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Where the Lord parted our Red Sea! Nicaragua Honduras and El Salvador!!


 Nicaragua!

As morning broke, I awoke and found out that we were being watched by like three shady looking guys! It was probably around 6:00 a.m. It was starting to get light and we had been asleep for a few hours so hopped right up and asked the dude what he wanted. He didn't even move, just stood there and looked at me, and then slowly walked away. We broke camp and once again started the research process of finding out how to get through customs and on our way in Nicaragua. I went to the office first, fought off all the money changers as usual, and then got in line to get my passport stamped. While I was waiting I plugged in my phone to get it charged enough to listen to my tunes. I got stamped in and went and rode around until I found Dave and Nian. We talked over our situations and decided to find a shower and get cleaned up. We were all Black from road grime! Oh Shoot! I forgot my Phone! I ran back over there and....GONE! I ran around frantically for like five minutes asking who took it! Nobody said anything! I was heart broke. Seriously soo bumbed out! I asked two more people if they'd seen it and nothin. As I was walking out some guy walked up to the counter and said something to the guy that I asked first. He put his head down, walked over to a filing case, and grabbed my phone and charger out. Another prayer answered! haha We found a truck stop, got showered up, and after getting all our bike paperwork done and getting all sprayed for bugs we were once again on the road! We road up the West shore of Lake Nicaragua. The landscape and scenery were amazing. The only thing wrong with the picture were the BUGS!!! I looked down and my knees were Black from Bugs! I had bugs all over in my leg hair and just all over for real! Our visors were pure bug guts! Except for daves... he didnt have a visor!  That Sucks so bad!
Nians Bug Collection after only like 5 mins!
Nian Ran out of gas so Dave and I rode 5 kms to the next town, filled up, and Dave took a water bottle full of gas back to Nian. When they got back and got filled up I had bought lunch of American style fried chicken and Monsters! That is when we sat down and ate the BEST fried chicken of our lives! The owner overheard us say just that and responded to us in english. Turns out he lived in Silver springs Maryland. 10 miles from where I had lived for the last three summers. We finished our lunch and some old war veteran dude gave us detailed directions in english of how to get through Nicaragua the fastest. We cleaned the bugs off of ourselves and rode hard once again. Soon the dudes directions had taken us in a super big loop and were were headed back towards the road where we started. While somewhat lost we did pass through some super awesome Volcano mountains and really cultural small towns.  As we passed through one of them I thought. I bet there are missionaries in every one of these towns. Not more than 2 minutes later. Low and behold, Two Elders walking right at us! haha I locked up my brake and screeched to a halt. We talked to them for a bit, got better directions, and continued our volcano mountain ride down to the Pan American Highway. A couple more hours up the Highway and we were in the middle of a desert surrounded by Volcanoes. Our bikes were burning up and so were we! The first gas station we bought tons of water and got all fueled up.  Back on the road we busted it up towards Managua. Once there we stopped to pee and there was a stalled car. I hopped off and we all helped this dude push his suv to the top of the hill. As he thanked us and hopped in his car I noticed that he had a pistol in the back of his jeans. Guess helping him was the right decision. I never told dave and nian this but I took us on a long detour to keep us out of the city after I saw that dudes gun. The detour took us right past lake Managua which also had tons of huge Volcanoes!
 Volcanoes Across Lake Managua
It was such and awesome Landscape. After 4 or 5 more hours of burning up in the desert we were close to the Honduras border. About 50 kms from the border we stopped, got gas, and spend every dime we had of Funny Nicaraguan money on drinks and goodies. Another hour of riding and we were at the Honduran border.
Welcome to Honduras! ps i hate you Honduras
Once again the border crossing and customs area was super ghetto and full of fools trying to "help us" and change money. We simply told them the truth and that if they wanted to "help us" with our paperwork for free they were more than welcome. We were truly OUT of money! I had used my Safety $150 and we had spent everything else on junk food. Nian and I wanted to use the bathroom but couldn't because it cost money! We turned in our Nicaraguan drivers licenses and got ready to go in Honduras. 20 Minutes later we had our Passports all stamped and we were ready to go. Then some guy told us that we had to wait for the Motor vehicle people to get out of a meeting before we could get permissions to drive in Honduras. Then came the bad news. It was going to cost each of us over $50 American dollars to get the permission. The worst part about that is we were only going to be in Honduras for a couple hours. My GPS said that it was only 280 kms across. So we waited around for like an hour and fought with people about not paying due to our no money situation. Finally, the boss lady came out of a meeting and we were invited to go in and talk to her. Thats when we found out how big of trouble we were really in. The nearest ATM was 40 kms into honduras. We couldn't ride there because we didn't have permissions yet. We also couldn't go back into Nicaragua because we had already turned in our Nicaraguan drivers permissions. We were really jammed! She said that some guy would give us a ride to the ATM and back for $100 each! NO WAY! Not only was that too much money but also too time consuming. All the sudden dave says. Is this your money? He's got a huge wad of money in his hand. I would guess probably more that $1000 American dollars! He found it sitting on the floor in the boss lady's office! She claimed it and was even more ruthless with us! I was starting to get worried again that this was the end of the road!
NOW IT STARTS GETTING CRAZY!
As we walked out of that ladies office with basically no options, the wind started blowing very strange. I walked out to my bike and said "fellas, pack your bags us and get your rain gear on NOW!!" We got geared up for the rain in like 5 mins! It was strange because we had a crowd of like 20 people watching us that all knew our situation. Just before we were all ready to go The heaviest rainfall ever began to pound down on us! At that time, I knew that God wanted us to keep going and that he was opening up the gate to Honduras for us. I push started my bike, as I had been doing ever since my starter went out in Panama. Dave and Nian were right behind me and we FLEW PAST THE BORDER PATROL GATE!!!!  Rain so heavy we couldn't even see the road! Someone yelled as we blew past but there was no stopping now! The super heavy rain suddenly quit 5 minutes after we BLASTED the border! I was actually mad that it wasn't raining because that meant that the frequent road stops and patrols would all be functioning normally. We passed one after another 20 mins. I stood up on my pegs, saluted the officers with one hand, and honked my horn a few times with the other hand. They looked us all confused and never bothered stopping us!  haha We passed 5 more patrol stations using the same technique! We followed the Pan American Through Honduas getting lost here and there along the way of course. We all got ourselves some ultra energy drinks, got on all our cold weather gear, and heaed for the El Salvador border!!! That's when it happened, Stopped by a road block police patrol! Oh Shoot! I thought to myself. We all fumbled through our stacks of papers and showed them some random wet documents we had picked up along the way. And then acted like we didn't know what they were talking about! haha They really only stopped us because people were getting mugged and or murdered on the bridge just down the road from us. So in a way they were watching over us. They finally let us go. It was probably around midnight before we got to the El Salvadoran border! We got in the middle of a huge line of trucks and went as fast as we could as to avoid getting stopped by the Honduran exit customs. Worked like a charm! We all thanked the Lord for our safe passage through Honduras.

