Directions

After some beach time and working on a nice sunburn for a couple hours yesterday morning I set off riding to the city of Santiago around 1 pm. One thing about rides down in central america is that you can never be sure how long they will take and were they may take you. One of these reasons is there are next to no distance signs on the highways, and the other problem is that people will tell you what they think you want to here instead of the truth, especially when it comes to distances. When its really 30 km to some place, they will tell you 15 km because they want to see you smile. This causes problems for a gringo biker. Around 6 pm last night it was starting to get dark and Santiago city was nowhere in sight. I began asking locals and they suggested it was just 1 hr away. Doable, after another hr of riding it was now completely dark and still no city so I asked again. This time the city was just 30 min away. Alright I though I might as well put my headlamp on and keep going as there was a pretty well known and cheap hostal just outside of Santiago. After another hr of biking, still no city so I asked again. Now it was 45 mins to Santiago. Confused, running out of food and getting tired I started looking for an alternate accomodation for the night but there was nothing but jungle and swamplands so I kept riding. Finally at 10 pm, bonking and half in a coma I rolled into the hostal and passed out in a bed swearing to never listen to local directions again. Today its back into the mountains around Sante Fe to get out of the sweltering heat and more Canadian temps. First off I will buy a map and then start biking with my headphones on so I can no longer listen to local directions.