Rain woke us up at about 5.30 and the crap tent (replacement for the stolen MSR) has leaked badly. We transferred ourselves to under the jetty roof and the rain then stopped. We ate pineapple for breakfast watching fisherman and a few tourists setting off for their private boat tours. We were sitting watching the wild life out of the jetty. The fisherman was collecting live bait and was literally dipping the stick for no longer than 2 seconds and pulling out another fish! Not bad. He told us the name of the fish the guys here are after, but my Spanish at that time of the morning only operates at the super basic setting (the fish looks like a flattened chunky pike if that helps). Nearly with tears in our eyes we set of out of “Cano Negro” for a 26 km ride to the border town of Los Chiles. The ride was interrupted by some rain, but we didn`t stop until the border. We took an hour organising the paperwork, visas and tickets for the 50 minutes boat ride across the border to Nicaragua. A bit of shopping. The town was not good enough to even contemplate sightseeing. We had caffeine overload waiting for the boat. The embarkation was absolute madness! Squished like sardines, but life vests available. Bribe for the bikes, bargaining, looking after the bags and dodgy kids checking our equipment . Stressful but enjoyable views. The bicycles ended up on the roof of the boat. Soon after, we arrived in the town of San Carlos on Lake Nicaragua. Very pretty port area but a bit more scabby town than what we were used to. The visa processing took over an hour (not impressed considering there were only 30 of us on the boat!). The rain changed into a downpoor and after finding a cheapish hostel overlooking the port we have met a Swiss traveler (Andreas) and spent the afternoon chatting on the patio drinking “Tona” beer, Nicaragua’s finest brew. German lingua took the lead - although I did understood some of it).
Cycled 31 km (mostly gravel track), cruised into a new country!
Cycled 31 km (mostly gravel track), cruised into a new country!