Hell at the Border, Heaven on the Beach

I woke up on 9/6 with a surprising lack of soreness, but somehow feeling even worse about the crash than I had immediately after it happened. As I set off from the hotel towards the border crossing at Guasale, still having to hold the bars at a completely cockeyed angle in order to point the bike straight, I was feeling emotionally drained, utterly paranoid about getting back on the highway, and anxious about the impending crossing; I'd heard from every possible source that Nicaragua would be by far the most difficult country to enter thus far, and I wasn't looking forward to adding that potential ordeal on top of everything I'd experienced the day before.

I did have quite a bit to look forward to in Nicaragua, however. I'd heard stories of the natural beauty and amazing opportunities for activity and exploration contained within its borders, but in addition, I'd been able to connect with a friend of one of Ngaire's friends who lived just over the border in Somotillo, and who knew a mechanic who would almost certainly be able to help me fix the Twin. I'd also been offered a free beach house in Poneloya, on the Pacific coast, for up to a week courtesy of someone I'd connected with via one of the many Facebook groups for expats in Latin America. There was just the matter of actually getting into the country...

Even getting to the border itself turned out to be a minor ordeal; around 10 km from Guanacaste, I ran into a line of stopped cars and trucks. I thought it was just an incredibly long line for the border, until I looked ahead and saw oily black smoke rising into the air just beyond a couple of vehicles pulled sideways in the middle of the road. Fearing a crash and cognizant of both the state of emergency services in Honduras and the moderate amount of medical supplies I had with me, I split traffic to the front of the line only to find that it wasn't a crash at all. A knee-high line of burning tires lay across the road, which turned out to be the entrance to the last major crossroads before the Guanacaste border station, beyond which I could see a large group of people gathered in the intersection. My heart was in my throat, fearing a gang or cartel roadblock, but as I took to the dirt around the tire line and approached the crossroads, I realized that the large group of people gathered in the middle weren't from one of the gangs at all, but were holding signs with political slogans denouncing the government, and singing songs of protest with raised fists. A 2009 coup d'etat initiated by the Supreme Court ousted the former president and plunged Honduras into years of political turmoil, violence, and protests, and the most recent elections are widely believed to have been illegitimate; as a result, protests have been ongoing all over the country, and I was somewhat surprised that this was my first encounter with Honduras's turbulent politics. After a short but polite conversation with one of the women helping cordon off the crossroads, I was through and back on my way to Guanacaste.

Upon arriving to Guanacaste, I found a state of only mildly controlled chaos. Besides the 3-km line of trucks waiting for inspection, there were people everywhere, and I felt like I was parting an ocean just riding to the parking area. I was immediately accosted by people offering all manner of currency exchange, food, drink, and "help" through the crossing. To give you an idea of how sophisticated some of the scammers are, I was met at the door by a man wearing what I thought was an Aduana badge, who handed my documents over to the passport control official and started explaining to me where I needed to go, how much money I needed for each part of the process, and where to get my bike inspected. It wasn't until he took my documents back from the passport inspector after I'd received my exit stamp and told me he could "speed up the process" for an extra $50 that I realized I'd fallen victim myself. After a lot of arguing and a small amount of money thrown his way just to get my passport and vehicle documents back, I continued on to the Nicaraguan side.

I can't stress this enough: every single part of the entry process into Nicaragua, at least by ground, seems designed to be as confusing, stressful, and intentionally obtuse as possible. I spent close to an hour and a half sitting in the Nicaraguan passport office after handing over my title, registration, driver's license, passport, and Temporary Import Permit from Honduras, solely because I hadn't fully filled out an online form that's supposed to expedite things; I'd heard about this days prior and entered my information, but the website's options for immigration are "passport" or "residency card", both of which appeared to be intended for either Nicaraguan nationals or permanent residents (the correct option is the passport one, for future reference). After finally receiving my entry stamp and going through the Nicaraguan Aduana office three times (Once so they could tell me I didn't have the proper information on my title and that they needed my plate and registration, twice to get my bags X-rayed, and the third time after I'd tracked down the "helper" from earlier who'd "accidentally" held onto my registration), I was once again accosted by my friend from earlier, this time on a bicycle and with a companion offering to guide me through the final checkpoint at the border and, naturally, help me find the nearest ATM so I could give them their propina for "helping" me through. They accompanied me to the checkpoint, where one final agent checked that my passport had been stamped and that I had all the receipts for the border fees. At that point, four hours after I'd first entered the border station, stressed beyond all possible belief, and sick of being accosted by everything with a pulse, I introduced my "friends" to 1000cc of Honda power and left them, their bicycles, and their scams in the dust.

