We don’t typically do this, but for this particular post you’ll see no pictures. In the moments described in the last few paragraphs, there was no time for photos.
After deciding that El Salvador wasn’t really for us because of a few crowed surf breaks, both of us getting sick, and an empty lake, we set our sights on Nicaragua. I’m sure there are a number of wonderful things about El Salvador, but our exploration didn’t unearth any of them. We crossed in and out of Honduras in a day without incident and although long and hot it was a fairly pleasant day of travel.
We arrived in Leon, Nicaragua in the heat of the afternoon and after checking out a few different places to stay we found ourselves parked in front of the BigFoot Hostel. Here we spent the night sweating through our first “stealth camping” experience. Other overlanders know this as boondocking, or to be completely transparent, sleeping in your car and being undetected by the outside world. Now when I say it’s hot in Leon the full effects of that statement might not fully sink in. It’s feeling parts of your body sweat that you didn’t know could sweat, watching your shins sweat, mind numbing, even cold beer doesn’t help, hot. During this heat we slept in the van with all the windows and doors closed with our little 5in fan blowing on us. To say it was the hottest night of my life would be an understatement. It made the hottest night of my life to date seem like a dream.
The next morning feeling “refreshed/refried” we watched the crowds of people return from volcano boarding. For those of you not familiar with the sport, you hike to the top of a volcano and ride the pumice or sand down on a sort of toboggan. You are dressed in a fashionable orange jumpsuit and science class like goggles for the ride down. Having not done a single organized tourist event during this trip, we decided it was time to indulge a little.
Because of brilliant marketing we received tank tops when signing up for this adventure that would take place the following day. Yes, that’s right awesome black tank tops that taut the awesome volcano boarding experience. For George receiving the tank top was a pretty big deal as it was the first one he’d ever owned. In all honesty the tank top was nothing George would wear – it was too big, with flashy fonts and colors and footprints all over it. He made me laugh when he wore it.
That night we received news that we needed to be in San Jose, Costa Rica the following day. We stopped by the hostal in the morning to see if we could return the tank tops and get a refund. Unfortunately, it was too early for the safe to be opened so they couldn’t refund our money. So we didn’t feel too slighted, we decided that George was wearing his tank top during the long drive that we had that day.
We pulled into Managua, the capitol of Nicaragua about 9am feeling pretty good about the time we made from Leon. We both commented about how after 5 months on the road we’d become pretty relaxed about driving in Latin America cities with their organized chaos. Not five minutes after saying this we encountered a merge lane where in most places cars would trade off entering the lane. When it was our turn George made his way into the lane of traffic. The taxi driver entering from the left looked up at our car and from a full stop accelerated and drove into the drivers side of our car. Now you may be saying to yourself, that seems odd that he would accelerate from a full stop, are you sure he saw you guys? The answer, yes, I’m sure he saw us and saw gringo dollars flying out of our ears. Now back to the moment of impact; George, stunned by the horrific noise of our house being crushed by a Nicaraguan taxi, tried to get out of the van. Meanwhile the taxi driver kicked his passengers out of the car and got out of his vehicle. George was not able to get out because the taxi was pinning the drivers side door closed so instead he was leaning out the window trying to make sense of the situation with phrases in English, Spanish and Spanglish. All amounting to, WHAT THE HELL? YOU JUST DROVE INTO OUR CAR? The driver’s response? A shoulder shrug and hands in the air like, what’s the big deal? Simultaneously, his car rolled backwards and revealed the minimal damage that had been done to Dolores. His car, which was far from being pristine before the impact, including the bumper being tied on was not damaged.
Seeing this and hearing the mounting orchestra of horns from behind us prompted George to decide that driving away was probably the best way to deal with someone who intentionally drives into your car. However, little did we realize that only made him want to cause a full-blown accident. Yes, this crazy man started to chase us at full van speed through the mean streets of Managua. At one point he was parallel with us on the shoulder and pulled so sharply into the passengers side that George had to pull into oncoming traffic to keep him from sideswiping us. It was Fast & Furious meets Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Maybe…? Either way it was fast and had us a little more than on edge.
During our high-speed chase we decide two things. 1) This guy was not going to just give up & he’s a taxi driver so he knows the roads. 2) A public spot to pull over is probably our best option.
Low and behold ahead we saw a Pizza Hut with a few people sitting in front of it. We pull in and he screeched to a stop close behind us preventing us from leaving if we wanted.
Now keep in mind George is wearing his awesome, fully gringo, tank top. As soon as all vehicles are stopped the guy casually gets out of his car, looks at us and smirks. At that George for lack of a better term, chest bumps him. Yes that’s right, George chest bumped a large 250lb taxi driver in Managua while he was wearing an awesome tank top.
In that moment, the driver realized that he may have messed with the wrong gringo and he took a step back. Hands started flying in the air with Spanglish accounts of what had just happened and whose falto it was. Then there was mention of the police which we were more than obliged to entertain, until of course we realized we still had about 7 hours of driving to do to reach San Jose before dark. These shenanigans continued for what felt like way too long and the police didn’t show up. He waited us out and we paid him $20 for hitting our car and to move his car so we could all go on with our day. The finest of gringo taxes.
During our time at the Pizza Hut we made friends with the guys working there. We all agreed that the guy was simply trying to get a bribe out of us, not actually trying to hurt us and further more that he was likely not sober. All in all, we made it Costa Rica before nightfall in one piece with a pretty good $20 story and a memory of George’s first tank top that will always make me laugh.
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