On Friday morning, we banded together with team Notier’s Frontiers once again and rode towards Nicaragua for another border crossing day. It may be obvious, but I’d like to point out that we feel very fortunate to have met up with Tim and Marisa. Not only are they terrific people, we have a great buddy system in place where there is always at least one trusted person watching the bikes. We have seen some suspicious characters loitering around the border control buildings so, watch your belongings if going solo.
Exiting Honduras was a quick an easy process; however, bureaucratic Nicaragua was a completely different story. We made the mistake of not filling out and emailing the Application for Admission form beforehand and, as a result, spent four hours at the border. They checked EVERYTHING, including calling our hotel to confirm that we were booked there for the night. The officials were really nice to us; however, and felt bad about having us wait there for so long. I guess you’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do.
Marisa, the most intimidating keeper of the bikes
After a long day at the border, we rode for 1.5 hours to our stop for the night in Estelí. We stayed at the Casa Hotel Santa Elena for 757 NIO (~31 CAD) a night. We had initially planned to stay for just one night, but extended for another since the hotel was nice and had a great little cafe next door. Plus, after two long border-crossing days, a pause was much-needed. We didn’t do any sightseeing in the city other than taking a little walk through the shopping streets close to our hotel on the following day.
Most of our time in Estelí was spent working and eating delicious and high-calorie foods.
Crêpes for breakfast every day, please and thank you
