Back Into Honduras
Day 50 to Day 56
Tuesday, April 27th to Monday, May 3rd, 2010
Isla Ometepe to Granada to Lago Apoyo
Local Day
Lago De Apoyo to Ocotal, Nicaragua
Ocotal to Comayagua, Honduras
Comayagua to Lago Yojoa
Lago Yojoa to Copan Ruinas, Honduras
Volcan Masaya, Nicaragua
I had ridden into Granada first to check it out and possibly stay overnight. It somehow didn´t appeal to me too much. While there seemed to be a refreshing lack of pushy tourist herders it still didn´t catch my imagination. This could simply be because I was becoming a bit tired of Central American cities and craving the solitude of the countryside. After a quick and overpriced meal at the local Mexican restaurant I went back on the road to head to Lago De Apoyo. The guidebook says it´s nice so I wanted to check it out.
Imagine my surprise when the road started to drop down into the huge crater of an extinct volcano filled with water. There was pretty much no one on the lake and not a whole lot of built up areas around it. It´s part of a natural preserve and the setting was wonderfully idyllic. I stayed at The Crater´s Edge, a nice little place run by a Canadian woman from Richmond, BC. I spent two evenings swinging in a hammock, sipping drinks having great, albeit pricey, vegetarian evening meals, watching the lightning shows over the lake at night, and having very deep and interesting conversations about spiritual matters with a couple from Maine. A great way to recharge my batteries and close enough to Volcan Masaya and Granada for day trips.
Volcan Masaya, shrouded in sulfur fumes
Hiking around the Volcan Masaya area
In spite of the stifling heat and humidity I decided to go on a one hour solo hike around two exctinct craters beside Volcan Masaya. The young park ranger encouraged me to do it and offered to watch my bike if I moved it closer to his post. Dripping profusely I trudged along a good trail and thoroughly enjoyed the peacefulness. There were great views onto Volcan Masaya, the town of Masaya with Lago Masaya right beside it, and the surrounding dry landscape. I had the place to myself until two busloads of local teenagers showed up. They were pretty well behaved and one even picked up his garbage and apologized after I gently chided him for throwing it on the ground in the first place.
View from Crater´s Edge Hotel, Lago De Apoyo
May Day Celebrations in Jinotega, Nicaragua
The ride from Lago De Apoyo to Jinotega was mostly just long, with a few nice twisty parts thrown in for good measure. Closer to Jinotega the road starts climbing and climbing and climbing as the air cools and freshens. The bike is now splattered with tar since the road was being paved. The rain was coming down in sheets and the two plastic shopping bags were keeping my feet very dry.
On the way is the Finca Selva Negra (Black Forest Farm). It was founded by German immigrants a long time ago and named after Germany´s Black Forest, which it does resemble a bit. Many of the buildings are in the old German/Swiss mountain style. A pond with ducks borders the restaurant patio where I had an overpriced meal and some really good coffee on the patio while watching the sheets of water descending from the heavens. The rooms were too expensive, especially considering that they smelled very musty and moldy.
May Day Celebrations in Jinotega, Nicaragua
On I went in the rain and ended up staying in a nice little hotel in downtown Jinotega, where they gave me a special parking spot in their second garage, under a roof to keep everything dry. The lovely owner immediately offered me a coffee made from the beans of the family´s own coffee finca ...delicious. The two women were very intrigued by the bike and one was musing about getting a bike of her own to enjoy the liberty of the open road and going wherever she wanted. It was the lone male who seemed less than keen on the idea of a motorbike. Too dangerous, he asserted.
The next day I decided on a relatively short distance to the last town, Ocotal, before the Honduras border. There was only one real hotel in town and they graciously did give me a small discount when I asked. The pool and poolside bar was nice and refreshing. There will be musical entertainment tonight I was told. How late will it go? I asked. I was repeatedly assured that it would be all done by 11:00pm. Finally at 1:30am the music stopped and I grumpily went to sleep.