Somotillo was just a few minutes' ride away from the border, and with an hour, I was able to find the friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend, get my bike to a small taller de motos, and with the help of two others, get the front end realigned and back in shape. Thankfully, the fork tubes didn't appear to be bent, and after some spirited conversation regarding my trip and the comically large size of the Twin in relation to every other bike at the shop, I was back on the road, the Twin feeling almost completely back to normal, and my spirits riding as rapidly as my speed.

With some of the worries of the last few days left behind, I let myself look around, and was nearly dumbstruck; Nicaragua is beautiful. Not in the sense that there are beautiful places scattered between dull landscapes, as with many places in the US and the parts of northern Mexico I'd been through, but that everywhere I looked, I was met with natural beauty. As soon as I was out of Somotillo, I was met with an unfolding, intensely green vista backed by a series of volcanoes and mountains connecting them, with curtains of rain visible across the plains to my back; I was looking at the twin peaks and active craters of Cerro San Cristóbal and Volcán Casita. "This is a real place, and I am really here looking at it," I thought to myself, for nowhere near the first time this trip. 

This was perhaps the best introduction I'd had to a new country so far, border woes aside. If I hadn't had great accommodations waiting for me a few hours down the road, I'd have seriously considered turning off on the dirt roads leading to the volcanoes and pitching camp in their shadows, but for now, I could be content simply taking in the view from my seat. The friendly faces I encountered when I stopped for fuel only served to strengthen my nascent love for Nicaragua; when I came out of the station after paying, a small group had gathered around the Twin, and the price of getting back on was a friendly interrogation of a sort that was becoming routine:

"¿Que motor es?" (Mil centímetros, dos cilindros)

"¿De dónde fuiste?" (De Nashville, Tennessee, en los Estados Unidos)

"Noooo, en serio? Fuiste totalmente en el moto?" (Si, más de 6,500 kilómetros hasta aquí)

"A dónde vienes?" (A Santiago de Chile y Tierra del Fuego)

I was finding that this last answer was more often than not met with wide-eyed double takes, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't get a kick out of it, but at the same time, I was fairly sure that most of the people I'd encountered in passing hadn't met many international motorcycle travelers, much less an American on a bike far larger in both size and displacement than the 150-250cc bikes that were a staple of life in Latin America. In any case, I never minded talking about my trip, and the unspoken connection between motorcyclists tends to transcend most differences in bikes and riders alike. 

I'd been warned by the owner of the house I was heading to that storms were approaching the area, and so I reluctantly left the volcano-dotted landscape behind and headed for León, about half an hour from the coast and the closest major city to Poneloya, where I'd be staying. I made a brief stop in León to meet up with Stefan, a German riding a KTM 1190 that was even bigger than the Twin on roughly the same route I was taking through Latin America. Stefan and I had shared a room at Mototours back in Antigua, and I'd been happily shocked to find that he'd not only traversed nearly every part of Mexico and much of Guatemala, but had done so after starting east from Munich months earlier and traveling through Europe and Asia before shipping his bike to Baja California and continuing on from there. We'd hoped to share my accommodations in Poneloya, but as Stefan was on an even tighter timetable than I was, he couldn't spare the extra day. We agreed to meet back up in Cartagena with the hope of exploring Colombia together, and I continued South to the coast. 

I arrived in Poneloya and found my home for the next two days with perfect timing; I'd no sooner wedged my bike into the garage around the owner's car when the sky unleashed a torrent of rain and lightning. Happily dry and thankful to have what turned out to be a luxurious beach house to myself, I fell into bed and was asleep before I even remembered to turn out the lights. 

Morning revealed what the night and the storm had hidden, a view I'll let speak for itself: 

After the two most stressful days of the trip so far, two more days of relaxing on the beach seemed like the perfect way to forget it all. The housekeeper even loaned me a surfboard, which while far too small for me to stand up on, made a perfect bodyboard as well as the most awkward object I've ever carried on a bike by far. 

After a day spent on the beach, I was treated to an amazing tropical sunset, and a chance to reflect on how lucky I was; not only to be on this trip and in this amazing country in general, but that I was alive to do so after what had happened in Honduras, in one piece and with a motorcycle that was none the worse for wear (again, complete and utter tank). I've had to fight my nasty and inherent tendencies to get bogged down in details, despair over circumstances beyond my control, and see the worst in everything almost from the moment I pulled out of my own driveway, but the day and two nights I spent in Poneloya, along with the gorgeous route I'd taken to get there, were a solid reminder that every minute spent beating myself up in my own head is a minute better used to enjoy the world around me.