El Espino – Chilincocal – Finca Yucusama – Isiqui – San Isidro – Malpaisillo
5 days | 335 kilometers | 2480 meters elevation gain
Nicaragua. I’m on the footstep of another Central American country. After having crossed big lands like Canada, the United States and Mexico, now suddenly the countries are small and manageable. Whenever I start to think that I finally perpetrated into the soul of one country, the next is already waiting for me. It has something positive: there’s always a next adventure, a new chapter around the corner. The disadvantage however is that you need time to fall in love with a country, fall in love with its culture, traditions and manners. Like I fell in love with Mexico. On the other side, Central America feels like a family of countries that have a great common denominator and only differ in small things, so it’s easier to get accommodated.
Yesterday me and Fernanda crossed the border into Nicaragua and found a nice camping spot alongside the first river we saw. This morning we are chased away by the same army of ants that chased us into our tent yesterday. When we pack our stuff I notice that the heat, that has been terrorising us for weeks, is gone. We cycle into the town of Somoto and we are joking about how Japanese that sounds.
Shortly after we are presented with beautiful trees of pink cherry blossom on both sides of the road. Like the universe had heard us.
We turn into a beautiful gravel road after Somoto. The sky is blue, the trees around us green and the road yellow. It makes for a beautiful contrast. We make it to the top and are presented with beautiful view of the surrounding mountain range. The mountains here are not as daunting as they were in Guatemala or Canada, but rather like a wrinkly texture of green hills. During the downhill I see a grown man walking a huge pig, like he is walking his dog in the park. And later I see another one doing exactly the same. Why the hell would you wrap a leash around your pig to go on a stroll with it? We make it down the mountain and are looking for a camp spot when experienced world bike traveller Fernanda sees an abandoned house and summons me to stop. She tells me she frequently sleeps in abandoned houses and we decide to check it out. The neighbour sees us and he tells us its okay for us to spend the night. The unfinished house belongs to a family member. We put up the tent without the rainfly because tonight we have a roof over our head.





Around 6 we are woken up by a cacophony of “petting zoo” sounds. Pigs, pigeons, roosters, dogs and cows are amongst them. Again we’re chased away by the ant-army. Man, what’s up with these ants? Everything that we left out of our bags is full of crawling ants looking for food. We have to clean everything to get rid of them. Did I mention they bite as well? For me it’s just a bite, but Fernanda’s skin seems to have a worse reaction to the bites so it’s extra frustrating for her.
Another beautiful day of gravel roads lies ahead of us. We cycle along villages where everywhere the green of the banana trees contrasts with the wooden houses. Barbed wire is fencing off little gardens with papaya, mango and orange trees. Chickens and roosters shoot across the road when they hear us coming. The dust from the gravel and the glimmering light perpetrating through the thin clouds creates a golden haze over it all.
But just when you think it’s all peace and beauty: BOOM! Chute! The peloton is waiting. The rider from the Argentinian team has made quite the crash and besides physical scratches she also has damaged her material.
Fernanda’s front wheel hit a big rock and she fell. Her rear rack has broken on two different spots. We fix everything with cable ties but of course that’s just a temporary solution. We decide to turn around and go back to the asphalt because this construction is too fragile for more gravel.
In the next bigger village we find lunch, groceries and a welder. The welder is able to weld everything back together and with fresh spirit we hop back onto the bike.
Fourteen kilometres later I want to take a sip from my water bottle but they aren’t there. I left them at the last stop. I already not look forward to the ride back and forth but then Fer comes with the brilliant idea that she will she there with the bikes and I will hitchhike back and forth. I feel stupid for not coming up with the same idea.
One back-of-a-pickup, one moped, 28 kilometres and only twenty minutes later I’m back already! This time with all of my three water bottles. I’m amazed by the smoothness of this operation and the willingness of people to take hitchhikers. Despite this fast operation it’s half past five now and dusk is setting in. A hundred meters down the road we see the big gate to a land house and we take our shot. We open the gate and shout “Permiso, permiso!” to announce ourselves. We find the owners and ask to pitch our tent. Once again we are greeted with hospitality and of course we can pitch our tent. We see a beautiful plateau of plain concrete overlooking the hills and decide it’s a nice place for my tent. I wish we would have picked another place, for example one where I would have needed to install my pegs. Because minutes after the tent is set a gust of wind is taking my tent on a walk. Our reflexes refrain the tent from really falling down all the way, but it does smack against the concrete wall and rips my tent apart.
And so, my friends, my day went from being absolutely amazing to absolutely terrible. It’s hard to explain what it feels like when you see your tent of €500 rip into pieces (yes, this is exaggerated), but I do think you can imagine it.





