Day 114
When I left Juigalpa it was a little overcast and just North of the town I stopped to take a photo of the mountains in the distance to the East.
I rode North along road 7 until the junction with road 198 where I then rode in the direction of the town of Comalapa however just as I turned on to the road I noticed that the road surface was made of paving bricks, the kind that are commonly used for driveways. The road was like this all the way to Comalapa and it was little odd to ride on such a long driveway.
The only problem with using paving bricks for a road is that when a pothole develops it’s a good one!
It was not just the massive potholes that I had to contend with on this road.
I then road to the town of Muy Muy where I turned East on to road 21 and somewhere along this road I saw a Rodeo stadium which was not open at this time of the day.
Shortly thereafter I crossed a river and I saw some people doing their laundry in it.
Further along this road I stopped for a break at a roadside food shack and whilst I was sitting having my coffee and cigar a truck stopped and picked up a woman who had been standing at the side of the road. I then noticed some other people sitting in some kind of hammock things that were attached to a metal pole running the length of the truck. The woman hoisted her belongings in to the truck, climbed aboard, and the truck drove off. I surmised that this is an alternative form of transportation that perhaps goes where the buses do not or can not go.
Once my break was over I resumed my ride and by late afternoon I had reached the town of Siuna where I decided to stop for the night. I found a cheap and cheerful hotel in the town which was used mainly by workmen and it cost me just over $10 for the night.
As the hotel had no restaurant I wandered about the town looking for something to eat. As I was doing so i saw some of the typical carnage on the main street when a large vehicle wants to maneuver.
I eventually found a small place grilling food so I sat in for something and whilst I was inside eating a small 125cc bike drew up outside, it was a family outing to get some take away food.
Both here in Nicaragua and in Costa Rica I saw lots of people riding bikes with no helmets, here in Nicaragua it is common to see multiple people on a bike none of whom are wearing helmets. I asked a guy at a bike shop about this and from what I understood, there are laws requiring helemets to be worn but a lot of people don’t bother and the police don’t bother about it either.
Day 115
My destination for this day was the Caribbean coastal town of Puerto Cabeza which was about 140 miles away so I set off early at about 7 am and headed East. The road was made of concrete and was okay except in some of the older sections where it tended to be a bit bumpy. Everything was going fine until about 50 miles away from my destination when I hit roadworks where they were obviously building the last sections of the modern concrete road. I rode on roads made of rock chips for about 10 miles then I hit a gravel road which I rode on for another 10 miles or so.
Then it alternated between sections of new concrete road and more rock chip roads until about 10 miles from the town of Puerto Cabeza when it was concrete all the way to the edge of the town. Then the roads got really bad, full of potholes, lots of mad driving by the locals, large vehicle carnage by buses driving at 5 mph, taxis stopping anywhere and everywhere on the road etc.
I drove around in this madness looking for somewhere to stay, just like I did in the 1980’s in Europe before the internet, and I eventually found a really nice hotel for about $30 for the night.
I went out for a walk to see if I could find the beach but I could not get to it because of houses, each of which had a fence, that ran along the road next to the shoreline. I took some photos of the main street near to my hotel.
I saw on google maps that a section of road ran next to the waterfront at the North end of town but as it was about 2 miles away I decided to take the bike but as I was getting near to where I wanted to go to I felt the back end of the bike go all squirelly on me. Yes, it was a puncture to my rear tyre and all of my stuff was back in the hotel. I managed to pull over beside a small shop and as I was wondering what to do a couple of guys came out and offered some help. I managed to communicate my issue to them and they kindly drove me to my hotel and back.
I then set about taking the wheel off the bike.
The valve had ripped from the tube and was not repairable. I checked the outside and the inside of the tyre to see if I could find anything that might be sticking in to the tyre that might have caused the pucture but I could find nothing.
However, after about 40 minutes of struggling in the heat I got my spare tube in to the tyre and the wheel back on the bike.
The guys that helped me were kind enough to pose for a picture and directed me to a local bike shop where I could buy a new spare tube for the back tyre. Once this had been done and I was back at the hotel, I set off to find something to eat. About 300 yards from the hotel I found a small restaurant that overlooked the Caribbean sea and due to my stressful afternoon I needed a drink, so a bottle of the local beer was the order of the day.
Once I had finished my meal I wandered down to the beach just as the sun was beginning to set.
