Over 4 years cycling the Andes, the adventure of the Happy Family Biocycling goes on, check out their latest news from Central America.
Hi friends, here we are again, a few days ago Angy turned 12, her 4th birthday Biocycling America. This time we’re writing to you from El Salvador close to the border with Guatemala, happily crossing borders faster like never before. Despite all the terror we got from many people worried for us concerning sicurity as well as for Honduras, honestly, we never felt bad or unsafe. Maybe because we’re lucky, or because we’re already use to similar places and culture or probably it’s just a point of attitude generally seeking the bright side of life.
Costa Rica took us 5 months to get through, visiting sustainable realities and conservation projects while waiting for Alberta’s parents to visit us for Xmas. The roads weren’t as “bikable” as we imagined for a country known worldwide for being eco-friendly, so for safety reasons we had to take a couple of rides to and far from the capital city San José, avoiding when we could the Panamerican Highway.
Family Time
It was great celebrating Anna’s 10th birthday and Xmas with the grandparents, precious time that we were missing a lot. Beside the few touristic attractions seen around Costa Rica sharing natural spots, conservation projects and people that welcomed us before around the country, the best was simply being together, telling them stories, playing and eating delicious Italian food they brought us.
NICARAGUA
For the first time in our journey, we cycled from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific without climbing mountains. Wow, we couldn’t believe it! Entering Nicaragua felt like being back to South America, a bit of Bolivia, Perú and Colombia. Locals selling whatever along the streets, crazy overloaded chicken búses, pick-ups, motorbikes, tuc-tucs, animal powered vehicles and bicycles like never seen before in Central America. Economically the cost of life is about 3 times cheaper than Costa Rica and this is certainly another great point of enjoying Nicaragua, the second poorest country of the Americas after Haiti.
As said, security wise we felt good, keeping in mind general traveling safety rules, although what impacted us most was the oppressive political situation still under control of the communist party and dictatorship of President Daniel Ortega and his wife “coincidentally” as Vice President. As in other countries several times we’ve been interviewed by National TV and Radio channels curious to hear about our experience cycling Latin America, our opinion about Nicaragua and how we’re managing this family outdoor adventure, paying attention not to mention anything concerning politics.
We discovered that the Cocibolca Lake was a refuge for the pirates of the Caribbean that use to up-stream Rio San Juan; so as freshwater bull sharks that adapted to the area seeking food. Before Panama Canal there was a mighty project of building the Inter-Oceanic Canal on this lake but the strong volcanic activities and environmental complications changed the plans. Although we try to avoid big touristic areas, we couldn’t miss Volcan Masaya, the only crater in the world easily reachable by car seeing for the first time in our lives bubbling lava that reminded us once again the power of mother nature. Moving to the East meant going up and down tough mountains again, through the coffee district until reaching the Somoto Canyon at the border with Honduras. Here the Rio Coco, the longest river of Central America, begins flowing for 750km down to the Caribbean.
HONDURAS
We moved west again choosing the fastest route out, making our record to El Salvador after only 4 nights in Honduras. It could have been even less if it wasn’t for having to deal with mechanical issues on our bikes (broken bearings, spokes and continuous flat tyres) due to the steel parts left on the sides of the road by exploded truck tyres!
EL SALVADOR
Our cyclometer signs 24.600km from Ushuaia, now visiting APRAINORES, an association of small organic & fair trade cashew nut producers that we will talk to you about next time. Until now everything is going good, we’re continuously meeting wonderful people, discovering new food, language differences and step by step worldschooling all together getting close to the Maya and Aztec culture. At the moment our biggest enemy is the heat, around 40°C during day time, needing to carry a lot of drink water also to cool down ourselves and protect our skins from the burning sun.
NEXT MOVE
The plan is to keep on going northwards cross g fingers to reach USA, keeping a faster pace, as the girls are growing quickly, getting heavy and might need stability and routine, for this reason we calculate maximum a year and a half more before going back home definitely. Our focus will be mainly keeping the love for each other doing the best we can as parents taking care of their education while visiting interesting sustainable realities and fair trade producers along the way.
Welcome aboard, we’re happy to inspire and share the energy with you, proving the strength of a united family “building bridges and seeding values” along the way. Feel free to ask us any questions or doubts through our social media, we’ll reply you as soon as possible. 🙂
INSTAGRAM: http://www.instagram.com/happyfamilybiocycling
YOUTUBE : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkuMZ6JofZi98xuKhZUY0gQ
GPS to see where we are right now 🌐🛰️:
https://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0pTKhCRjPlaWjWahj5f1zuvCEc5Ginh9o
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