Nicaragua: Not a Good Idea for Now
 

So as not to rewrite the entire thread, i am cross posting just a link to my thread on advrider.


Civil Unrest in Nicaragua | Adventure Rider


please avoid nicaragua for your safety.

From ADV Rider:
Some good posts over there, I liked the above the best. :thumbup1:

All true far as I know. IMO, it's not so much that "many Americans are Assholes" but more that our GOVT is the real ass hole and fact is, most Americans have NO IDEA what foreign policy is in Latin America ... and really don't care.
I know for a FACT (and you probably do as well) that CIA has been trying to undermine Ortega since day one. Can't believe he is still alive.

Ortega and his gang are not innocent in this either and have screwed up a lot ... and YOU would know this better than I. I don't know policy details over last 10 years so hearing mixed interpretations on recent history ... and a TON of bull shit being slung around too.

But I'm quite sure our CIA are distributing millions in cash to buy whatever political groups they want to support. Look how they did Chile, that is their model to over throw.
Typically, this is mostly goes to right wing movements or paramilitary, but here looks like they've taken a different tack. Not sure yet who or what they are supporting.

Maybe you can elaborate? Soon it will all come out, but would love to hear your outlook and perspective.

In the meantime, local people suffer and 95% can't escape to Florida like you can. Sadly, the USA has the resources to end this NOW.

Hard to blame Nicas for anger towards Gringos given our govt.'s horrid history of meddling in Latin America from Guatemala, El Salvador, Cuba, Chile, Argentina, Venezuela and now Nicaragua. :thumbdown:

The Gusanos will try to rewrite history and justify their GREED but not sure this will work in Nicaragua ...as populace is too well educated. Now who did that?
bier

Teevee appreciate all you've posted over the last few weeks. I've just traveled South America for 6 months and was planning on continuing up through Central America. Now after doing the Stahlratte crossing to Panama, talking to people and thinking carefully about the risks I agree crossing Nicuagura is not worth it.

For what it's worth my "solution" is to spend the next few weeks looking around Panama and Costa Rica before flying the bike back to London. There it can rest a few months before I fly it out to Canada in 2019 and reverse my original route by starting a North- South trip. Hopefully by late 2019 Nicuagura will have stabilised again and I can go all the way down to Panama - otherwise I can at least go down south as far as Honduras. The bikes flight Panama- London is going to cost $2,500 and me another $500 so this is not a cheap option but the prices I've heard for simply flying the bike over Nicuagura to Honduras aren't hugely cheaper. The advantage to me of this major change in plan is the rest period at least gives me a chance to earn some money and also to look back and absorb South American experiences a bit so overall I'm not unhappy about the change.

Good luck to everyone else out there in my situation trying to make a decision what to do. Hopefully you too can find a solution that suits.

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Since you're planning on coming back over again in '19, why not fly your bike over to Miami, then either ride it up to Canada and leave it ... or store it somewhere in USA while you recuperate back in UK or wherever.

IIRC, flights from Colombia to Miami are not too outrageous $$ ... so perhaps the Panama/Miami flight might be affordable? Dunno?

I'm working on a long range future plan ... and as of now what I will do is RIDE down to Florida in Winter, then fly me and my bike to Colombia, skipping Central America all together. (I've seen the countries, lived in Guatemala 2 years).

Just a thought. Safe travels! :mchappy:

Flying to Southern USA was one option I seriously considered (and currently friends of mine are currently investigating flying to Mexico) - you're t right prices for this route might be more reasonable. In the end I chose Europe because I have lots of family and friends over there and so I can use the Nicuragua blockage as an excuse to spend a month or two to catch up with them. Hopefully having my own bike there will save me some transport costs to offset it's freight - also I'm hoping Air Canada will still be doing cheap bike transport next year and if that is the case at least getting the bike back to North America should not be too expensive.

Good luck with your plans. Hopefully we might meet on the road one day.



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MollyDog, i wish the CIA were trying to undermine ortega. that simply is not the case. the US has been essentially ignoring him as they do most banana republic dictators lately. talk talk talk and DO nothing.


There is NO opposition party anymore in nica, ortega had them declared illegal. the paramilitaries in the country are ortega's. it's not like reagan's 80's there. ortega instituted CPC's (consejo poder ciudadano) basically neighborhood spies. they report on EVERYTHING, who comes and goes, plate numbers, new vehicles, new furniture.... you can't shit there without ortega knowing.


i honestly have no idea how exactly it will end, but i have little faith it will be soon or without lots of bloodshed.


i've moved my family to panama indefinitely. way more expensive but also really nice and safe.

Sounds like a very confused, Eff'd up situation. So sorry you and your family are being displaced. Hope someway, somehow they can work things out, rein in the Militares and come up with some sort of consensus. Civil War hurts all sides.