What? Rain? Dark overcast? What is this? We prayed for less heat the last weeks, but this is exaggerated. So we pack up camp slowly and wait for the worst of the rain to pass. I have time to patch the rips in the flysheet of my tent with tape (I’m still sad).
We set off with our raincoats on. Which I had to dig up all the way from the bottom of my bag. In one of the pockets I find a candy wrapper that still originates from the US. In the city of Esteli I run into Michelle and her partner that I’ve met 4 (!) months ago in Baja California, Mexico. Onwards on a beautiful road that is paved with bricks. We cycle alongside a dry field where baseball players in shiny white suits are playing ball. We cycle straight into dark overcast that looks a bit frightening.
I already try to remember in which bag I’ve put my raincoat.
When all hell finally breaks loose it’s 5PM and time to find a place for the night anyway. We are in a tiny village and ask around. When Fernanda comes back from the little shop she smiles. She found another gem. A house next to the shop that belongs to the shop’s sister, which started working in the US years ago. Ever since the house is basically empty and not long after we get the keys to get in. Everything is dusty and dirty but at least we don’t have to assemble our tents tonight, since we find some mattresses to sleep on. The owner of the shop brings us a plate of warm food in the evening and we couldn’t be luckier once again.












Today the blue sky is back. We shoot into another gravel road and before we know it we have wet feet already because we have to cross a river. After that it’s time for some good old hike-a-bike because we are not able to cope with these kind of gradients. The only people that are passing us on these roads are on the back of horses and I start to doubt the choice for this road. We decide to let some air escape from our tires to get a bit more grip and comfort, but soon after Fernanda gets a so-called snake bite. Two punctures close to each other caused by a too low tube pressure and a bump in the road making the edge of the rim touching the ground and slicing the two holes in the tube.
Soon enough my state of mind gets as bumpy and rough as the road. Back on tarmac I park my bike, bow down and give the sweet asphalt a little kiss. I love gravel, but I hate rough and bumpy rockbed-gravel. We put our tires back to normal pressure and swoosh down the asphalt into the town of San Isidro. In the Central Parque we treat ourselves to a cold beer and get treated by the people of San Isidro to a basketball match that’s being held on a field in the park. When the match has ended and the beers are finished we drive over to the Bombeiros and are allowed to pitch our tent on their site, make use of the showers, toilets and the kitchen. Luxurious!





It’s unprecedented, but the next day the circumstances are about perfect. I would give it a 9.5 out of 10. Plain or downhill, a tailwind, smooth asphalt and little traffic. We decide to take a bite out of Nicaragua and make use of the circumstances. Before lunch we have ridden 70 kilometres, which is an astonishing amount for us. We don’t push through because let’s not exaggerate. In the next town we decide to go to the city hall to see if they can help us with a safe place to camp.
We are treated with super helpful people! They have a municipal building somewhere in a park with all kinds of facilities that we love: toilets, showers, kitchen. A member of the city hall even guides us to the place and introduces us to the guards which will also be here during the night. How perfect is this? We set up the tent in the kitchen and rest for the remaining of the day.
Next up: Another side of Nicaragua. A not so welcoming and hospitable side. Stay tuned. Wow, what a cliffhanger, isn’t it?





He Marijn,
Wederom mooie verhalen gelezen van je avontuur in Amerika. Voor mijn gevoel waren dit 3 verhalen binnen 1 week, het lijkt ineens allemaal zo snel te gaan.
Zorg goed voor jezelf en voor je fietsvrienden en “cycle on”.
Groeten, Roger
Weer een enerverend verhaal met ups en downs , want soms zit het (leven) tegen en soms lacht het je tegemoet
Op naar het vlg verhaal
Weer helemaal bijgelezen! Wat een avonturen weer en je hebt de spanning nu wel erg opgebouwd. Benieuwd weer naar het volgende avontuur. Liefs Henny en Jeanne
Het blijft mooi om te lezen Marijn. En de cliff hanger is niet verklapt door je ouders die we inmiddels hebben gesproken over Costa Rica en het treffen met jou.
Mooi, mooi, mooi.
Ook willen we deze reactie gebruiken om jou te feliciteren met je verjaardag. Neem er een biertje op Marijn en graag tot de volgende episode.
Groetjes