Wednesday Jan. 21, 2007
The small border crossing into Nicaragua was brief and simple. Based on my experiences heading south, I was expecting an even poorer country when I reached this country. To my surprise I found the roads in much better shape as well as the presence of modern tractors and machinery in the more plentiful farms along the highway and newer vehicles being driven on the roads. At one point I stopped to take a picture of an enormous coffee processing station where tons of beans were spread out to dry under the hot sun.
These countries are so small that I easily made it to the colonial city of Granada on huge Lake Nicaragua before nightfall. It's a nice place to visit with pretty buildings which retained most of their historical styling, but has a clean and modern look after being rebuilt since it was torched by retreating troops in 1856.
It was on my second day here that met a fellow rider named Christian, who's BMW GS from Nevada I had left my card on in Antigua. We had communicated occasionally by email since, but we were both surprised to meet each other here in-person. After a brief discussion with him and another fellow he'd just met on a BMW from NY (who was heading back home after riding to Panama), I decided to leave for Costa Rica the next morning and he would leave within days afterwards. Our plans were to meet up a little ways down the road and possibly ride together into Colombia. I spent one night on a Pacific ocean beach town named San Juan Del Sur before entering (through basically the only border) Costa Rica on the undesirable Panamerican highway.
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