CIA may not be attacking Ortega now, but look at your history. Specifically Iran Contra. Who do you think paid for the Contras?

doh

Let’s remember that this is the Central America and Mexico forum, not the HUBB Pub. The OP is offering information about the current situation in Nicaragua, particularly as it affects overland travel. Speculation about CIA involvement and the past machinations of the current director of the NRA—about which I’m as interested as anyone—are perhaps best taken elsewhere.

Thanks.

Mark

a word of caution: many of the roadblocks have been taken down by force of the police and paramilitary groups. although this means that you can physically get from one place to another, it DOES NOT mean it is any safer. 14 people murdered since friday. all acts of random violence by police and paramilitary.


please continue to avoid nicaragua.


yeah it certainly does suck for us travelers, but our lives should mean more to us than our adventures. and i really do not wanna read about someone's final adventure ending in nicaragua.:thumbdown:

UPDATE: i went to nica for an overnight this past weekend basically to pick up family clothes (and some rum!). went from airport to house in managua with a brief stop at supermarket to pick stuff to grill. streets were very quiet/semi-deserted during the day. no locals are going out at night and nearly everything closes around 6-8 p.m.

on sunday, a friend picked me up and we went for breakfast on the other side of town. again, streets were deserted, as was the country club where we ate.

roadblocks inside managua are pretty much gone. outside of managua there are still some, just not sure where.

so you can have things in PROPER PERSPECTIVE, while i was there enjoying the relative quiet in managua, the pigs and military dressed as civilians slaughtered 14 people and injured dozens in other cities. IN TWO DAYS.

and while some folks on ADV report having ridden though recently, i still recommend staying out of nicaragua.

friday the 13th and the hordes of ortega funded assassins and the police are killing once again. mere blocks away from a friend's house in managua, the pigs are shooting at a church (where my friend got married). inside the church are a priest and injured kids.

so if y'all think they would hesitate for a second to take your ass out riding a bike through, God be with you.

read ortega's history: he is an uneducated guerilla. he takes joy in death. in response to a message from the vatican about his pigs assaulting priests and sacking a catholic church, he said, "we are protecting christianity."

his pigs are no openly posting on social media their exploits and bragging about it.

while the world clamors about human rights bullshit and applies monetary sanctions to individual govt functionaries, they take NO ACTION. what a sad effin species we are.

Perhaps you're correct, although it's been my observation that when well-meaning outsiders try to intervene, they just screw things up and make an awful situation even more awful. :(

according to my friends that stayed behind, these have "returned to almost normal." roadblocks are gone (mostly by force) and random murders by pigs and company have stopped. instead, they are going house to house all over the country and kidnapping people, who are allegedly being arrested for "terrorism." some of these folks later turn up dead in the morgue--cause of death? officially some horseshit, but their bodies show obvious signs of torture.

i am still not moving my family back and am looking at how to get all of our belongings out. my faith in nicaragua and its peacefulness, has been shaken to the core. the level and capacity for violence against unarmed people has really ****ed me up. i cannot imagine sending my wife out to walk the kids to school in a place where the government supporters burn entire families alive and shoot unarmed women in the head with shotguns. best of all, the perpetrators of these acts did them for payment of about $8.00 USD. yes, $8 USD for murdering their fellow nicaraguans. you? they'd kill for free if asked to do so.

keep this in mind if and when you decide to cross nicaragua: the us has sanctioned a large number of nica govt officials. it has frozen the money of the nica military (nothing more than corrupt military officials making HUGE amounts of cash with their businesses, such as lumber export), and will likely pass the "nica act," a law that will require trump to veto and foreign aid or loans to nicaragua. if that happens, nica is f-u-c-k-e-d. this will in turn make the US and all gringos, very unpopular. i would not at all be surprised if whortega directs his paramilitary pigs to attack foreigners, which they will gladly do.

you would do well to read a bit of whortega's history: he is a high school drop out and a guerilla. he is happiest and most at home directing and ordering the deaths of others.

Teevee Thanks for the continued updates, I've been following your posts here and ADVrider.

I don't expect to be there for a few more months but it's really helpful to have the info you've been providing.

I will no coment political problems but in this moment I'm in Nicaragua with my wife ,three children and own car and I can tell you it is safe,nice and cheap country with great people.They are some check points on road with police but they dont stop tourist.

Crossed Nicaragua
 

August 01, 2018 I crossed into Nicaragua from Costa Rica. Rode to Chinandega and spent the night. Crossed into Honduras and then El Salvador on August 02, 2018. I didn't see any signs of conflict and from what little contact I had with locals, everyone was good.
I did see a group log foreign riders riding south.

Thanks to .all for the commentary..... but are there any solutons or alternatives in bypassing the country....if at all.

We will be in Central america in three months time on our way to Mexico, do we simply monitor things and then if all seems OK ride straight through..... or if its not safe does anyone have any alternatives, i.e. would there be a ferry, or is plane the only option.

