We sat in a small restaurant in Ocotal, Nicaragua, their only patrons of the evening. There was no menu; either you wanted what they cooked or you didn’t. After several hours of travel that day, the five of us were tired and starving, and so we ate. Seated around a small table with Pastor Orlando, our local ministry contact for the month, we began to introduce ourselves and find out what our month in Ocotal will look like. Orlando speaks no English, so Dre was called upon once again to translate the entire conversation. Having had no previous contact with us, Orlando wasn’t quite sure what to do with us at first. Coupled with the fact that his daughter was about to give birth, he decided to send us to a “very rural village” as he described it in northern Nicaragua for the weekend to participate in a revival. Less than 15 hours after arriving in Ocotal, we were back on the road again.
With all of our stuff packed in the bed, we crammed into Orlando’s four-door pickup truck and headed out just after 6 a.m. The plan was to arrive in Murra, a village 3 hours away, for breakfast with the local Pastor, Cristobal. The drive out of Ocotal was beautiful; rolling hills coupled with innocent looking mountain peaks and lush meadows. For some reason the road itself caught my attention, though at first I wasn’t quite sure why. Then I realized that the road was actually made out of grey bricks; we were driving on a road that was laid by hand, brick by brick. For nearly 2 hours I enjoyed the scenery, watching the hills roll by and waiting for the next bridge across a river. And then everything changed. Suddenly the road was no longer a road, rather a dirt trail. Well, what would have been a dirt trail if not for all the rain which has fallen lately. What for two hours was a beautiful brick road is now more like a muddy river. Up to the task, Orlando’s Toyota Hilux (what is actually a Tacoma in the states) presses on, conquering the muddy hills. We arrive in Murra right on schedule and enjoy breakfast. (side note: It’s sometimes difficult to tell which meal it is that we’re eating. No matter the time of day, chicken, beans, and rice is a pretty standard offering).
After breakfast, Orlando tells us that Cristobal will be taking us the rest of the way to Rosario, the village hosting this weekend’s revival. In what seemed like 10 seconds, the truck was unloaded, our stuff was moved inside the church, and Orlando was gone. We have no idea where we are on a map and we just met this guy, Cristobal, whose care we are under for the next 3 days. And oh yeah, Orlando left us with a warning the night before at dinner: “The food will probably make you sick, and whatever you do, don’t drink the water.” Alright God, it’s showtime. We’re gonna need some major help with this one.
Cristobal tells us to wait in the church for the next hour, then we’ll be on our way. An hour passes. Two hours pass. Three hours pass. Cristobal re-appears to say that the truck is going to be a little longer. Four hours pass. Our food is pretty much gone and we’re starting to get a tad restless. Are we going or not? We’re all a little nervous about going to this village in the first place, but now we’re being forced to sit here in anticipation. Maybe this is God showing us not to go. Confused, we gather in a circle and pray, asking God for clear direction. “Trust me. Go to Rosario.” A fifth hour passes before the truck finally shows up. It’s a small, late 80’s Toyota Tacoma with a partially rusted out body and a cage in the bed. We load up out gear and climb into the bed with the 5 or 6 other people traveling to Rosario with us. To say it was a tight fit would be an understatement. Pastor Cristobal was standing on the rear bumper hanging on for dear life. This was shaping up to be an interesting 3 hour drive, but hey, that’s part of the fun of the World Race, right?
So off we go. Wait, first let me say that Murra is a village in the valley between 3 large mountain peaks. We came into the valley through the smaller mountain range, but apparently Rosario is further out in the mountains. And it’s a funny thing about the mountain roads here – they don’t believe in switchbacks. Nope, the Nicaraguan people use the ol’ ‘as the crow flies’ approach with their roadways. So here we are, way too many people with way to much stuff packed into way too small of a space in a way too old truck climbing strait up a mountain towards what felt like the top of the world’s tallest rollercoaster. I don’t think it was the steep inclined that bothered me, rather more so the fact that we were 3 inches from plummeting over the edge into the abyss that lay below. T
he truck was doing the best it could, nestled into the large ruts where other, much more qualified trucks had made this trek previously and left their mark to prove it. About one-third of the way up the mountain the truck started to make a screeching noise. Halfway up the mountain the screeching noise was getting worse. Three-quarters of the way up the mountain the screech sounded like a banshee, unbearably loud and not at all comforting considering our current situation on the side of what, at the time, seemed like Mt. Everest.
I am firmly convinced that only God got that little truck to the top of the mountain before the transmission gave out, which it finally did. Our long day is getting longer. Now we’re a good 30 minute drive straight uphill with all of our stuff and no vehicle. What else can we stir into the pot? Well, how about the fact that we have about 90 minutes of sunlight left? “God, please get us off of this mountain somehow!” Cristobal’s cell phone still has reception, so he’s able to call down the mountain and get another truck to pick us up. Forty-five minutes later our new truck shows up, already carrying 4 passengers in the bed. We’re even more cramped than before, but the new truck in more rugged and trustworthy than the last. And it’s a good thing too, because that first rollercoaster-like hill was just an appetizer. The entire trip felt like it was straight up in the air, the engine screaming the whole way. I will never forget the beautiful views which my eyes saw from those mountain tops as long as I live. The sun finally went down, but we were still going up, ascending into the night sky. For hours we twisted and turned, grinding our way through the mountains of Nicaragua towards our God-given destination. We passed through several small villages along the way, each one offering the hope that our journey had ended, only to leave them behind, pressing onward and upward. Finally, at the end of our traveling patience, we crested a mountain and saw the beautiful twinkle of a village down in the valley. The white lights danced in amongst the trees below, inviting us to stop and rest. Rosario! We descended the final mountain peak, crossed over a bridge-less river, and entered Rosario. As we drove down the main street (actually, what in the light of day turned out to be the only street) we could hear really loud music coming a few hundred feet away. There was a concert up ahead…