Once in El Salvador we used a different tactic on the customs guy. We just talked about how awesome El Salvador was, how excited we were to eat the food, and what we needed to see while we were there! Pretty soon were were good buds and he sent us along on our way. He mentioned something about getting permission for the bikes but we never saw another government building so we just kept on a going. The GPS once again took us on a sweet unneeded 1 hour detour. Soon it was raining again we we geared up and made good time through El Salvador! We did stop in one small town for Papusas. Sooo Delicious! We got to San Salvador around 2 or 3 am and soon we were again lost! After more Energy Drinks, Gas, and directions we were hot on our way. We flew through some territory that I assumed was really pretty but the darkness ruined all of that! At around 4 am we finally arrived at the Guatemalan boder! We rolled in there super confident and cool, sure that were were once again on our way!  There was a big bridge separating the two countries and that bridge was blocked by a gate and like 10 guards. We told em some story about why we didnt have our permissions to drive in the country and of course the didnt buy any of it. We begged them forever to let us through but finally we agreed to hang up our hammocks there and get some shut eye while they called the other border in the morning. The Bathrooms were locked so we went off of a 200 foot bridge. It was pretty funny! Soon we were all camped out and Sound asleep! This was honestly one of the longest, most eventful, hottest, coldest, and most mentally draining days of my life! 

