There’s no doubt about it. Packrafting in Nicaragua was one of the highlights of my journey through central America. Apologies for not yet finishing the blog of the trip. I will do it. In the meantime though, here’s a video of the bus ride from Jinotega and the following four days paddling it took to [...]
With only a couple of weeks left until the end of this trip, where I fly out of Cancun, Mexico, I wanted just one more mini-adventure. And it would be in Belize. I had read on Cass Gilbert’s blog of an off-road route he had taken through northern Belize. Having missed the fun dirt-track biking [...]
With only a couple of weeks left until my flight home from Cancun, I decided to spend it cycling the length of Belize, including off-road riding… Belize is a little country with a lot to offer. I didn’t make it to the most likely of places (not even the world’s 2nd largest reef), but I [...]
From the Caribbean coast in Guatemala, we cycled inland and up hills to El Salvador. A brief stop in San Salvaldor to recuperate and we hit the cross-country route Honduras. And that was much harder than either of us expected… killer hills and roads not on our map. But it was fun too (in a [...]
…And so we survived our first day and night on the river. But who knows what the new day will bring… It brought crocodiles. The day started calmly. The early morning hovering mist had dispersed and a blue sky emerged. All was still except for the few birds that had missed the dawn chorus. A [...]
It was a good feeling to be reunited with the bike. No more at the mercy of rickety buses and well worn backpacker routes. Even cycling across Tegucigalpa was ok. Except we got lost. But then we were shown the way by a father and daughter in a large 4×4. The last day in the [...]
So there we are, a-floating down the river. Calm water through a tunnel of trees. Walls of silence through which nothing passes. Just a white-noise buzzing in the background of crickets clickety-clicking. The thick deep green forest close around you. The channel of blue sky like a pathway and the river carrying you unabated on [...]
The packrafting trip began long before we reached the put-in point on the Rio Bocay. Crowded chicken buses from Somoto to Esteli and on to Jinotega. The inevitable sit-and-wait at bus stations. A hive if activity. If you enjoy people-watching, there is no better place than a central American, small town, bus station. People buy, [...]
Or, A Poco Loco on the Coco? The idea: To packraft down a river somewhere in central America. We had the packrafts, so that just left a river to find. We found the Rio Coco. Flowing from the Nicaraguan highlands and down through the remote area of the Mayangna and Miskito people, it is central [...]
We bought 10 days of food in Jinotega, up in the highlands of northern Nicaragua. We figured this would be enough food to keep us going (although we only had a vague idea of how long the rivers were, and how fast we could paddle) and if needed we could probably find food in small [...]
or you could buy me a coffee:
