Loaded up, and ready to breath in diesel fumes and a couple kilos of dust, that day! Otherwise, we get plenty of oxygen, it just happens to be at 35C+.

Nicaraguan roads, gave us the farewell with 72kms of dusty-but-fast, bone-dry-carretera before the Honduran border. We still managed 117kms, a central american record for us, so far...

Ah, to piñata spongebob-squarepants into submission on your birthday morning is an art I think we're saving for the documentary outakes!!
...needless to say or rather, needing a picture: when in (Rome) Nicaragua, let the moustache grow!

There was some "queques" (cake) in the morning, sort of, but this was the cheese-cake of all cheese cakes!! bbq feta is the closest I could describe it.

Bicicleterias anybody?! birthday shopping for a cone wrench and some more oil.

Truckers do a lot of driving but they get to do some heavy-duty hanging out at the border crossings.

This is Peace Park in Managua's "monument" district. They built this thing in the early nineties. But soon the pumps and all the machinery and metal used for the fountains was stolen. Now just like the rest of this part of Managua it is a ghost of its former self. But luckily peace lives on in this little country and looks better than its monuments.

So we grimaced at the border hassles and the "extra" costs for the officials, and eventually strolled into Nicaragua. Greeted by the tantalizing active "Volcan Concepcion" over on Isla Omotepe: we were going to have our rest days after 6 days of solid biking. *

She sure looks old, but she got us there with only one of us, hmmmTaniahmmm, getting queezy.

Happy windbreaking travellers right before departure and nasty diesel fumes started invading our natural privacy. *

A touch late as we pushed through the ankle deep snow, I mean sand, to start off this island "rest" Gwendal's been promising us.

Ahhhhhhh, strong SUN, shade, a hennessy hammock, a fresh water lake (the only one with sharks in the whole world, but they only hang out in the deep parts) and the only task for the day: to feast on ceviche y piña.

But, there's a figure eight to adventure on this island, so we fought our instincts but could not resist the shorter distances but much knarlier roads/4x4 testing grounds to the other ends of this Saltspring-sized island.

This is what happens (Larry) when you only take one day of rest when the schedule says two (f%*+$ a stranger in the a&*)!! two points for identifying the quote... *

We are officially unimpressed at the two days it took to unrest around this island!

however, the views and the simplicity of life these nicaraguenses experience is facinating.

I think we tired him out, eh Tania? Actually this is the state we were all in on the 4hour banana boat ride back to the mainland!