I woke up in Esteli, got coffee and some cash and packed up the moto. I was planning to head to a place in the mountains of Miraflor that I had found on iOverlander. It sounded pretty interesting and a perfect spot to check out some more of the nature of the area.
The ride was gorgeous but as usual the roads became awful. I tried to go the way that google recommended only to turn back because it was too muddy. The area is clearly a “cloud forest” type place and you can see long beards hanging off of all the trees which are subsistent on the incredibly humid air. It gives it a nice “old creepy forest” vibe.
On the way my gasoline line popped off for some reason and I was unaware until the engine shut down. I felt the ever slightest shutter of the engine prior and knew something was up but chose to ignore it. When it shut down and I stopped and got the rich scent of gas in my nostrils and when I looked down at my boot it and the engine were soaked in gas. I jumped off and took a closer look. It looked like all that happened was the metal piece popped off and all I had to do was put it in. So I did and ran the engine a second and bam I continued on. The initial dread I felt at having to make a repair on the side of the road subsided into relief and then skepticism. It felt like it was too easy.
After trudging through and next to rivers of mud I finally made it to the homestay where the kid I had been messaging as through iOverlander was waving at me on the street. He said he could hear my moto from way off. I parked the bike in their house and the Mom Ana introduced herself to me and said her husband Carlos would be back soon. The 2 kids names were Carlos and Jose. Carlos is 20 and Jose is a couple years younger.
Riding the mud
Don Carlos came back before long and him and his son immediately set off to try to help fix everything on my bike. Since the choke lever had just snapped off we tried to make a new one with some very minor success. I now have a washer superglued on there that can kind of turn the choke but also unscrews a bolt each time. Better than it was I guess.
Doing some fixies
I then sat down to eat with Don Carlos and he told me a little bit of his history. He is from El Salvador but fled from there to Nicaragua due to mafia related issues. He was a little vague about it but someone he knew had been killed and they were saying he was next so he left with his family. But he didn’t really like Nicaragua. He thinks the education in Nicaragua is awful and that all of his neighbors are communists and persecute you if you are not. There had been lots of issues in this area a few years ago but he told me that now it had mostly fizzled out. He says his neighbors don’t treat him the same as they are from El Salvador and they are not communists.
The kitchen
We then went on a hike around the area. Really gorgeous rainforest and he showed me all the places where people illegally came to cut trees down. He says the poor need to wait for permits while the rich take whatever they want. He needed to wait 3 months to wait to cut down a tree to build his house.
We walked through this abandonced building
Don Carlos and I on a hike
Some cool plants
We then went back, ate dinner and I did some reading in the hammock. The house is very basic with a dirt floor, a toilet you have to pour water down to flush and a nice cold breeze as nothing is sealed. It’s nice to stay for 1 night but it would be rough to stay longer.
He then sat down with his kids and they were on a videocall with some preacher or something in Miami. It was pretty rough to listen to so I just tried to read through it. Then Carlos Jr came and talked to me for a bit and showed me his Encyclopedia. It seems he gets most of his education from reading it. He was really excited to ask me about the countries I had traveled to and showed me each of them in his encyclopedia as I talked about them and he would read me a couple of facts about each one as I talked about them. It was really cool to see him light up, clearly there is a traveler and adventurer inside him.
As is often the case in these tiny places everyone more or less went to bed when it got dark and I’m now going to go to sleep myself at a whopping 830pm. There’s nothing better than good sleep.