On The ROAD HOME: Panama and Costa Rica


 Panama City

Sunday, April 28th, around 3pm we hit the road in Panama. We were feeling great as we headed North up the Pan-American Highway. Once again we were on some nice big freeways. Panama uses the US dollar as well, so it was cool to buy things in Dollar. About 200 kms up the highway we found ourselves lost in panama city. One of the most modern cities we've visited. I would have told you that we were in Florida. We circled around Panama City for a couple hours and finally found the way out of town. Soon after leaving the city we crossed the Panama Canal. That was super awesome! You can see how much work went into it. After Crossing the canal we road east, southeast for what seemed like forever! We headed back Northeast and after hours of riding we made it to the Costa Rica, Panama border. We were pumped to get into Costa Rica to find a nice campsite. As we crossed the border we were informed that customs didn't open until 7 am. Soo.... we found a couple of nice poles and fence posts right in front of the customs office and hung up our hammocks. We wrapped up in our blankets to keep the bugs off us, and at about 3 am the jungle sounds wisped us off to sleep.
The Panama Costa Rica Border
Monday morning we were woken up a little before 5am. There were people lined up at the border fighting to be one of the first people to get into Panama to go to work. We broke camp and jumped in line to get into Costa Rica. Little did we know we were almost two hours early. Finally 7 am rolled around, the office opened, and when our turn to get stamped into Costa Rica came around.... We had to go a mile back to Panama to get our passports stamped there. We had to wait another hour in line there and then we were back to the Costa Rica Customs office. Once again we made it to the front of the line, we were then informed that we needed our yellow fever shot cards or we weren't going into CR. The lady just told us that we were out of luck and that we had to go back to the city, get the shot, wait 6 days, and then we could enter the city. We were super mad. I went back up to the front of the line and asked if I could get a copy of the card faxed or e-mailed to them. They said that was ok so we got to work. I searched around for a pay phone and called my mom collect. "hey mom can you send me my yellow fever shot card. Jim... you don't have your yellow fever shots." Ummm... shoot. So what did do. We made one! I had my mom email me the shot card and we wrote in the yellow fever section. We copied it and I took it back to the CR office. Turns out Panama stamped my passport with the wrong stamp so..., Back to Panama, then back to CR. Finally they stamped me into Costa Rica. Then it took me 2 more hours to get my bike paperwork all finished up and done. Dave and Nian just got on the internet, found some shot cards, changed the names, printed em off and got stamped in like a charm! Around 2 pm we were finally on the road in Costa Rica. What a head ache!
 A Big Statue of Christ as we Climbed the Mountains In Costa Rica

Once in CR we just road HARD! Its a super pretty country but we didn't have time to stop and  see the sights. Next time I Guess!  We road a few hours through some hot jungle, which was amazing. We were headed North along the Pacific Coast. Suddenly, the road veered back to the south west. That took us up into some mountains and through some pineapple farms. We rode through a small rainstorm and stopped for gas a goodies in the small town of Cacao. As we left the town we hit a stretch of nice windy roads. We're having a blast flying up the mountain on awesome paved roads when all the sudden our bikes start running way crappy! :We were at such a high altitude that our bikes were choking for air. Suddenly it started getting chilly and started to drizzle a little. That was strange because just hours before we were all cursing the blasted jungle heat. Nian and Dave stopped to put on their rain gear. I reluctantly stopped and put mine on as well. I was under the impression that it would just drizzle a little and we'd be high and dry soon.

 Getting Our Rain Gear On Just Before the Coldest Rainstorm EVER!!

Little did i know, five minutes up the mountain road, Boom! An Ultra-Freezing rainstorm awaited us! I had on Three shirts, Two jackets, and all the other warm clothing I could possibly squeeze under my rain gear. Twenty minutes up the mountain road my bike was going 20 mph at full throttle and I was FREEZING!!! I would compare this coldness to the time I fell through the Ice. SOOOO COLD!!! The little mountain that I thought we would pass soon turned into one of the highest mountains in Costa Rica! We pinned our bikes, and rode as fast as we could (25mph) until we were out of the mountains. As we headed down the other side the clouds broke a little and we were able to see just how amazing the place was. We all stopped just before San Jose and told each other how cold we were.

Back on the road we were soon in the middle of San Jose. My GPS only had a couple major roads on it so I just kept us going in the general direction and followed the flow of traffic. Miraculously, we made it right through the city, during rush hour, with no problems. We did get put onto a nice toll road that wasn't cheap. So.... We begged  the attendants to let us through! It worked about half the time. haha It got dark and we rode until we were close to the Pacific again. We got some gas, got some wild central American energy drinks, and hit the road. The stretch of road from San Jose to the Nicaragua border was kinda sketchy! Lots of transvestites and truckers. Needless to say we didn't stop except for some roadside police checkpoints. The cops here were super cool. One of them gave me his address and wanted me to come back and buy his beach property.
 Looking for a Place To hang our Hammocks

Around 3 am we arrived at the Nicaraguan border. We were stopped by the border police and told that we needed to wait until 7 am for customs to open.  This campout was a little different than the rest. As we crossed the border the roads were dirt and the whole area was extremely gloomy and unkept. There was a huge parking lot full of trucks and a few people walking around. The wind started blowing and it was looking like it was going to rain. We arranged our hammocks under a little roof next to the customs office. I pushed my bike up under my hammock and tried to get some sleep. I woke up three or  four times throughout the night to keep an eye on some creepy people that kept walking around us. I didn't get much sleep but it sure felt good to lay down for a bit!