Climbing uphill into pine forests after crossing into Honduras
I pulled up to the Honduras border and a young man in regular clothing said ¨Buenos dias, pasaporte y titulo por favor¨ (Good morning, passport and title please). I looked him up and down, gave him a look that basically said I´m not playing your game and please don´t bleep with me. The I asked him ¨Quien es?¨ (Who are you). Guia (Guide) he responded ...no gracias I told him as I pictured myself planting my foot where it would hurt him the most ...the gall!! At least the others don´t try to scam and immediately make it clear that they´re helpers and not government agents.
The crossing into Honduras was rather painless, except for the fact that I had to pay $35 again for the motorbike import permit. I was informed that if I had crossed back at the same border where I left Honduras I wouldn´t have to pay again since it would still be on file there. I guess linking the computers via some kind of network is still not something they´ve been able to do. The Aduana fellow was very nice about it and I wasn´t about to detour for 1/2 a day just to save $34. Besides, I was now up in the cool mountains and didn´t really feel drawn to the hot and humid lowlands where I had exited Honduras. The whole process took only 1 hour and 15 minutes, including about 15 minutes to locate the imigracion lady who had mysteriously disappeared for a while.
South towards Valle De Angeles and Tegucigalpa
Being one to usually take the road less travelled, I headed off the main highway an hour outside of Tegucigalpa. There seemed to be some mountains on my map ...ie, cool and fresh so I decided on a detour. After all, there was a line on the map feeling a bit lonely all by itself. The little paved road climbs as though it were trying to reach the gods in the sky. The air once more cooled off beautifully and the stickiness left my skin within a few minutes. More beautiful pine trees covered the steep mountain slopes. If it weren´t for the latino people and occasional banana and mango trees one could be forgiven for thinking it was a part of British Columbia.
Valle De Angeles
Valle De Angeles
Valle De Angeles, the other side
Valle De Angeles was one of these little tourist towns that relies heavily on the nearby big city for day trippers and weekenders out for a little mountain time away from the city. In spite of its´ touristy nature (mostly local Honduran tourists from the capital) it was still pretty laid back and relaxing. I was there on a Sunday when things were in full swing.
Tegucigalpa Market.
The road from Valle De Angeles drops steadily and was choked with Sunday afternoon traffic heading home to Tegucigalpa from the mountains. There didn´t seem to be a way around the city from that side and the road plunks you smack dab in the middle of the city. This was one of the least appealing cities I´ve been in so far. The traffic wasn´t too bad since it was Sunday. But the roads were atrocious in the centre and some had worn down to bare dirt and sand. I ended up slowly winding through a street lined with market booths and finally ended up asking a young man on a small motorcycle for directions. Before I knew it he, with his girlfriend on the back seat, was leading me out of the city, weaving through traffic like a typical latin american motorbiker. This is now about the 6th time that I had someone literally lead me out of a city.
From Tegucigalpa to Camayagua the road is heavily under construction with lots of little gravel detours, tons of trucks driven like a bunch of maniacs. The going was a bit long and I arrived in Comayagua tired and a bit overheated. The first hotel I checked out was $65 ...too expensive. The next one, beside the Burger King and Pizza Hut was $30 ...still a bit expensive. But there was a 650 VStrom from Quebec parked in front of it so I just had to stay there. I ended up knocking on the other biker´s door. Phillipe is from south of Montreal and we decided to ride together for a while. He started in Quebec, rode to Ushuaia, Argentina. He´s now on his way up to Alaska and will then head back to Quebec from there. A total of about 70.000km´s. Makes my trip look a wee bit tiny.
Lago Yojoa, Honduras
I had told Phillipe about a brewpub at Lago Yojoa and that I just had to go there. After a little quip about my ¨German .ness¨ He went along with me. It was a bit of a hot ride but fairly short. After turning off the main highway at La Guama, the scenery immediately changed. A narrow, paved country road wounds its´ way through very pretty pastoral scenery.
Lago Yojoa, Honduras
We managed to miss the turn to the brewery ...no signage and were following a pretty little country road along a huge white pipeline. It must be the beer pipeline from the brewpub I reasoned. When we realized that we were going in the wrong direction Phillipe decided to pull a U Turn. I couldn´t quite figure out why he drove off the road onto the grass. After all, I could have turned on that road even though it was a bit narrow. That´s when I saw the look on his face and realized that his little grassy explorations weren´t exactly deliberate.
