Lost In Northern Nicaragua

We’ve been trying to adapt to traveling in a poor Central American country as we tour the highlands, but I will admit some days are hard.

Our difficulties are pretty small beer compared to the 19th century hoops local have to jump through as they keep their daily lives going; they may have electricity and even a TV (if a family member is in the US sending back money) but the conveniences we assume are mandatory are way out of reach.  

In the United States we are taught to think of people south of the border as “Latin Americans,” an amorphous mass but on the ground Mexico is as different socially and economically from Guatemala as the US is from Mexico. Mexico has 170 million inhabitants and an economy that would be the envy of the smaller countries to the south. 

Nicaragua is a poor country by contrast to Mexico and the services we take for granted in Mexico (never mind the US!) are almost completely absent here. No full service campgrounds and no real understanding of travel by RV at the of our list at the moment.  Take laundry for instance, simple enough you’d think. Yet here I am down to my last clean pair of shorts and we’re still looking. 

Nicaraguans do their own washing. They can’t afford cash money to do what their wives can do at home (even if they also work outside the home…). We scoured Esteli and Jinotega, two of the larger towns and found no laundry. Matagalpa had one and we only found it as I had to walk the blocks around where Google maps put it and I had to ask. In Spanish I had to ask of course and they pointed to a nondescript back door, the one with the motorcycle parked in front. Yes she said after I called out “Anyone home?” adding she does laundry but has no drier. Your clothes will be ready after lunch tomorrow if it doesn’t rain…With that we were back in the traffic looking for a place to spend the night. 

As I navigated the motorcycles pedestrians and darting cars, smoke spewing trucks and the potholes Layne checked potential overnight spots. Matagalpa is a big city claiming 430,000 inhabitants ( two laundries, the one with the driers closed on weekends) and zero campsites. We checked iOverlander our favorite travel app and all we saw was street parking suggestions. Until Layne came up with a truly bizarre idea. 

“It says here people have stayed at the fire department.” I scoffed, we can’t ask the fire department to spend the night…What I meant was I didn’t have the nerve to ask. For Layne it was no problem.

We got a tour of the fire station, a locker room, a kitchen, a billiard table (in use) and the clerk/dispatcher ready to take calls. Not me thanks, not any more. In a country that outlaws right hand drive cars they have two trucks from

Japan where they drive on the left! I didn’t bring this up as I do have some manners! Just don’t try to bring a car with the steering wheel on the right into El Salvador, Nicaragua or Costa Rica as they are illegal. British overlanders have to ship from Veracruz Mexico to Colombia. 

The captain said they really need firefighters’s gloves. His wife lives in Indianapolis (I didn’t ask for details) and she sees the quality gear of the firefighters there. He’s been to training in Spain and Holland and what he wants at home is proper firefighter gloves. We gave him  a hundred bucks which took him aback but I’d love to get them all some newer gear. We’re pondering how to do that. 

Their Sprinter ambulance from Germany: 

They also do fire prevention around town and they have an electrical board to show how to make a safe electrical system for your home or shop. 

We spent a quiet night parked in the rear lot of the fire station but of course shortly after we got up the heavens opened and down it poured. So much for dry laundry. 

So my intrepid partner worked up a new plan. We’ll go to an isolated farm out in the country. We’ll hang our laundry to dry and we’ll rest a few days. Rusty will have a great time as he shears does in these kinds of spots. We had a destination two hours away. First we got our bag of wet clothing, paid two bucks for the work done and drove out of town. 

Nicaragua is beautiful all right, rolling hills and volcanic peaks and miles of uninterrupted green. But as we drove I said out loud “I wish there were some public lands we could park on right now.” You know how in the US we have Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management camping areas and you just park somewhere lovely and there you are. No fees no bureaucracy no fuss and you get 14 days to rest. That would be lovely right now. 

But the plan fell apart. Eventually we turned off the main paved road towards the Hidden Jungle. But first we spent a couple of hours winding our lovely away across Nicaragua. Dreaming of a camp ground. 

All that driving can make a chauffeur hungry. 

Gallo pinto is a famous Nicaraguan dish and it just means rice and red beans. Then you get delicious smelly cheese and sour sour cream. Add a tortilla and some scrambled eggs and you have a classic dish. 

And if cattle freak you out take a lesson from Rusty. He used to bark madly now he’s seen so many he just looks worried. Cows pop up everywhere around here. 

We had three miles of bouncy rocky dirt road to get to a paradise of quiet rural parking, showers and clothes lines. We crossed one sketchy cement bridge dinging our  skid plate loudly as we went over the lip. 

Less than a mile from the promised land we hit an impassable gap. I waded out into the stream which came over my knees. The rocks underwater were slippery like stone footballs and the opposite bank was a steep dirt step. No way out Promaster was going to make that. We turned around. 

It was no less than a wasted day. We turned around and drove back for two more hours the way we came. We planned to get to the city of Leon, a former national  capital, a university town and center of intellectual opposition to the dictators who ruled Nicaragua. It also boasts two laundries with driers. One open on a Sunday. 

We weren’t going to make it before dark so when we saw an open space we simply stopped. After a while a local dude happened to stroll by curious about our vehicle. We chatted and soon it became obvious we were being checked out as he admitted he lived nearby. We passed the test and he expressed the usual amazed fascination at our retirement plans, our driving from Florida, our microwave and fridge and our dog on his bed. 

Have a good night he said in parting. And we did. Wild camping for free by the PanAmerican Highway in the middle of Nicaragua. Zucchini pasta for dinner to the tune of rain falling on our tin roof. An unexpected end to a very unsatisfactory day. At least it ended well!