Jan Gerben – Harley-Davidson flathead 1943 World Travel

Granada, Nicaragua, june 5th 2009

Didn´t leave today. Same illness as before, exhausted and headache. No electricity at night, so no airco and windfans. A lot of people are complaining, flu like. It´s not like the swine flu. Warnings for that are every half hour on national tv. This week 7 cases in Masaya, 16 km´s down the road from here, visit that weekly.

Will rest and try to be on the road monday or tuesday, I won´t cross the border on a weekend anymore (see story Honduras).

Thanks for all reactions on message 1, always feels good to read!

Granada, Nicaragua, june 4th 2009

My second goodbue party is on saturday, it almost feels normal to say goodbye again to all the people I have come to known in a short period. My temporarily import licence for the bike expires on thursday after that. On tuesday however I feel a little sick. Worse on wednesday, i feel completely exhausted and have a headache all day long. No way I can leave on thursday!

The import license can only be renewed once. I try my luck and go to the customs head office in Managua. I try to get to talk to the managing director but that is a no go. The first officer I talk to gives me little hope, the second however warms up to my story. I need to write a handwritten letter to the director and she will plead for my request. I have to call back on friday to hear the answer. Much to my surprise I get 15 days extra, as an exemption to the rule!

Tomorrow I will leave for Costa Rica. Jimmy three fingers, Brian and Aracelly will accompany me to the border. I´m sad to leave. Life and love in a third world country have mesmerized me. A third goodbye party seems not a smart thing to do, it´s hard to leave as it is.

Granada, Nicaragua, may 22th 2009,

Sorry folks for the delay in my blog messages. Life is exhausting here, the heat is intense. So fixing the bike takes a lot of time. Finally released from Coca-Coco, I go and look for a better mecanic. I search all over in the barrios of Granada, barrios are the suburbs where the ´poor & dirty´ live and those who can just make ends meet, no paved roads, just animals and houses in variety of OK to plate cabins. No problem for me in daytime, in the night a no go-area because of drunks (cheap home brew liquor, last year in one month 144 dead due to bad liquor) or junkies (glue sniffers). I don´t find a suitable mecanic. I do find the electro guy who helped Coco and so managed to screw up my part. He is an expert in wind fans by looking at his ´shop´, but not capable for my part. In the end, Jimmy Three Fingers brings about the solution. He goes to the States for a few days to visit his parents. I find a part in Ohio (Flatland Motorcycles, thank you for excellent service) and they manage to get it in time in Florida. With the new part I rebuilt the generator myself. Anything that can go wrong, goes wrong. Missing screws, wires are broken and the new part is just somewhat longer than the old one. Finally, on last saturday I have it all working. Just in time for a testride to Leon (picture) and beach. The ride from Leon to the beach is a hell ride, the signs said there would be construction, it turned out they broke away the whole road, so nothing but sand and lots, loads of rocks, for 15 miles! In the night it rains, so back through mud and rocks. The bike behaves perfect, my generator charges, life is good!

Coming days I will be preparing the bike for the next stage (rain season will start one of these days)and there probably will be a ´ET go home´-party, Nica-gringo humour: ET= Euro Trash go home-party. I wish I could tell all the jokes when I go on my bicycle allover town, by the way the gringo love my stories but love even more to make fun of me, I don´t mind.

For the whole story, please use the translation services on the Dutch text. I can´t wait to find the time to do you folks justice and make a proper full translation, but until then I really am sorry.

Granada, Nicaragua, may 5th

Waving me off in Granada takes a few days. Starting on wednesday at the motorcycle club, friday with Wayne eating fish with little teeth from the sweet water lake, going over in a big party at saturday night at Jimmy’s restaurant. He plays sixties, rock ‘n roll & country. A variety of people show up, I seemed to have gathered quite a bizarre collection of Gringo’s, Nica-Gringo’s & Nica’s in the few weeks that I stayed here. The whole human spectre is present, a fitting statement says: Nicaragua, land of the wanted & unwanted. On sunday Jimmy, Brian and myself go to the Hippica in San Marcos. The whole town is closed for th annual horse parade. The motorcycle club has a deal with one of the restaurants, if we show up on our bikes and park them in front, we have free food & drinks all day long. Great! In the evening we terurn, but it takes time. Brian’s light goes down, Jimmy’s rear wheel sprocket turns loose and in the dark we wrench with the light of some mobile phones, my bike falls over on the wind. When we finally enter Granada my generator goes down. This is the third time since the start of this roadtrip in Alaska. There are two days left before my import permit for the bike expires!

On monday I start with my permit. With Brian I hop onto the bus to Managua. From the offices of Immigracion, Policia Transito Nacional (national traffic police) we end up with Aduana (customs). On tuesday I have to come back. On the appointed time they are closed! Later I learn that it is custom to show up two hours in advance. On wednesday I finally receive my permit. Time for the bike.

Following advice I go to a local mecanic who wrenches on Harley’s. We make a deal and start working. As expected my armature within the generator broke down. Coco, the mecanic who looks like if he could be Maradona’s twin brother, needs more money to get the armature rewinded. Thursday everything will be fixed. Thursday turns into friday, turns into saturday turns into monday. In the weekend I hear stories about Coco’s cocaine habits. On tuesday more money is needed. To make matters worse Coco’s lying about doing tests etcetera when I notice that they just fucked up my armature, so no tests possible. Nighttime I make my decision. I want my bike out. But to say it rudely, he has got me by the balls. My bike and parts are in his dirt floor shop. Now it’s my turn to lie. I make up a story about commitments next week in Panama and I manage to get the bike out. Then Coco disappears and I don’t have my parts. His helpers (12 and 7 years old, no school for them!) don’t know where the parts are. We look all over. I even search in his bedroom (big word for a bed and giant tv screen in a corner of the shop separated by curtains). Nothing. Eventually Coco shows up again. With my parts. He wants a lot of money for his work. We negotiate and I can leave. But I am worse off than before, they screwed up my armature!!!

Granada, Nicaragua, april 14th 2009

Still in Nicaragua. The week before Easter is not a good week to travel since the entire country has a week off and runs to the coast or the lakes. I decided to go to the mountains. Away from craziness and (over-)loads of people. Good choice. Took a local friend along on the back of my bike and went north. In the mountains it´s somewhat cooler, especially at night. Great riding, roads are almost all excellent. The only worry was finding a restaurant that´s open.

It was also great to be on the road again. In my head there´s a lot of confusion going on. the things I experience and see over here are so totally different from my Western mindset that my moral compass needs some calibrating. Prostitution, drug dealing, abuse of woman and children, poverty, it´s all out here to see. Maybe beacause I am not a passerby that I experience it, but still, I don´t like it, hate it, but is it wrong? That used to be an easy question but over here the (moral) lines between good & bad are not easy to draw. Is prostitution wrong when you can feed your kids by doing that because there are no jobs and you got your first kid at 17 or 18 beacause the church dictates a strict anti anti-conception policy and the father has moved on in true all present macho-style to another party & girlfriend? There are a lot of different questions going on in my head on these kind of problems. Next days I will either flee for them by going on the road down south or chew on it some more and calibrate my moral compass again.

For the full text please use Google Translator on the Dutch text, thanks.