Thanks Rigby and GBY, we will continue to monitor, from what you say we may be able to cross and ride straight through.

If anyone has any alternative solutuons so we could continue our journey through to Mexico then please let us know.

David

update number? things have quieted down somewhat and most of the murdering has halted. roadblocks are gone. heavy police presence in managua after there having been a shootout or two between the pigs and the paramilitaries, who are sill armed with military grade hardware and may or may not be under govt control.

i am going down on the 10th to see how my property is and check on the general climate of shit before deciding anything. i suspect that the evil side has won and managed to murder enough innocent folks to shut them the eff up for the time being.

having said that, during the war in the 80's, managua remained relatively calm, while a civil war raged on the outskirts.

not wanting to be a nit-picky nanny type, i'd say that it is somewhat ok to transit through for now, just be SUPER AWARE and STAY THE HELL off the roads after 5:30 p.m.

oy david, i normally live 1/2 time in nicaragua--2 weeks on 2 weeks off. been in panama with the family the passed 2 months riding the violence out.


i keep tabs on what's happening and will keep this thread updated for as long as necessary. PM me as time gets closer for an in-depth report. if things are back to normal when you come through, i'll put together a nice "bahbie" for ya and we can share some beer!

Thanks, will dobeer

Just met a rider here in Tegucigalpa that is headed for the border today or tomorrow. He was on the fence about going into Nica but got some information that other travelers had gone through recently so he's going to make a run for it. I'll keep in touch with him and get back to the thread when I have any other information.

I am not advocating that a rider should go into an area where he feels unsafe. However, I thought I would post this dicho here.

Todo lo que siempre has querido está en el otro lado del miedo. . . Cuando vences tus miedos, se destruyen tus limites.

Spoke with my friend that just went through. He said that it's calm enough to zip through. He did the entire stretch in a day, about 300km total. Not much else to report other than it looks like riders are slipping through, sometimes in small groups.

Spent two days in Nica last weekend. while the streets are much less occupied and businesses are still not opening at night en masse, i would say it's ok to ride through.


if nothing changes drastically in the next few weeks, i will be moving my family back in mid-september, as most of my friends have done.


i will reiterate, that if you do cross or even tour, stay off the roads at night.

Glad to see that it's slowly improving.

There's conquering fear, and then there's being just plain stupid. A little prudence goes a long way.

Time flies.

So here’s the deal. Two weeks ago, I moved the family home to a much quieter and safer neighborhood. It was a long overdue move despite the shit that’s been going on over the past 5 months. Last week I moved the family back from panama as after having spent five days here moving I deemed it safe enough FOR NOW.

Things are not normal here. Many businesses have closed, operating hours are much shorter, practically no tourists (a good thing?), much less traffic. There are near daily marches, protests, caravans etc and a ridiculous (by nica standards) heavily armed police presence. There are still roving bands of masked people with automatic weapons but they are on witch hunt missions and are not indiscriminately shooting people.

I still do not believe this is a good time to be touring the country. However, if you stick to the main highways you should be fine to transit through. Oh, San Juan del sur is fine. So if you’re headed south, blast through from the north and spend a couple of days relaxing on the beach there before heading to Costa Rica.

On another note, to add to the BS one has to deal with here, they are demanding that you provide proof of yellow fever vaccination if you’ve spent ANY time in panama and 15 other countries. No proof? No entry. No exceptions. Not sure about Costa Rica but you can get the vaccination in panama for $100. You will then need to wait 10 days before entering nica.

Thanks for all the updates and information you have provides in this thread Teevee, much appricaited! I hope your new home will be better and safer for yoir family.

I plan to join the Stahlratte sailing 10/10-14/10 from Cartagena to Panama and thus I will probably cross Nicaragua in the first half of November. Just hope there wont be a second wave of trouble and roadblocks. (Had enough of them in Bolivia too esrlier this year...)

Thanks for the updates everyone, I really appreciate it. I am in San Cristobal, Mexico and heading south now. I’d love to be kept updated and may transit through Nicaragua in the next couple of weeks. If anyone is heading south in the future and want to think about having a riding buddy for that stretch of road let me know! I do want to ask Teevee, what is the gas situation like now? Are gas stations opened?

Thanks mate

all businesses that have not closed permanently are open. gas supplies and stations are at 100%. price of gas is high, as usual. only costa rica is higher in CA.


many smaller hotels have closed. MANY. so, do not rely on websites and 3rd party booking companies for lodging. call or email your selected places and confirm. then re-confirm a day or so before. keep in mind that the economy has tanked, especially the tourism sector. lots of places had held on, by letting staff go and running ghost operations. but there's no telling how long they can hold on without customers.


i will keep this thread updated.

Thanks for keeping us updated. All has been quiet with your neighbors to the north. That storm that came through last week was something else though. We got slammed.