Viajes de Vandria: War Wounds

This entry was taken from Laura´s blog.

While in Isla de Ometepe, Nicaragua, we decided to explore the island via motorbike. Chloe opted out of the motorbike excursion, thinking it might be too dangerous, and instead hiked the volcano. Seeing as how I have ridden them all around Thailand and Greece, I thought nothing of it and Gail, Vandria, and I went ahead and arranged for 3 motorbikes to be delivered to our hostel the following morning. The day started off on the wrong foot when they showed up with legit dirt bikes, aka motorcycles. I can barely use a manual transmission car so I wasnt about to try to figure out the clutch-and-shift situation on a motorcycle. We should have taken that as a sign – a.k.a. the roads are too rough for scooters – but instead we had the guys that delivered them drive us the hour-ride back to their office on the back of the motorcycles. Clutching on to the nice Nicaraguan men as we sped through villages, passing farms and herd of cows…it was certainly an experience. Along the way, I was chatting with my driver, who happened to be the shop owner and we made a little bet. If I DONT crash the bike, he owes me a beer, but if I DO crash it, then I will owe him a beer. I had never had problems before so I thought that this was an easy beer to win.

Once we arrived in town, we got our scooters (since they CLEARLY don’t call them motorbikes in Nicaragua), a map of the island, and took off to explore.

exploring on our motor bikes

All was going great until we turned off onto a rocky, dirt road looking for the beach. First of all, before I go any further, I would like to explain that this a) wasnt even a real beach, as we were on an island in a lake, and b) that it wasnt even the correct road to the beach in the first place. Massive fail. Regardless, we didn’t know all of this yet, and were maneuvering around the rocks on our vespas. This is when I ate it. I was actually being very cautious and driving relatively slowly when I saw a patch of rocks in the road up ahead. I decided to avoid said rocks and go up on a small ledge around the rocks, when my bike skidded out from under me, went sliding INTO the rocks and I was left sliding down the road as well. Not ideal.

The first thing that came into my mind once I stopped sliding on the gravel was: Oh man! Now I have to buy this guy a beer! Thats when a car came by to help out, picked up my bike and I saw the damage….then I thought: Oh man! This is going to be expensive!! The gas was leaking, a rock was stuck INTO the front and side of the bike, and there were scratches everywhere. I was still in shock and hadn’t yet noticed the extent of my injuries. The men helping us did, however, and offered to take me to the hospital. I thought that seemed a bit unnecessary, so instead they offered to take us all down the road to the hotel they manage and give a place to clean my wounds. I am so thankful for how helpful they were as they let us use their lobby bathroom, clean towels, and offered me money to buy bandages.

When you fall off a ~~horse~~ motorbike, you’re meant to tough it out and get right back on, right? Right. So that’s what I did and the rest of the day was so much fun.

scraped up and ready to ride again

We went to the “beach,” visited the cold springs, rode up to a lookout point to view both volcanos on the island…it was really incredible and DESPITE the injury, I had a lot of fun.

When we returned the bike it was a lot less fun since I had to pay $190 in damages to the bike. Thats a LOT of money when youre on a Central American budget, let me tell you.

Side note: I wasnt the only one fell. On the way back to our hostel, Vandria also had some issues. She was stuck trying to make it up a slight hill over a rock when her bike wouldn’t go anymore. Thinking it was a bicycle, she decided to walk it up the hill, but when the bike was too heavy she decided to rev it a bit. And then a bit more…while still OFF the bike. Gail and I were watching this from afar thinking “does she know that bike is going to fly away from her???” She did not, and that’s exactly what happened. Her bike jolted forward leaving her to chase along side of it grasping for the brakes. It fell, she fell. It was classic. She scraped her knee a bit, but the bike remained intact.

So, the moral of the story…….DO NOT ride scooters off of paved roads. I wish the story ended there….with all of the traveling and humidity, the war wound on my leg got really infected and after 3 days, I thought I should go to a pharmacy to get it checked out. They took one look at it, gasped, and sent me to the medical clinic. The doctor had to remove all of the skin that had tried to heal and after about 30 minutes of total agony, I was sent home with a clean leg, antibiotics, and a $150 medical bill.