I know that many of you are fascinated with the travel involved in this crazy adventure. So, I thought that you might enjoy seeing first hand what went into this last leg. It was actually not a race, but all 27 individuals from the “B squad” traveled together from Antigua, Guatemala to Jinotepe, Nicaragua. It ended up being a two day journey.
Here we are leaving our hostel in Antigua. All 27 of us loaded into this van. As you can tell from the photo, we didn’t even have an aisle! Can you say fire hazard! A few of the guys opted to ride on top of the van (we had some jealous riders inside – me included), but that lasted until the driver started the motor…they quickly retreated in through the windows upon the divers request! Needless to say we were a bit bottom heavy. I think that I saw a few turtles pass us along the way.
Travel buddies – Those of us in the back of the bus seranaded the rest with camp songs. This included getting the whole bus to participate in the actions to “Hallelujah (girls stand), Praise ye the Lord (boys stand)”. I’m sure this was quite the site to see from the road.
After a 2 hour bus ride, we were dropped off in Guatemala City. For our three hour “lay over” we took turns guarding our stuff – our packs took up more than one parking space – and eating at SUBWAY. I request that the subways in the US add avacados to thier condiment section. It definitely add a delightful twist to the ordinary club sandwich.
Around 2pm, we load our next bus. After a few hours we approach our first border crossing of this leg of the journey. Here we come El Salvador. At these borders there are 2 or 3 different check points – so that means a whole lot of waiting. Praise the Lord that our stopping point on the El Salvadorean side provided us with the glorious blessing of pupusas. I have been ranting and raving to my teammates for the past few days about how we have to eat pupusas (a national dish of El Salvador) when we come here. The “pupusa-maker lady” continued to beckon to me through the bus window. I soon surrendered and bought 3 for a dollar. Soon the entire bus was enjoying this delacassy.
We spent that night in San Salvador, only to get a wake up call at 4am so we could load our next bus at 5am. Unfortunately, we missed half of El Salvador because it was hidden in the darkeness of the wee hours of the morning. At our next border crossing (El Sal/Honduras), guards came on the bus to check our passports. But, to our dismay, we did not get them stamped. One of the racers asked if it would be possible to get a stamp – and it was! So a number of us handed over our passports. I didn’t get extra pages put in for nothing. Forty-five minutes later we get them back, after we got a scolding from the bus driver because we were throwing the whole bus schedule off. Oops! But, we got a stamp from both El Salvador and Honduras!
Not long after entering Honduras, our bus passed by a funeral procession. It was quite the experience. Instead of following the hurse in your car, you follow by foot to show your respects.
We basically nicked the corner of Honduras and soon proceeded to our ultimate destination: Nicaragua ( the second poorest county in the Western Hemisphere).
After our 12 hour bus ride, we were ready to grab some zzzzz’s and real food. But first we had one more bus ride to go. So, we loaded our packs on top of 2 vans, tied them down with rope and prayed we wouldn’t lose any along the way! And we didn’t. This final ride took us from Manauga, the capital of Nicaragua, to our Hotel in Jinotepe.
We were warmly welcomed into our new home for the week: Casa de Mateo – su casa en Nicaragua! Complete with pets! Rosie – the McCaw – is just one of the many birds that fills the silence with “Hola”, laughter, a cat’s meow and many other learned behaviors.
WELCOME TO NICARAGUA! OUR NEW HOME UNTIL MARCH 14.
