We crossed over into Nicaragua first thing in the morning. Ocotal was only about 30 min from the border and the roads were great. None of the ATMs seemed to like our bank cards or pin numbers so we skipped it and used dollars for a day. Luckily they are as acceptable as the Cordoba.
We originally tried to get to San Rafeal Del Norte. There is a small Sandanista museum there in a small colonial town in the mountains where the original movement took hold.
We quickly got our first dose of Nicaraguan roads. I think, after going through the first town correctly, we immediately got on a wrong road and kept going wrong. We eventually found a landmark town but couldnt get into the valley we needed. We kept getting different answers- imagine that. The accent is pretty hard to get at first, fast and slurry. Bad directions that kept us going in the wrong direct, more compass checking, matching the vallies to the map. men on horses telling us we can get over the river - which we believed. there were just so many more roads than are on the map. After 2 hours we decided to just go back to the main road. a four hour diversion to nowhere with some pretty tough roads. We did find the road we had intended to take it it was basically a river bed. So that wouldnt have taken us far, but it was the one that was chosen for the map, go figure.
We spent our first night in Esteli because it started raining so hard it seemed like a good place to stay at the right time of day.