Sail away Sail away Sail away.......




There we were, all pumped up and ready to set sail. Somehow we ended up killing another day at the docks, but finally by Friday night we were ready to set sail! Right at sunset, we hoisted the sails and pulled out of the ports. It was amazing! Our bikes tied to the front of the sailboat, us getting some sailing experience, and eating the best food ever! (which was all cooked for us!) As we literally sailed off into the sunset Caption Pedro went below deck to get his GPS wired up straight. There was some pirate chick on the boat that just seemed to be getting a ride with us to the san Blas Islands. He had her hold the wheel. After watching her put us 90 degrees off course three different times I eased myself into the captains chair. I got the hang of it in like 30 seconds and had us due on course! Captain Pedro came up, looked at his instruments, and said, "wow, you really know how to drive a boat. You good to drive for a bit?" Of course I was. So he said, "Ok then, You're first mate! and I'm gonna take a nap for a bit."

Well a bit of a nap turned into him going to bed on the bench. Soo.... Dave and I drove the whole night until around 9 or 10am sat morning! Captain Pedro is one Unique guy. My spanish Swear word vocabulary increased 100 percent while were were on the boat with him! He truly took the Phrase "Swore like a sailer" to a whole other level. I was dead from driving all night so I decided to take a nap. Before laying down I dug up a spool of fishing line and a big metal spoon and slowly let it out behind the boat. I watched it for a while with no luck so I tied it off to a cleat and hit the hay for a few hours. I was soon woken up by Nian looking for my Pliers. Turns out Dave and Captain Pedro hand Pulled in a monster Tuna while I was sleeping!!

I was mad for like 4 seconds and then passed out again. When I finally woke up for good, dinner was set. TUNA! Captain had chopped it right up and fried it up for us. Seriously some of the best Fish i have Ever eatin! It was amazing as well because the one we caught was just big enough to feed all 8 of us really well! Pretty soon it started getting dark again which for my meant I was up to pilot the boat. This night me dave captain and Nian all took our turns at the helm.

After my turn I went and laid down right on the very tip of the bow and tried falling asleep. The moon and stars were so bright that I couldn't even keep my eyes closed. After two hours of Laying there awake, we hit a huge wave and my pad slid all the way over the edge and me half way over! Getting lost at sea is really low on my priority list so I got myself better situated on the bow and started drifting off. All the sudden  a strange noise and splashing woke me up. ? I Looked around for like 10 mins with out seeing anything. Then all the sudden, I look into the water with is all Lit up with moon and star light. 15 or 20 big whiteish figures right below me at the bow. One rose up and made a huge splash, Dolphins!

Tons of em! I laid on my stomach over the bow for the next 30 mins trying to get one to jump up and touch my hand and watching em do all kinds of jumps tricks all around the waves the boat was putting out. After a while they all left and I finally got some sleep while dave and nian drove.

By the time I woke up Sunday morning we were only like 10 miles out of San Blas. I drove us most of the way in but Cap. Pedro took the help for the last little bit due to coral reefs and low water danger. Which is really funny and you'll find out why very soon!

We sailed ourselves between two paradisaical islands and Captain Pedro yell out, "Drop the anchor boys!" We did as we told which brought us to our new home for the night. As the boat stopped we of course all started flipping and diving off the top of the boat! The water was probably about 45 feet deep and we could see all the way to the bottom! So Blue and so clear! Turns out Captain had a big bag full of snorkel stuff! Of course we spent the next few hours diving around the reefs. There were so many amazing colorful fish, sting rays, and huge conch shells. After we felt how bad our sunburn levels we all headed back to the boat.

Captain was already busy cookin us up a huge meal! We all ate really well. After dinner captain took all of us over to and indigenous island while he stayed on the boat. It looked exactly what an island would look in my mind if someone were to say, "Ok, so youre on a deserted island." Just palm trees and a few indian huts. We walked all the way around the island which is when we got a great idea. Lets sleep on the island! Needless to say, Captain was soon dropping us off again with our hammocks, ropes, and blankets. We treked through the dark to the east side of the island. There we found two palm trees growing out over the water on a 45 degree angle. Dave and I shinneyed up Each tree and we tied all three of our hammocks up over the water.

