Nicaragua Adventure - Feugo y Agua

I have a healthy obsession with volcanoes, mountains and the great outdoors. Passionately curious of what the planet has to offer and of what human beings are capable of. It all happened a few years ago when i did the diagonal of fools on la reunion island and seeing the active volcano erupt on the run, it was magic. Afterwards being curious of what other volcano trail races existed, i stumbled upon a great report by Christian Griffith's on a trail race named Feugo y Agua. Translated fire and water from Spanish, it is a 100km wilderness run up two volcanoes on a remote volcanic island in lake Nicaragua, central america (the piece joining north and south america).

When i saw this race a few years ago i knew i just had to do this race no matter what, by looking at this island on Google earth you will see what i mean, it is quite unique. So i drooled over the lakes and volcanoes and always had it in the back of my mind. The race was canceled last year because of financial reasons, but the date was set for February 2012.

As this place is very far from South Africa and takes up allot of jet fuel and money i added more adventure to the mix to make it even more worth it. I always wanted to fly somewhere far and unknown and ride out of the airport solo with my mountain bike and explore, and this was the perfect opportunity for me to make it happen.

 Nicaragua lies on the pacific ring of fire and is bordered by Costa Rica on the south and Honduras on the north, it has undergone periods of political unrest, military intervention by the United States, dictatorship and earthquakes but has reached a period of stability and are described as the safest in the region. I did my research, and even though people tried to scare me with all sorts of stories, they didn't manage to scare me. I was gonna see for myself, armed with my mountain bike, running shoes, super potent bug repellent, antibiotics and hammock, i was well prepared and on my way.

So packed with the bare essentials like any adventure racer would as hand luggage and only booking my bike as checked baggage on the airplane, i left for two weeks traveling on the 4th longest nonstop endurance flight in the world 17 hours directly to Atlanta with a slight detour near bermuda avoiding a storm (these airplanes are amazing), so touching US soil for the first time i connected to Managua Nicaragua with another 4hour flight. On the connecting plane to Nicaragua, a German guy saw me stand out in between the american missionaries with my south african passport, somehow he knew i was not a missionary and not from the us, and seemed keen to chat, we swapped seats and talked nonstop for 4 hours, what an awesome coincidence, this guy turned out to be an epic German cartographer that has mapped large parts of Nicaragua, central and south america and other parts of the world, a true adventurer. I showed him my topographic map on my tablet and he was impressed how well i was prepared and showed me the best way to get up some of the volcanoes in the arch. On one of this mapping expeditions he told me he traversed a large section of the volcanic arch on foot. His name is Klaus Wiesner and he gave me one of his own maps he made of Nicaragua for free, he said i need it more, what a cool guy!

Coming in over lake Managua for a landing at the capital with the same name he showed me momotombo volcano (they actually have a geothermal power plant there) and it's tiny offspring volcano inside the lake, momotombito. This was very cool, and he told me that the US marines used to do combat training there. We landed at the small but modern new airport in Managua that lies on 11 seismic faults, in 1972 an earthquake occurred here with a magnitude of 6.2 at a depth of about 5 kilometers beneath the centre of the city. The earthquake and after shocks caused widespread damage, among Managua's residents, 5,000 were killed, 20,000 were injured and over 250,000 were left homeless. Even though no recent earthquakes took place large parts of the city was never rebuild, and made the country even poorer.

I booked into basecamp for my biking and running adventure, the best western hotel opposite the airport after crossing the pan american highway with Huge trucks like you see in trucker movies, hectic trucks, trucks you want to avoid getting your bike close to. But my plan was to take back roads and stay away from cars and experience the country from the top of my seatpost in style. Double story buildings in Nicaragua are rare, and because of the earthquake you can understand why. The settlements around the airport and next to the hotel looked similar to the townships we get here in south africa, very poor.

So i mounted a small bike carrier on my seat post to carry the heaviest stuff and took the rest on my back leaving my cardboard bike box at basecamp. I had my GPS and had semi planned were i wanted to go each night, but seeing a country with google earth you can only plan to a point and the rest is up to adventure. It was quite a liberating feeling riding out there with my bike into the unknown on dirt roads in a strange country that only speaks Spanish, but i ended up having the time of my life experiencing tropical living in one of the poorest but richest countries in the region. Poor money-wise but rich in volcanoes,natural beauty, passion for poetry, art and friendly people.

"It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door," he used to say.  "You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to."  ~J.R.R. Tolkien

My goal was to get to the island Ometepe in lake Nicaragua in time to do the 100km Feugo y Agua race and then cycle back, i ended up cycling more or less 30km every day, taking it easy before the race, exploring and having my own adventure.

I cycled through very poor areas seeing very interesting landscapes, interesting people and funny heat struck dogs along the way. A couple of nights i stayed at a biological research centre inside the dormant apoyo volcano crater with clear blue lagoon inside hosting Cichlid Fish found here and in lake Malawi, i swam inside the lagoon most mornings, a very inspirational place with awesome people running it. It was a little though for me to get out of the crater with my bike in the mornings but this place was so awesome that it didn't even cross my mind. I also cycled past the active volcano of masaya where i peeked inside the crater seeing the raw earth at work, one night i went with a group to explore it at night, we went into old lava pipes looking for vampire bats and found some, on our way out we had a peek into the main crater to see the glow but were quickly overwhelmed by the sulfur and quickly left the reserve.

From the port of granada on lake Nicaragua that hosts fresh water bull sharks, i took the weekly 2pm ferry witch was a 4 hour ferry ride to ometepe, the twin volcano island on lake nicaragua. My bike was loaded with the cargo and i spend most of the time in my ticket to the moon hamock outside on the upper deck of the ferry hanging and looking on my gps were i was.

We saw spectacular views of the active volcano, la conception and arrived at altagracia just after sunset. Waiting for us at the port there were locals with stacks and stacks of banana's or plantain that would be exported off the island with the ferry continuing through the night to the south of the lake. I got off and i managed to get my bike after a while, and then there were nothing, no lights just a pitch dark 3km road i knew i had to take to get to the little town from the port according to my gps. Here after 100m i went over the handlebars with a heavy backpack on my back after trying to turn on my red back light and not looking, hitting a big rock my bike stopped and i bought land like we say when you fall off your bike, it was quite funny. Then out of nowhere locals on bikes came riding past and trying to stay in my light as they had none or very basic lights, i must have looked like a spaceship to them with my gps and all my lights. My gps helped me allot. All towns in Nicaragua are small, they basically have a central plain surrounded by a few settlements. Altagracia was even smaller, but i managed to find my accommodation and eat something and get a nice nights rest in a very basic room with a bed and a fan, this day was full of adventure for me.

The next morning i took some 16km of rough dirt roads directly to mayogalpa on the foot of the huge la conception volcano, mayogalpa is where i were gonna stay for 4 days while doing the 100km fuego y agua ultra marathon, this is also where the race would start the next morning.

I settled into a room that looked like a converted horse stable with a door, bed and fan.