Across Lago Nicaragua to Costa Rica

After a pleasant few days on Isla Ometepe unable to walk, it was time to catch the overnight ferry across Lago Nicaragua to San Carlos, Nicaragua, their we would catch a local boat up the river to Los Chiles, Costa Rica. Goodbye to Nicaragua and Viva la Revolucion.For anyone interested "chingasteros" is a Nicaraguan word referring to dregs and is not related to the Mexican verb "chingar".
We rode our bikes along the sandy path down to the port around 4:30 pm to catch the 7pm ferry because we were told to . . . then we hung out for hours. Locals poked at my bike admiring the disc brakes and double racks - the older men laughed when i told the young man there was room for "dos chicas". Other than that we ate a little, drank a little, watched some locals play cards . . .Then I looked up and saw a police officer aiming his gun at a young man, not pointing, aiming, and directing him away from the crowd towards a large tree off to the side. I almost took a photo but . . . I did not want the gun pointed in my direction. Evidently, his arrest was related to drugs (cocaine was the word) and this provided an interesting diversion as more police showed up under the big tree and chattering commenced. Eventually, everyone drove off piled into the back of a Toyota pickup, suspect included. And we got on the boat.
After bags and bikes and boxes were loaded it was time to load the bananas. I always enjoy watching other people work and leaned on the rail playing with my camera while the banana pile grew higher at the back of the boat. Originally, I planned to hang my hammock and pass a pleasant night swinging to sleep. Alas, there was a Peace Corp field trip that boarded in Grenada and snagged all available hammock space. So Matt and I watched the island recede into the dark, noting the electricity was out again, drank my rum, and Matt broke out his snus (Swedish smokeless tobacco). Later, I went into the cabin area and watched a pirated copy of Avatar (not a bad movie) on the padded benches and finished Shogun (not a great book) on the padded benches. Eventually, the cabin became cold enough to hang meat forcing me to forgo the padded benches for the steel plate deck, oh well.
We approached the San Carlos dock as the day dawned and cayucas were beginning to move. The sun was not quite up and we were all pretty damn tired - though Paul, Matt, and Silvia had there sleeping pads and fared sightly better than myself. We stood around on the dock watching the bananas unloaded before they commenced with bags, bikes, and boxes. I saw the same two guys selling religiously themed painted mirrors and we smiled and waved. We met Jeff on the dock. Jeff was from Arizona and bike touring around Costa Rica and Nicaragua for a month or so. We decided to combine forces for the next leg of our journey which entailed going through Nicaraguan immigration for our exit stamps and taking a lancha 10 miles up the river to Costa Rica. Typically, all this is easier with a group because there is always someone to watch the bikes while others take care of business.
San Carlos is pretty small so we found the immigration office/boat dock in about 5 minutes by spotting Silvia sitting there. We noted that it would not open 'til 8am which gave us time to get breakfast at the local market and still sit around.
Jeff was a retired Arizona gun shop owner with a politically perverse sense of humor that I found charming. He had also grown up in several central/East African nations during the late 60's and 70's witnessing their revolutions for independence and had some good stories.
After several hours of standing in the open air "hall way" of the faded ramshackle immigration building that teetered over the lake on pilings we got to the final boat . . . it was a small boat. There were a lot of passengers then us, our gear, and our bikes. I thought about those ferry boat disasters you read about in Africa when the overloaded boat capsizes and everyone drowns. But I was too tired to care - as long as they did not fuck up my bike.
In the end I had a front row seat looking at our bikes piled up on the bow as we plied our way up a narrow river past a few homes and troops of Howler monkeys. The only real annoyance was the "take charge" woman next to me that was not actually in charge of anything who would not shut up or hold still. Eventually we reached Los Chiles beat and I was short tempered. The short temper part came in handy when they tried to rip a rat trap pedal through my spokes while unloading and i decided to be in charge of unloading bikes. Then it was beer, food, bed.