Matagalpa

A stop in Matagalpa was not part of the plan until deciding where to drop off the hired car. Besides for the lack of road names, driving around this town was slightly more challenging due to the numerous one way streets. Admittedly we broke the law by accidentally driving up a road in the wrong direction, only realising it when people started waving their arms at us.

While sitting on a restaurant balcony next to a river of this charming town, the heavens opened up. Later back at the hostel, after hours of heavy rainfall, the electricity got cut off and the day after the water would get cut off in order to clean the pipes as a result of the downpour. None of this put a downer on the festivities of that weekend - Mother's Day - a really big celebration for the Nicaraguans, who get together to pray and then enjoy the cakes and gifts.

After dropping off the Nissan we took a taxi to a nearby town where we would have to wait for a bus to take us over the border to Honduras. The bus stop didn't have any kind of sign and was nothing more than a piece of pavement in front of a petrol station. The rainy season had again come into play forcing us to find cover and so we had to be alert, ready to run to the corner so that the bus driver would know that we were waiting. It arrived an hour later than expected but this didn't come as a surprise at this stage of our travels.