Home » Nicaragua » Hasta la Tardis

What an amazing thing time is! ..its my birthday where a lot of you are and its not til tomorrow for me here...so thank you for the wishes....time warping from the ruinas back to the 21st century altho' the border x-ing into Nicaragua was not user friendly...I mean how hard would it be just to put up a couple of signs? like passports here and vehicle stuff here...felt like whipping out the felt nib and just writing on the wall...and no-one, even the people who work there, have much idea...a Panamanian english speaking guy asked several of the officials for directions for us...and they turned out to be wrong!!...anyway, we ultimately worked it out...passports were easy, and the bike stuff a black comedy of errors culminating in a waiting game with the last Honduran official who was insisting on getting the non-existant bit of paper that we should have got on the way in...we outlasted him and in the end he just waved us thru'...or waived us thru'...

Hasta la Tardis

Bill Shum
2006-03-24 22:07:24

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laid back...property is the boom and many seppo real estate agents getting stuck right into it!...
Like all countries Nicaragua has a standout feature..its the cutlery, everywhere the knife and fork are wrapped in a paper napkin...so what, you ask, its like that everywhere...but no, here its abso impossible to find the end and they're soo tightly wrapped you have to bust them apart ..and of course the napkin is fcuked!...and its like this everywhere in Nica...and nowhere else!...
So, in Granada, they have a Melbourne/Sydney sort of rivalry, even got to fisticuffs and worse...we decided to miss the carnivale and the 10 thousand horsemen ride-by tonight and left for the beach. Saw the local girl dancers and the boy band support...fantastic, noisy, animated, crazy stuff...
So, the beach, and what a perfect little bay this is San Juan del Sur ...sort of a >Noosa 50 years ago feel altho' the real estate guys are on the job here too...tots a Costa Rican ex-pats are bailing and coming here..some pretty shmiko big places up on the hill...
These bikes are amazing, and they're such a centre of attention, as I ride along I see people spot the bike coming, push thru' the crowd and wave madly or salute ...all sorts of people come and stare, and start telling us about their bikes, in one small town we stopped for a drink, the town was full of people for a military display or something, we stopped at the other end of the square and withing half an hour the crowd had moved down to watch us!!...bizarre, like you'd expect in India...and people recognize us somehow!...after we get changed and go uptown anywhere there's people saying...oh you're the guys on the bikes!!...like we're almost unrecognizable as anything with all the gear on...
And out on the road I kept seeing these little kids waving...then I realised they're holding out their hands for money...they wait, with a shovel, and as a vehicle comes they throw some dirt in a pothole and make like they're working, and hold out for some $$.....
When we got to near one of the beaches a group of schoolgirls held us up...they had some hand-lettered signs and a piece of string across the road...a fund-raiser for the school so we paid up!
Many Rivas to Cross...well I just wanted to get that in,...actually we shot straight thru Rivas so I can't tell you nada!
Saw a cop chatting a donkey cart at the side of the road...had he pulled him over?..booking him?, unlicensed?. unroadworthy?
Later on, an ox-cart leaves the road, OK for the oxen, they just lumber off the shoulder and down into the ditch, but the driver...he's braced himself in the flimsy framed cart as he gets thrown from side to side...funny as...and a good win for the hapless oxen...usually 2, one is the steering ox, the other is the gtrunt ox...should pick up a new model, 2 ox power, eight hoof drive....you know the story..
OK gentle readers, enough again...crikey, is there anyone out there able to read all this...I sure can't....so tomorrow its Costa Lotta Rico...and spend my birthday battling with the admin people at the border...or maybe we can stay here another day...the chicas are hot and the beer is cold....thanks Jen.