Phillipe in Pena Blanca, Honduras
After several team efforts between the two of us ..and his bike being dropped twice, he was back up on the road and we were laughing about it ..as opposed to some of the other things escaping Phillipe´s mouth earlier.
We arrived at the Brewpub and I was looking forward to a nice cold microbrew after our little adventure. ¨We only have the rasberry and Apricot Ales right now. There´s been a bit of a malted barley crisis and Bob, the owner is in San Pedro Sula to sort it out¨. Sigh! after all this we had to drink fruit beer. But it was actually not bad at all and I managed to pound back three of them.
Tonight I camped for free at the brewpub and whatever I saved by camping I quickly spent on beer and good food by the refreshing pool.
At the D&D Brewpub, Lago Yojoa Area
At the D&D Brewpub, Lago Yojoa Area
Local Children near Lago Yojoa
Phillipe had convinced me to visit some hotsprings in a cave on the way from Lago Yojoa to Copan Ruinas. We turned off the main highway onto a good paved road. The paved road turned into a good gravel road. This unfortunately degraded to track at best about 2km´s from the hotsprings. We took a look at the beginning of the road and decided that it was passable. Phillipe went first. After less than one minute he was stopped and waving frantically at me to stop. His front tire was pointing downhill, up against large loose shale type rocks which made up a part of the track. After a quick look, I made it clear that I wasn´t going to continue on this road. Phillipe didn´t argue one bit. With some local help, we wrestled his bike around, pointing uphill.
2 more km´s to the hotsprings
Now Way Man! I´m not going any further
Local Peasant patiently waits while we wrestle the bike around.
So on we went to Copan Ruinas. The road once more winds and climbs into the mountains and the air cools nicely. Copan Ruinas strucks us both as quite a nice little town. We looked at one hotel and were just about ready to take the room ...we had decided to share to save some money, when a tout from another hotel snatched us away and led us to another place which was nicer and cheaper. The poor sap was trying to get us to go on a horse tour of the ruins and we told him that we couldn´t really decide right now. He was waiting for us at 8:00am and was very disappointed when we both turned him down in favour of an unguided walk amongst the ruins by ourselves.
Tuesday, April 27th to Monday, May 3rd, 2010
Isla Ometepe to Granada to Lago Apoyo
Local Day
Lago De Apoyo to Ocotal, Nicaragua
Ocotal to Comayagua, Honduras
Comayagua to Lago Yojoa
Lago Yojoa to Copan Ruinas, Honduras
Volcan Masaya, Nicaragua
I had ridden into Granada first to check it out and possibly stay overnight. It somehow didn´t appeal to me too much. While there seemed to be a refreshing lack of pushy tourist herders it still didn´t catch my imagination. This could simply be because I was becoming a bit tired of Central American cities and craving the solitude of the countryside. After a quick and overpriced meal at the local Mexican restaurant I went back on the road to head to Lago De Apoyo. The guidebook says it´s nice so I wanted to check it out.
Imagine my surprise when the road started to drop down into the huge crater of an extinct volcano filled with water. There was pretty much no one on the lake and not a whole lot of built up areas around it. It´s part of a natural preserve and the setting was wonderfully idyllic. I stayed at The Crater´s Edge, a nice little place run by a Canadian woman from Richmond, BC. I spent two evenings swinging in a hammock, sipping drinks having great, albeit pricey, vegetarian evening meals, watching the lightning shows over the lake at night, and having very deep and interesting conversations about spiritual matters with a couple from Maine. A great way to recharge my batteries and close enough to Volcan Masaya and Granada for day trips.
Volcan Masaya, shrouded in sulfur fumes
Hiking around the Volcan Masaya area
In spite of the stifling heat and humidity I decided to go on a one hour solo hike around two exctinct craters beside Volcan Masaya. The young park ranger encouraged me to do it and offered to watch my bike if I moved it closer to his post. Dripping profusely I trudged along a good trail and thoroughly enjoyed the peacefulness. There were great views onto Volcan Masaya, the town of Masaya with Lago Masaya right beside it, and the surrounding dry landscape. I had the place to myself until two busloads of local teenagers showed up. They were pretty well behaved and one even picked up his garbage and apologized after I gently chided him for throwing it on the ground in the first place.
