On high from our successful first border crossing and it’s on to San Juan Del Sur
to get some things and then to Maderas for what we’ve heard is good camping right in front of the break. Had to stop in for some of the best pescado burritos in Nicaragua at the Taco Shack. Then it’s off to the first back road in search of the beach and some camping. Cruising down the dirt road at the hipper speed of seven mph and what do I see in the rear view mirror… A gringa hanging out the window taking pictures of the rig, as they pass their camera was fully functional snapping photo after photo of us, “ are we famous?” They signal us to follow them for a beer and the rest is history. Seven days later we hated to leave our new found great friends.
Glad to meet back up with Sage and plan on traveling up through Nicaragua together for the month. Thankfully, Karen and Roy let Sage stay as well, so including the guest we were all one big happy family. Karen and Roy talked us into staying until Superbowl which we were totally ok with so each one of us cooked something different, created a betting pool, had a few drinks and then it was on. Karen slept through most of the game but some how managed to take home the pool.
We had such a great time with not only Roy, Karen and Sage but their guest as well, we are so blessed to have ran into them that day on the dirt road. Lots of laughs and good times were had for all!! Here are a ton of random pictures mostly from Roy and Karen’s property.
Next stop Popoyo near Guasacate for some heavy waves and more Nicaraguan sunsets. Another Nicaraguan back road, lots of dust, pigs, more dust and small wooden shacks with Claro satellites.
Three hours later we end up lost in Rivas and in the middle of the market. Not really sure but I think we might just stick out a little bit?
After some help from locals we get back on the dirt road headed north. In search of camping near the beach and we stumble upon this hostel with breath taken views.
The town of Guasacate was very small not even sure I’d call it a town more like a village but it’s becoming more and more popular because of the world class waves. We lucked out and found a lot with a guard in a shack, asked if we could stay and he opened up the gate and let us roll in. Right on the beach and with poop shack.
So far one of the biggest problems has been trying to find places to drop a duce after morning coffee, so knowing there was a shack to hit was a comforting feeling.
North to check out more of the coast. Pochomil first and then head further north to El Transito to El Velero to our final destination before heading to El Salvador. Assederros which is also also becoming more and more popular for it’s good surf and un crowded waves.
One issue that we’ve had to deal with other than finding a good toilet is finding a place to fill the propane tanks in the RV. I think right now we’ve wasted a good two days driving around in search of the magic filling station. With that said after leaving Popoyo we headed north toward Pochomil. We decided to keep cruising north to the capital, Managua, while Sage heads down to Pochomil to find a camp site. Great! See you in a few hours. Managua was a quick thirty minute drive and then the next two and half hours were spent driving around in search of propane in the hot, hot sun. No luck let’s get out of this crazy city, so we head out back up the hill to meet Sage back at Pochomil. Little did we know that the combination of heat, hills and 175,000 miles can add to only bad things for your transmission. As our car slowly rolls to a stop in the middle of no where we had no idea what our next move would be. This was the first time we have been in a situation where we were totally helpless. NO idea where we were, no phone, no shade, no knowledge of any mechanics…we were stuck between a rock and a hard place. We got out of the car to put out our hazard triangle and within 30 seconds a cop pulls up. YES HELP…Not to help but to give us a ticket! Can you believe it… we were so mad that the cop just gave up after both of our frustrations exploded on him. I can’t believe the cop was going to give us a bogus ticket. So finally we came up with a plan. Since we only had reverse we were going to reverse our way back into town. Casey at the wheel and I was holding the triangle alerting cars to get out of our way. After about a mile the road narrowed into one lane so we couldn’t continue. We parked again and sat there watching the sun go down. Finally we had some real help. A car pulled over and called a tow truck. We waited there until the truck showed up. The sight of the tow truck was amazing! We are rescued!!! He pulled the van up on the flat bed and told us to get in… THE VAN. Casey and I had to climb our way up in the van and the tow trucker was barreling down the road. It was quite the sight for us to be extremely high but also for the people we passed. You could just see the people’s jaws dropping. He dropped us off at a transmission place and we checked into the hotel next door before we went to bed we emailed our friend Sage to tell him what happened in hopes that he would read his email (even though he hasn’t been on a computer for 2 months). The next morning we walked over at 8am and they were already tearing the transmission out. The owner of the shop said it would be done that day. While all of this is going on we were worried that Sage was still waiting for us without any word of where we were. We were sitting in the hotel room talking about taking a bus down to Pochomil to find Sage and tell him what happened since we figured he didn’t read his email and before we knew it there was a knock at our door and it was HIM... “ House Keeping” Oh thank goodness he read his email hoping that we emailed him where we were. That evening the car was ready and we were planning our trip to leave that next morning. Two days, a months budget and a new transmission later we were back on the road heading North.
Here are the pictures from the tow truck view to the lovely artistic hotel.
After heading North for a while we pulled over to talk to Sage about which town to pull into. We drove through El Transito which was a bit strange since we saw 3 transvestites within a half a mile. Noting wrong with transvestites but the town itself was not what we were looking for. So we moved on. Farther down the road we stopped again to chat and as we were talking this nice brand new Dodge pick up truck pulled over and some Nicas asked us if were knew where we were going and needed help. They handed us a beer and wanted to take pictures with some gringos. “ are we famous?” As we were chatting they told us that they had a vacation house they were not using for the weekend and if we wanted to be close to the beach and stay in a house then we should follow them. So we did. We get to this gate and we start questioning where we are…
We go inside and it was the creepiest place we had been to. It was like a ghost town. Really nice house but most of them were abandoned. We asked them what this place was and they said it use to be an American subdivision until the government took the land without any warning. So as we sat at these people’s house they showed us around and then they left back to Managua. We stayed a little longer to make a plan. We finally told the guard that we were going to get some food and left. Still in the same gated community there was a sweet field that was right on the water. So we stayed there. Casey kept referring to this place as “The Hills Have Eyes” which didn’t ease my nerves. That night it was quick to bed none of us wanted to stay up too late. The next morning the security guard came walking by and had breakfast with us and told us that we were safe there and we could stay as long as we wanted. So it wasn’t as bad as I had thought before it was actually a really nice place. So we stayed for a few days more and then moved on. Here are some pictures of our campsite, Anakin’s new friends (the cows), our delicious fish dinner (we bought the fish) and some creepy houses in the community.
Oh and as we were leaving we came across this massive vehicle… can you imagine traveling in this?