Laying in our bunk hammocks over the water was unreal. Every star in the sky was out. Small waves and sounds of the islands are all we could hear. Really one of the most amazing campouts of our adventure.

We woke up with the sun the next morning. We rolled up our hammocks and met captain Pedro on the beach.


He took us back to the Night Hawk 2 and yelled for us to hoist the anchor. We were a short 10 miles from the port. We anchored off shore and went to the island immigration office for our visa stamped Captain Pedro came up to Dave and I and said, "Thanks for everything guys! I've never had such an awesome group of people on the boat. Here you go." He gave us each $25 American Dollars! haha He paid us for all our work on the boat! He then told us that whenever we wanted to sail the Caribbean that we didn't need to worry about money. Just call him and he'd take us and our friends for free! Way Awesome!


  Soon we were back on the boat and sailed around towards the port. Captain did a loop through a huge pod of Dolphins. It was pretty cool. When he looped around we got slightly off course. I was on the front deck uncovering the bikes when I felt a huge Jolt.. then BLAM!! Scraping sounds, and I'm laying on my back! The next thing I heard was Captain Pedro Yelling Puta!!!!... and Meirda!!!.... Over and over again! Just a slurry of Spanish swear words for the next hour! He and run the Night Hawk 2 right into a shallow coral reef!! Just when we thought the trip couldn't get any crazier, we're shipwrecked in the Caribbean.! Captain Pedro tried pushing us backwards with the dingy while Dave Reversed the motor turning back and forth. Soon and old Indian man showed up in a wooden log canoe. He dropped a huge rock for his anchor, tore his shorts off, and dove in wearing only some skimpy underwear and a snorkel. I grabbed a snorkel and followed suit. When I got under the boat I discovered that the Rutter was blocked by some rocks from behind, and the fin was completely buried under a bunch of rocks about half my size. So what did we do... The old Indian man and I would to a 1.. 2... 3.... Swim down, Grab a boulder, and walk it along the bottom away from the boat! It was pretty awesome! and Scary. The waves we're rocking the boat deeper into the reef. We were hurrying as fast as we could as the tide was going out. the ship would be left high and dry and if we were unable to free it fast. It took the old man and I about half an hour to move all the rocks. When I got back on the boat all I saw was madness. More Indians had showed up with bigger motorized canoes and boats. Somehow Captain Pedro had tied 4 motorized boats up to the back of the Night Hawk 2. They all floored it at the same time and it was crazy! Boats were crashing into each other, Close-lining each other, and Almost sinking! So crazy! When that didn't work Captain Pedro decided that we needed to get us and our heavy bikes off the Night Hawk. We untied the bikes and hooked em one by one to top of the mast.

We hoisted each bike up in the air, swung em out over the water, and lowered em into canoes! Once again, we all looked at each other and thought, "Is this really happening?" haha We put Daves bike, Nians bike, all our bags, and ourselves in one big canoe. My bike went with 4 other guys in a smaller canoe.

Once we were all off the Night Hawk, the four motor boats began pulling again, two dingeys pushed from the front, and captain Pedro at the helm full throttle backwards! The battled it for a few mins and The Night Hawk 2 was free!! We were a hundred yards away already. We heard Pedro yell a loud slurry of swear words and then, "I'M FREEEEE!!! haha So awesome!

We were already on our way for the main land. This canoe ride was super nerve racking! I was squatting on the bottom holding each side. The water was only like 6" from top of the canoe! Twenty mins later we were going up a river inlet with indians everywhere. The boat drivers took us to their friends "Port." We unloaded our bikes and were informed that we had to pay them $35 American dollars each bike. We only had the $50 dollars that Pedro had given Dave and I. So, we gave em $5. They were PISSED! I was ready for and Indian Fight. We tied our bikes up and told em, "Sorry, we don't have any money." After like 30 mins of arguing they finally accepted out rappelling rope as payment. We road down Jungle dirt roads though mud, mountains, and rivers for the next two hours. Panama's Mountains are soo pretty! After a wild mountain ride we made it to asphalt. I looked down at my GPS and..... Sure enough, We had made it to the Pan-American Highway! 7000 kms up the Hwy would put us at the Texas border! At 3:00pm Monday April 19th WE HIT THE ROAD FOR THE ULTIMATE RIDE HOME!!!
 

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