View from Crater´s Edge Hotel, Lago De Apoyo
May Day Celebrations in Jinotega, Nicaragua
The ride from Lago De Apoyo to Jinotega was mostly just long, with a few nice twisty parts thrown in for good measure. Closer to Jinotega the road starts climbing and climbing and climbing as the air cools and freshens. The bike is now splattered with tar since the road was being paved. The rain was coming down in sheets and the two plastic shopping bags were keeping my feet very dry.
On the way is the Finca Selva Negra (Black Forest Farm). It was founded by German immigrants a long time ago and named after Germany´s Black Forest, which it does resemble a bit. Many of the buildings are in the old German/Swiss mountain style. A pond with ducks borders the restaurant patio where I had an overpriced meal and some really good coffee on the patio while watching the sheets of water descending from the heavens. The rooms were too expensive, especially considering that they smelled very musty and moldy.
May Day Celebrations in Jinotega, Nicaragua
On I went in the rain and ended up staying in a nice little hotel in downtown Jinotega, where they gave me a special parking spot in their second garage, under a roof to keep everything dry. The lovely owner immediately offered me a coffee made from the beans of the family´s own coffee finca ...delicious. The two women were very intrigued by the bike and one was musing about getting a bike of her own to enjoy the liberty of the open road and going wherever she wanted. It was the lone male who seemed less than keen on the idea of a motorbike. Too dangerous, he asserted.
The next day I decided on a relatively short distance to the last town, Ocotal, before the Honduras border. There was only one real hotel in town and they graciously did give me a small discount when I asked. The pool and poolside bar was nice and refreshing. There will be musical entertainment tonight I was told. How late will it go? I asked. I was repeatedly assured that it would be all done by 11:00pm. Finally at 1:30am the music stopped and I grumpily went to sleep.
Climbing uphill into pine forests after crossing into Honduras
I pulled up to the Honduras border and a young man in regular clothing said ¨Buenos dias, pasaporte y titulo por favor¨ (Good morning, passport and title please). I looked him up and down, gave him a look that basically said I´m not playing your game and please don´t bleep with me. The I asked him ¨Quien es?¨ (Who are you). Guia (Guide) he responded ...no gracias I told him as I pictured myself planting my foot where it would hurt him the most ...the gall!! At least the others don´t try to scam and immediately make it clear that they´re helpers and not government agents.
The crossing into Honduras was rather painless, except for the fact that I had to pay $35 again for the motorbike import permit. I was informed that if I had crossed back at the same border where I left Honduras I wouldn´t have to pay again since it would still be on file there. I guess linking the computers via some kind of network is still not something they´ve been able to do. The Aduana fellow was very nice about it and I wasn´t about to detour for 1/2 a day just to save $34. Besides, I was now up in the cool mountains and didn´t really feel drawn to the hot and humid lowlands where I had exited Honduras. The whole process took only 1 hour and 15 minutes, including about 15 minutes to locate the imigracion lady who had mysteriously disappeared for a while.
South towards Valle De Angeles and Tegucigalpa
Being one to usually take the road less travelled, I headed off the main highway an hour outside of Tegucigalpa. There seemed to be some mountains on my map ...ie, cool and fresh so I decided on a detour. After all, there was a line on the map feeling a bit lonely all by itself. The little paved road climbs as though it were trying to reach the gods in the sky. The air once more cooled off beautifully and the stickiness left my skin within a few minutes. More beautiful pine trees covered the steep mountain slopes. If it weren´t for the latino people and occasional banana and mango trees one could be forgiven for thinking it was a part of British Columbia.
Valle De Angeles
Valle De Angeles
Valle De Angeles, the other side
Valle De Angeles was one of these little tourist towns that relies heavily on the nearby big city for day trippers and weekenders out for a little mountain time away from the city. In spite of its´ touristy nature (mostly local Honduran tourists from the capital) it was still pretty laid back and relaxing. I was there on a Sunday when things were in full swing.
Tegucigalpa Market.
