quick work pedaling down the quiet mountain road into the settling evening.  getting into Ocotal, anxious to not be out after dark but even with an evening arrival, all was calm and the hotel concierge was very patient and poised considering the state of hanger and hot mess in which I tumbled to his desk. He pointed us to a delightful little cafe and fed, showered, and successfully in the country, I settled back into myself. We were surprised by the quiet, laid back atmosphere of the small pueblos and countryside.

What I’m trying to say here is that Nicaragua surpassed our expectations because they had been set quite low to begin with. And the acts of exceptional kindness and generosity were not the norm, which is why they stand out so much.

My favorite example was, riding along on a hot day, a moto buzzed past us and then hung right in front of me, with the passenger holding a small, perspiring bag of water out for me to have. I pedaled hard and we executed a driving hand off and my heart and smile shone as much as my perspiring skin for the rest of the day.

As Neon and I quip back and forth at stints like this, “so you’re saying there’s a chance.”

Funnily enough, when we had sat down to plan details, according to the elevation profile, we truly were within 4 climbs of falling out of the mountains onto flat planes for the rest of the way, which was promising for covering more ground and also good since my brake pads were worn past due.

We knew we were squeaking by, and squeak we did. Through each quiet little town and scooting on before the curious stared hardened. Finding the small businesses which aspired to tourism and thus delighted at our patronage and by these means hopefully helping to keep the wedge in the door to connection and mutual benefit, we booked along. 

Very few people even within Nicaragua could tell us about east of the lake but those couple who did seemed unworried about it. As we got close to the decision point, preferring the quieter ‘everyone is just minding their own business’ atmosphere rather than the higher pressure and prices of a tourist area, we decided to go for it.

As soon as we got off the PanAmerican, it got even quieter, finally returning to the kinds of roads I like best, with seeds, herbs, and beans drying alongside it or farmers walking their herds between town and the field. It’s a kind of traffic jam I rather enjoy. Maybe a guy with a moto trying to weave through or around. We’d let the cows tell us where they were going, they know all the turns and patch of grass snacks along the way.

I took the opportunity to compliment the farmers on their animals. These were happy, healthy Brahman, Brown Swiss, Holstein, often in well traced and documented mixes. We had happened into the cattle country which makes up one of the main exports (along with coffee and gold) of Nicaragua.

The landscape became a savannah dotted with monkey ear and Guanacaste trees. One night we accidentally ended up at a classy steak house. Having received an unexpected and unbudgeted PayPal gift from a Giving Angel and being this close to making it, we scrubbed ourselves clean and I wrapped my sarong shower skirt (we’d done laundry…recently-ish) around my neck in an attempt to dress up and enjoyed a most sumptuous meal.

For the next two days we raced my bike tires going flat. The time we were saving by being on flat terrain was made up for by patching stops until finally, the whole charade blew on the outskirts of the blip of a pueblo, Acoyapa. We had 167 km left to go. The woman selling 4th hand ‘American’ clothes on the edge of town pointed us to the wooden shack llanteria across from the bus stop.

Here again, those of you who have been following along will know my style of travel (“by the hair on my chinny chin chin”) lends itself to encountering just the right scrappy, outside the box problem solver at just the right time. Thus, Jose Ramon excused himself from chatting with a friend to come hear out my woes. I could tell from the way he listened that he knew what he was doing.

He invited us to take this picture, as a ‘recuerdo‘, so long as we introduced him as ‘El Bendito Jose Ramón.’

We spent an hour under the awning of Ramon’s tire shack. I bought us Orange Fantas (all our favorites), he introduced us to turrones, gently suggesting them when a woman came by vending. I took the hint and purchased a few. He nodded, seeming pleased I could understand at least a bit of the unspoken, inferring nature of Latin communication. He was helping me, so I would, as I could, help others in his community, was the watched for courtesy rule.

He also introduced us to the two sister strays who run the town, La Duquesa and her less poised sibling off running into table legs in the booths across the road, La Chingona. Everyone who came by greeted him, and he would nod toward us with pride, “las turistas quien me vienen a visitar” he grinned.

