The area around Volcano Arenal is beautiful and green which meant I woke up to rain. So I went to the hot springs passing some monkeys and some funny looking creature on the side of the road.

Other than heading roughly south my plans are very flexible. The first place I had planned to go in Costa Rica was Volcano Arenal until I got an email in the morning saying it might be windy, so I decided to head to the coast. Then talking to someone at the border they [...]

Riding towards the border of Costa Rica there were thousands of swallows dive bombing the road. I didn’t figure out why until I rode through this huge swarm of little bugs that instantaneously covered the front of my bike and me. So arrived at the border to be yelled out by the ‘helpers’ [...]

Leaving Omepete I decided to stop and see San Juan del Sur the Nicaraguan surf spot. I stayed with a lovely couple from Canada who had said that their driveway was pretty steep. I got half way up and there was a second 90 degree turn and panicked and couldn’t go any further. [...]

The next day I rode around the two islands in the rain. Turns out they are pretty big as I did almost 80 miles. I also went to a coin museum and a pre-columbian history museum. That piece that is broken was a dildo.

Climbing up the volcano I realised how unfit I have become and made a vow to get some exercise every morning. It was like getting on a stair master when you haven’t before and doing 6 hours. I had to keep on making excuses to stop like photographing the howler monkeys.

If you look at a map of Nicaragua there is a huge lake and in the lake are two connecting volcanic islands and is the largest largest freshwater island in the world.
Also the lake has a bunch of sea fish that swum up the river and adapted to freshwater like a sawtooth fish and bull [...]

Addresses in Nicaragua aren’t done by street addresses. Instead they use reference sites like 3 blocks north of the National Stadium.
On the way back from Managua I stopped at the Harley Dealership and had a silent homage for Colin the Harley rider from Shetland (see Blog Entry, Heartfelt Thanks) who was really encouraging about [...]

I did my last visit to Casa Alianza in Managua (Nicaragua’s capital city that doesn’t have a downtown area due to being destroyed in an earthquake in 1972 and was never rebuilt as the aid raised by the international community was stolen by the US backed government) so instead it is it is a bunch [...]

In Granada I stayed with a really cool guy who had an amazing place. I wish now I had taken photos as I have never slept on a couch in a place that posh. I spent a couple of days watching conspiracy videos about America. How do they get away with [...]

Doubling the length of my trip has effectively halved my budget so I have started to use www.couchsurfing.com though it isn’t really so much about saving money as the ability to meet up with people who live in the country you are visit.
In Leon I met up with a local guy for a couple of [...]

Arriving in Esteli I ended up riding around the city for a couple of hours trying to find a place that had secure parking for my bike and eventually ended up in this roadside hotel for $20 where they didn’t lock the parking area anyway and I had to wear ear plugs due to the [...]

Arriving at the border Honduras Nicaragua on Friday morning I was surrounded by a pack of kids all screaming at me in Spanish offering their services to ‘help’ me. It was quite intimidating so rather than use one which I wouldn’t have minded doing I asked them to leave me alone and after about [...]

I managed to ride into the Tegucigalpa and find Casa Alianza only stopping to ask directions once which I was pretty pleased about. When I got there Juan the director gave me an overview of the organisation’s programs with the help of Lucy (a Hungarian volunteer) translating.
Casa Alianza have between 160-180 street children in [...]

I checked into an ‘expensive’ hotel with a toilet that doesn’t flush and a cold, leaky shower because I wanted wireless internet so I could sort out the fact that Barclays will no longer allow me to log into my online account with this stupid card reader and I won’t be able to until I [...]