Miss Universe

A late departure from Jaco, Costa Rica did not seem like a bad idea at the time, and I guess looking back it wasn't. But by the time I got to the Nicaragua border it was 630, and had closed some time earlier. Back tracking to the nearest town, made a couple stops and thought it was to be one of those nights but happened to find a great little hotel with a pool for $10/night. Fish soup on the menu - bones, crabs and all.

Got off 15 km to the border and the banging started. The little shisters at the border convinced me to give them 30 bucks for a speedy trip through the border but it was the least of my worries. 20 km down the road and I had a huge piece of metal fly off my engine and oil spurting out. That was after about 10 km knowing I should stop but didn't want to push the bike in the heat with the most painful banging noise I was just hoping to hold on but right out of the movies flew that piston or whatever time will tell.

The taxi driver pulled me with his rope, took me to his mechanic friend, the bank, then drove me out to Playa Madera. Was supposed to bring me a pedal bike to buy off him Sat. but never showed. Its just been chilling and surfing on the beach doing my best to settle down. I'm doing allright. I mean, my engine exploded two days ago, and i just said that's it. it's over. the journey is over. But somehow the mechanic seemed hopeful and positive that it can be fixed.

I have been overwhelmingly surprised on a number of occassions, and have no reason to believe otherwise that everything will be just fine. At least it wasn't my leg that blew off that's significantly harder to fix!