While he worked on widening the valve hole in my rim and patching the last spare, he taught me about structure of local government, warned us against being out at night (they all do), we touched on poverty and death squads and what he called La Pulgita (El Salvador) where he grew up.

As he finished up and we pieced La Cucaracha back together, he rocked back on his heels, wiping his hands together with finality,
“Como dice la señora, ‘CASO RESUELTO‘”
[As the lady on TV says, ‘case closed!’]

From there it was only a couple hours to a point of rest. One lodging had popped up when we searched the region, a Cacao Farm. We usually take a few days at the end of each season to have a ‘Decompression Session.’ We break the days up into meeting points ranging from a therapy session, debriefs on any dangerous or tense components, things we learned adn hope to carry forward, and how what we’ve learned can inform plans ahead. We wouldn’t have time to be so thorough as in other years but we still gave ourselves two nights to rest, journal, converse, eat well, and amble peacefully at thecacaofarm.

The stop was a gentle synthesis of something I’ve been working with and steeping in since we returned to this region. It has been a DC al Fine. A return to my own beginnings.

I was raised in the tropics, by women like Emelia, kind, patient, grounded, incredible cooks, unassuming, and ever supportive. Men like Erick and Herman once walked me to school, taught me about the bugs, plants and shared stories their grandparents taught them. Like calling the dewlap on a Brahman ‘la toalla.’

They were patient as we solemnly and giddily geared up the final day. They were a part of things now because they believe in us. They have fed and nurtured us. Emilia slipped us packed lunches of home made goods sucha s dried plantain chips, queso fresco, and snadwiches) to take forward since there wasn’t much in the way of food for the next 120 kms.

Every stage of myself has been along for this odyssey. Present Me moderating for my little girl self and also my big girl future impetus. It has been a bread crumb trail of people, flavors, perspectives, vistas, affirmations, and learning with my body and heart as much as my head. Interweaving my selves into the present moment.

In this reverie, the kilometers and flowering fence posts flew past. We paused 20 kms from the border to buy cold drinks and got to chatting with the family who run the tienda. The father had been sent to war when he was 18 though now his world is about his family, community, and enjoying the peace and shade. The daughter makes flowers out of silk and showed us a box of still mostly bald parrot chicks who had been knocked out of a tree and abandoned, so she was raising them. Their family do this a lot, she explained. The youngest boy was shy but later was excited to tell us about his school and how the parents take turns cooking lunch for the whole school of 48 kids.

And just like that we were are the crown of the Santa Fe Bridge over Rio San Juan and, it was a suspension in space and time. My body also remembered the headwind when we’d paddled under this bridge 3 years ago. Neon and I laughed, cried, hugged, filmed a little, ate a little, and leaned on the railing looking out for a spell “remember when”ing.

We pedaled on through what was marked on the maps as a natural reserve but on the ground looked an awful lot like an orchard, a couple stamps and an immigration office with blessed AC and, still dazed from making it in the Nicaragua, we found ourselves in Costa Rica.

We had done it! We’d connected our South America hiking and paddling routes to our North and Central America hiking and bikepacking routes!

Now came the difficult part: the flurry and pivot. A period so befuddling and stressy that I mostly just stayed in a daze and my to do lists and calendar were the only way I got anything done.

There were a few deeply lucid, present moments: spending time alone with my little nephew Kian for the first time. Making adventure plans with the older one, Owen. Walking the rolly poly puppy with Ellie in her white fur theatre cloak. Cammie and Char helping me sort through my trunks of possessions kept in their basement. Cuddling with my mom and communing with my aunt and stories of my own ancestry in a creaking white farmhouse in Kansas for her 60th birthday. Snuggling and giggling with friends. Others helped keep me on task, leading gear shopping expeditions and outfitting for canoeing. And then, bleary and abruptly, I found myself in Canada, from the jungles of Central America to the Boreal Forests ringing the Arctic Circle.