The Real Nicaragua

After over a week in the toursity side of Nicaragua I headed up into the highlands and spent three days riding over mtn passes and through forest reserves. It was like being in a different country as the people up here weren´t affected by the tourist dollar yet so there were no scams, no begging kids and no crazy raxi drivers. Life seemed pretty simple, people hung out alot, drank alot of cokes and ate lot´s of rice and beans. The dogs were pretty relaxed as well as I figure they´re either to hot or to hungry to give chase to a biker. Im beggining to think that the economy of a country could be judged solely by sending a single biker to bike through the country and count the number of dog chases to total loose dogs. Fairly simple formula as I figure the richer the country the more vicous the dogs as they are better nourished and taken cared of. I will write a book on this theory once I return to Canada. Todays ride started with the plan of riding 40 km over rough roads back to the pan am highway and then to head north up to the Nicaraguan boarder town of Ocotal. 4km into the ride the plan changed as there was another road heading up a 900 m vertical acent into a plateau at 1400 m and the cloudforest reserve of Miraflor. Having only enough food and water to last the 3 hr ride I planned to the pan am highway and not for a 6 hr detour I stopped into the next house I came across and asked to buy some food. The family was pretty stoked and served up a plate of tortillas, cheese, beans and coffee, filled my water bottles and then refused my money. Not sure how to thank my generous host family of 9, who lived in a single room house, I gave them a slideshow of Canada including pics of biking in the snow and Mtn Robson which impressed them to say the least. Afterwards it was onto another ride through the heat of another scorching Nicaraguan day. Tommorow its off to the unknown land of Honduras.