After pedaling our 100 lb bike up and over impossibly steep hills in Guatemala and El Salvador, we have found ourselves enjoying the break in the mountains more than usual.
At my last blog post, I wrote about getting over a bout of food poisoning as we continued from Guatemala into El Salvador. While it was true we were over the vomiting and diarrhea, I was not quite back to 100% when we got back on the bike. I was still getting over the cold I had gotten the week prior, and had not fully recovered my appetite either. The result was that I was fatigued and weak, putting in my best effort, but still leaving most the work on the bike to Mark.
To add to the difficulty, our chosen inland route through El Salvador was made up of steep hills that climbed up and down one after another 100 meters at a time. At the end of the day, we would have ridden only 90 km but climbed 2,500 meters all in short steep increments. This pattern left us tired and when the option to cut out a few kilometers of these hills in Eastern El Salvador presented itself, we took it and transitioned to flatter riding for our last day in El Salvador, through Honduras and into Nicaragua.
Coming into Honduras, I felt like I finally had my appetite and some strength back and was able to start putting a little more energy through my end of the pedals. We found the border crossing into Honduras to be hectic, the Honduran side boasting a huge crowd of people waiting to exit the country, a small soccer game was being played in front of the customs building, and a number of uniformed but genuinely helpful people directing us where to go.
After a little bit of waiting, however, we were stamped into Honduras and on our way. We only spent one night in Honduras, finding ourselves waiting even longer at the border crossing with Nicaragua. The land borders are odd because, unlike an airport there’s no clear flow of people or direction on where to go or what to do, so we occasionally get turned around or sent back to a building we’ve already been through (this time we were turned around to have some, but not all of our bags put through a scanner). We have found the people with the most accurate directions are the men wearing cross body bags waving stacks of currency around. Their primary role is to change money, but they always know where we need to go. Since we obviously need to change some currency, they’re willing to answer any of our questions about the border to gain our patronage. Usually we disappoint them when we pull out less than $20 or the equivalent to change, but they have all been kind enough anyway.
In Nicaragua we have enjoyed the views of active volcanoes, lots of watermelon, and beautiful scenery despite taking an inland route which we were advised would not be as pretty as the route closer to the coast.
We’ve stayed in quite a few cheep motels in the last week, since the sweltering heat and humidity nearly demands that we shower and rinse out our clothes at the end of each. Despite our best efforts, we’re still suffering the normal heat consequences, saddle sores, chaffing, and general heat fatigue. While the break from the climbing has been nice on our legs, we’ll be excited to return to the cool mountain air when the opportunity presents itself.
Our next stop is going to be Turrialba, Costa Rica, where we’re planning on staying for a day to got kayaking before heading through to Panama next.
See our route and photos here:
Mark’s Strava: https://www.strava.com/athletes/markandnic
Google Photo Album: https://photos.app.goo.gl/8sK1ryrupSjneZ9BA
Thanks for reading!
-Nic