The New Motorcycle Diaries

Before I left for this trip, my Grandmother told me a story about when she was in her 20s and traveling by herself through Europe. She was supposed to meet a tour group in Bern one morning, but the night before, she found herself in Zurich with no money and she had missed the last train.  The train station conductor told her that he had an "honorable" friend who could take her to Bern that night.  So she rode on the back of the vespa through the night and made it in time to meet the tour group.  I love this story  And I am telling it to you now because I had a similar experience a few days ago.  I was on my way to Matagalpa from Leon which is about a four hour bus ride if you take the chicken bus, the bus that stops in every town and makes deliveries of food, toilet paper and furniture (just a few of the things I have seen). 

After a few hours, I thought we must be getting close to Matagalpa so when we got to the next town, I turned to my seatmate and asked where we were.  I think I made the mistake of saying "are we in Matagalpa" rather than asking "where are we?"  The person nodded their head and said "Matagalpa, yes."  So I collected my bags and went to front of the bus.  For good measure, I stopped and asked the bus driver if we were in Matagalpa and he nodded.  So I got off of the bus and hailed a taxi to take me to my hotel. 

I should have known right away that something was wrong.  When I told the taxi driver the name of the landmark that was right next to my hotel, he had never heard of it and had to ask a pedestrian who happened to be walking by where it was.  After the taxi driver dropped me off, I walked the perimeter of the park looking for the hotel and couldn't find it. I started asking around but no one could tell me where the hotel was nor could anyone tell me where any hotel was.  I was very confused.  My trusty guidebook said there are at least 10 hotels in Matagalpa and it even had a map to show exactly where they are.

After wandering for about 15 minutes, I finally found someone who knew of a pension nearby.  I checked in there even though the room looked disturbingly like the scene of the tarantula incident.  I figured that since I had only come to Matagalpa to do a coffee tour and as a stopover to break up the trip to the Honduran border, I could survive one night, do the tour, and be gone.  I asked the hotel owner about a particular tour guide that I had read about, and she had no idea, so she called her nephew.  After a few seconds of conversation with him, I determined that I was not actually in Matagalpa, but was in a little town called Sebeca, 15 kilometers south of Matagalpa (15 kilometers is about 9 miles).

So, I checked back out of the hotel and walked back to the main road to get another cab.  But the cab drivers all wanted way too much money for a nine mile drive and the hotel owner had told me just before I left that I had missed the last bus.  What's a girl to do?

As I walked away from the cab drivers, they unhelpfully told me that I could always hitch a ride.  They even pointed out a biker who was just then putting on his helmet and about to pull out.  I told then they were crazy. 

But as I walked away and considered my options:  walking nine miles, going back to the scary hotel, or being scammed by a bunch of cab drivers, I was not encouraged.  I was about to swallow my pride and turn back for a taxi when the biker pulled up beside me and offered to drive me to Matagalpa.  Yah, I took him up on his offer.  I went up into the mountains of Nicaragua the best possible way, on the back of a motorcycle.  And all it cost me was a Coke and a little white lie about having a tall, muscular boyfriend waiting for me at home.