6th of May.
We met a man at breakfast who gave us very good directions to San Rafeal del Norte. He even told us to follow him for the first mile of dirt. pretty nice. So we got going on the road we probably never would have taken on our own and decided to pass the ´Reserve´ because it looked a lot like the others, burned in the past, full of cows and villages.
it took 2.5 hours to get to San Rafeal and a few minutes to find the museum. This area, especially Esteli suffered badly during the Sandanista movement of the 80´s. nice museum with historic photos of the 30´s set in the original telephone building for the movement. I wouldnt stay in in San Rafeal if i didnt have to, finding places to eat in the small towns at night seems to be the biggest problem.
we continued on to Jinotega and matagalpa for ATM, lunch,and email just long enough to escape the rain.
it had started raining in the mountians before Jinotega. the fun curvey paved road barely had any visibility through the fog. lots of jungle trees and nurseries.
it clear up a bit for the ride between jinotega and matagalpa, which is supposed to be one of the pretiest in the country. it might be, but not as pretty as Huehuetenango to Coban in Guatemala!
three hours later we were in masaya and much drier. We decided not to stay there after looking at 5! hotels. either they were awful with no window or there was noplace for the bike secured. We also thought it was on the lake but it is very much above the lake. its a pretty town, but we moved on 25 minutes to Granada.
Granada was a very nice colonial town, a bit crazy on the traffic with all oneways and no signs to tell you. We happily crashed in our bed after a full day.
the scale was smaller than i thought for getting through all of these towns in one day. it really can be done pretty easily with a little time to do a drive through tour in jinotega and matagalpa.
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