We planned on grabbing lunch in Masaya, which turned out to be a pollo asado with some rather inebriated customers. One of them continued to offer us a ride in his taxi that was parked out front. This guy should not have attempted to stand up, let alone to drive a vehicle. Thankfully we had our own mode of transportation and headed on towards the beach.
We arrived in La Boquita, where there was a military checkpoint. They let us know that we were not going to be able to make it down the coastal road to San Juan del Sur, but were joking and laughing the whole time. Losing some in the translation (were they joking about the road conditions, or just out of delirium from standing in the hot sun in black uniforms?), we took off that direction. Although the towns of La Boquita and Casares are tiny, we still managed to not find the road out of those towns until we asked at least 3 people in each.
Finally, following an SUV towards Veracruz and Las Delicias, we were making progress! Until the SUV decided to turn around randomly. Once they cleared the way, we figured out why. The little road dropped down to the sand of the beach, and was supposed to continue along the coast (well, at least according to our map). All we could see was a river running pretty quick, with no tracks exiting the other side. Rainy season. We turned back too.
(we are standing on the road to take this picture. We have one looking straight across the water at the non-existent road on the other side, but it didn´t upload correctly. This image at least gives you some idea)
We returned to a sweet little camping spot just outside of Huehuete that cost 50 colones for the night. Luckily, our neighbors at the campground brought along the kitchen sink. They were a group of 15 people who had set up a little village complete with tents, awnings, hammocks, coolers, grills, some ant killing pesticide, beers, food. Generally, Jill and I would have been most happy with them offering us beer and/or food. Turns out we were ecstatic when they lent us their ant killing pesticide because those suckers were fierce!
The beach was beautiful, and super mellow (probably because it´s at the end of a road at this time of year)
We hoped to spend the afternoon crusing around the volcano island in the middle of Lago de Nicaragua, but opted out once we realized how expensive it was. The ferry would have cost us over US$20 to get us and the bike over and back, pretty expensive for just a couple of hours of wandering around. Hotels in the area were US$25 and up. I'm sure it's sweet and all, but for the amount of time we wanted to dedicate to it, it just wasn't worth it.
(Ometepe is the dual volcano island that can be accessed from Rivas/San Jose. This view, taken from the PanAmerican outside of Rivas, is about the only salient feature of riding along the highway)
About as we were ready to take off, we ran into a fella riding solo on his KLR from Kentucky. In classic KLR style, he had duffel bags and backpacks precariously lashed and bungeed all around him. Sadly, we missed the chance to meet up with him over on Ometepe. We dropped in the gas station to add some more battery acid, drink some caffeine (fittingly, an energy drink called Battery), and then smooth sailing down the main road to San Juan del Sur.
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