The road from Valle De Angeles drops steadily and was choked with Sunday afternoon traffic heading home to Tegucigalpa from the mountains. There didn´t seem to be a way around the city from that side and the road plunks you smack dab in the middle of the city. This was one of the least appealing cities I´ve been in so far. The traffic wasn´t too bad since it was Sunday. But the roads were atrocious in the centre and some had worn down to bare dirt and sand. I ended up slowly winding through a street lined with market booths and finally ended up asking a young man on a small motorcycle for directions. Before I knew it he, with his girlfriend on the back seat, was leading me out of the city, weaving through traffic like a typical latin american motorbiker. This is now about the 6th time that I had someone literally lead me out of a city.
From Tegucigalpa to Camayagua the road is heavily under construction with lots of little gravel detours, tons of trucks driven like a bunch of maniacs. The going was a bit long and I arrived in Comayagua tired and a bit overheated. The first hotel I checked out was $65 ...too expensive. The next one, beside the Burger King and Pizza Hut was $30 ...still a bit expensive. But there was a 650 VStrom from Quebec parked in front of it so I just had to stay there. I ended up knocking on the other biker´s door. Phillipe is from south of Montreal and we decided to ride together for a while. He started in Quebec, rode to Ushuaia, Argentina. He´s now on his way up to Alaska and will then head back to Quebec from there. A total of about 70.000km´s. Makes my trip look a wee bit tiny.
Lago Yojoa, Honduras
I had told Phillipe about a brewpub at Lago Yojoa and that I just had to go there. After a little quip about my ¨German .ness¨ He went along with me. It was a bit of a hot ride but fairly short. After turning off the main highway at La Guama, the scenery immediately changed. A narrow, paved country road wounds its´ way through very pretty pastoral scenery.
Lago Yojoa, Honduras
We managed to miss the turn to the brewery ...no signage and were following a pretty little country road along a huge white pipeline. It must be the beer pipeline from the brewpub I reasoned. When we realized that we were going in the wrong direction Phillipe decided to pull a U Turn. I couldn´t quite figure out why he drove off the road onto the grass. After all, I could have turned on that road even though it was a bit narrow. That´s when I saw the look on his face and realized that his little grassy explorations weren´t exactly deliberate.
Phillipe in Pena Blanca, Honduras
After several team efforts between the two of us ..and his bike being dropped twice, he was back up on the road and we were laughing about it ..as opposed to some of the other things escaping Phillipe´s mouth earlier.
We arrived at the Brewpub and I was looking forward to a nice cold microbrew after our little adventure. ¨We only have the rasberry and Apricot Ales right now. There´s been a bit of a malted barley crisis and Bob, the owner is in San Pedro Sula to sort it out¨. Sigh! after all this we had to drink fruit beer. But it was actually not bad at all and I managed to pound back three of them.
Tonight I camped for free at the brewpub and whatever I saved by camping I quickly spent on beer and good food by the refreshing pool.
At the D&D Brewpub, Lago Yojoa Area
At the D&D Brewpub, Lago Yojoa Area
Local Children near Lago Yojoa
Phillipe had convinced me to visit some hotsprings in a cave on the way from Lago Yojoa to Copan Ruinas. We turned off the main highway onto a good paved road. The paved road turned into a good gravel road. This unfortunately degraded to track at best about 2km´s from the hotsprings. We took a look at the beginning of the road and decided that it was passable. Phillipe went first. After less than one minute he was stopped and waving frantically at me to stop. His front tire was pointing downhill, up against large loose shale type rocks which made up a part of the track. After a quick look, I made it clear that I wasn´t going to continue on this road. Phillipe didn´t argue one bit. With some local help, we wrestled his bike around, pointing uphill.
2 more km´s to the hotsprings
Now Way Man! I´m not going any further
Local Peasant patiently waits while we wrestle the bike around.
So on we went to Copan Ruinas. The road once more winds and climbs into the mountains and the air cools nicely. Copan Ruinas strucks us both as quite a nice little town. We looked at one hotel and were just about ready to take the room ...we had decided to share to save some money, when a tout from another hotel snatched us away and led us to another place which was nicer and cheaper. The poor sap was trying to get us to go on a horse tour of the ruins and we told him that we couldn´t really decide right now. He was waiting for us at 8:00am and was very disappointed when we both turned him down in favour of an unguided walk amongst the ruins by ourselves.
Comments