January 30 :: Managua, Nicaragua :: 94km / 2108km total
An early ride, tough winds, blah blah. Today I relished each kilometre, even though they were really not much different than the previous ones, for they would be my last for this trip. The road deteriorated and got hectic as I neared Managua, predictably. I avoided cities like the plague on this trip, and Managua was a good testament as to why... urgently honking and weaving traffic, dangerous drivers, and few fellow cyclists to help offset the madness. There have been local cyclists all over Central America, but here in Managua they know better and leave the bikes at home. Many cars in Managua have dents, I noticed, and its not hard to see why.
I threaded my way carefully into the tourist district and grabbed a hotel - but after the 94km ride, my day was just beginning. At least for the first time this trip I did not need to wash and hang my cycling shorts and shirt, yes, they´re coming home nice and stinky!! A quick shower, and off to the TACA Airlines office... partial success as I bumped my one-way flight back to Cancun up a day, no fee, but a longer routing through Mexico City means I can´t possibly catch the afternoon Air Canada flight back to Toronto (that I have booked for Saturday). As a very longshot, an Air Canada flight leaves for Toronto from Mexico City during my 5 hour layover there... I will try to fandangle my way onto that flight with my Cancun - Toronto Air Canada ticket... I will shock myself if I pull that one off. Otherwise its onto Cancun for a night or two. There are worse places to have to hang around to wait for a flight home!
After TACA it was to the bike stores, and several hours of taxis, waiting, but I ended up with 2 sort-of bike boxes that now are one complete, heavily taped up monstrosity containing my bike. I´m repacked and ready to come home.
Well, its been a great trip. Central America, at least the 5 of 7 Central American countries that I saw, was a fantastic place to travel and I highly recommend it. I was very surprised at how similar the countries were to each other, in most respects, and to Mexico for that matter. The differences were much more urban vs. rural, or coastal vs. mountain, than country vs. country. And in those respects, Central America is INCREDIBLY diverse, packing huge variety into such a small space. Quite literally in the space of a day you can travel from a small poor Mayan hilltown to Pacific beaches to a shopping mall to coniferous alpine forest scenery to hot flat sugarcane plantations to a solitary, sombre, ominous volcano. And you can do that in any of the countries I was in (except Belize - no volcanoes). On my bike I traversed these kinds of landscapes, and it was quite the experience to do so. In other parts of the world that I´ve ridden change is much more gradual, but in Central America its a day´s bike ride away.From a tourist perspective, prices were quite reasonable - I averaged $40 to $50 per day, half of that on accomodation. Were I travelling in a group and not downing such a high volume of liquids, those costs would decrease... altough transportation costs would go up (from almost $0!). These are definitely active tourism countries, compared to Europe or Asia... to get the most out of them you have to hike, bike, or paddle... even Tikal, the most touristy site that I visited, was a solid tiring 3 hours of walking and climbing for me. Central America would not be good for the armchair/bus window tourist (like you can do in Europe), but holds much for the active/eco-tourist. Its safe, and the people are friendly. I pulled through without knowing much Spanish.
For those cyclists that come across this blog, I highly recommend Central America for a bike trip, from the perspective of having ridden in North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. A solid highpoint is that the roads are generally well-paved and very often have wide, inviting paved shoulders. It seems as if most of the roads I rode were repaved (or firstly paved) in the past 5-10 years. I did not stick to the "main routes" all the time, yet only cycled about 60km of gravel road (out of 2100km). I found the drivers to be quite excellent compared to Asian countries that I´ve ridden (Thailand, Syria, India, etc), but the local cyclists were quite dangerous and easily were the biggest road hazards (the main problem is that they often ride the paved shoulder on the wrong side - directly AT you). Cold drinks were readily available just about everywhere, and frequent. Accomodation was well-spaced and the longest gap I saw between hotels, I think, was around 70-80km on easy, flat roads, something most touring cyclists should be able to comfortably cover with adequate foreknowledge. Temperatures in the lowlands are hot and made it difficult for me to ride past noon, but up in the mountains you can ride all day. The wind is consistently from the East/Northeast at this time of year, and this is THE time of year to ride here... slightly cooler temperature and a dry season.
Thats it... until Italy in 3 weeks!
