Panamerican Peaks Project

Living in Emergency: Stories from Doctors Without Borders

In this one day event on December 14 Doctors Without Borders shares insight from the frontlines about dealing with medical emergencies by broadcasting a special documentary in select theaters across the US.

2 comments December 9th, 2009

Riding in El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua

Since coming back from the two mountains I have been riding again. As you can see from the SPOT track, I’ve covered El Salvador, crossed through the narrow stretch of Honduras and entered Nicaragua. That’s 3 different countries on 3 consecutive days! One could have crossed the Golfo Fonseca also by boat, thus bypassing Honduras. The road leads around the golf in a big horseshoe. Since I had already entered Honduras (for Cerro Las Minas) before without problems I was not concerned about safety when passing Honduras by bicycle. (Also the recent elections from a week ago have resulted in a newly established government which is finally being recognized by the international community, so there was less reason to expect political unrest.)

We are in the tropics here in Central America, and the dry season is upon us, so I haven’t had a drop of rain since resuming the ride after the Costa Rica vacation. I also have stayed mostly in the low lands with the bicycle and away from the mountains. That allows me to proceed somewhat faster, but it is also very hot. I have had temperatures around 35C every day, peaking at 38C a few times. This makes one get up very early and ride the first 2-3 hr of the day in relatively cool conditions.

It again amazes me how much attention my bike is receiving everywhere I show up. I usually smile and wave at people along the road, and almost all of them wave back and/or shout enthusiastically, or blow their horns. It can actually get tiring to receive that much attention all the time. Sometimes in the evenings when I’m tired and exhausted from the heat and a long day on the bike, I just want to be left alone and not have to cheer and answer the same questions over and over. After I park my bicycle for the night and change into normal cloths, I can move around without the attention. There is bliss in anonymity…

From reading bike books I was expecting the area to be poorer and less developed. But apparently a lot of development has happened here in the last decade or so. There are new roads and bridges (for example around Choluteca), many an old, pothole-riddled road has been paved freshly (for example the road from the Nicaragua border in Guasaule to Chinandega), there are cell phone towers and little Internet providers practically everywhere. (This also makes the State Department’s recommendation not to use cell phones in public somewhat outdated, as literally everyone here has a cell phone.) There are also many colorfully painted houses and some schools and international development projects along the way.

One aspect that still shows how far these countries have to go is that they often lack running water. So you take your showers with little buckets filled from big barrels of rainwater. I wonder what these folk do at the end of the dry season…

People are universally friendly and curious (especially due to my unusual recumbent bike). Border crossings proved to be far quicker than I thought – rarely did I wait more than 10 min! And traffic isn’t as bad as I thought – that was far worse for example in Guatemala. Here, however, you always have to expect cows, dogs, pigs or vultures on the road.

Occassionally I am accompanied by other riders, usually for a short stretch only, as the locals go from one village to the next. Sometimes there are 3 people sitting on one bike, and a few times I see a bike that’s loaded even heavier than mine!

This afternoon I hope to reach Leon, next to Granada one of the nicest cities in Nicaragua. Hopefully I will have some daylight left for sight-seeing there…

Add comment December 9th, 2009