Contact Admin. Got up late had breakfast in the little place from yesterday. Saw some Russian sailors; made our way to the edge of town. Red pickup to the cotton plant on the carretera, then we hitched aboard another pickup to the Chinandega-Leon Highway. Long wait and some walking, a large military convoy passed us going to Chinandega, the most soldiers I have ever seen in one column in Nicaragua.
Got a truck, a grey Kama3 with an Empty bed, like yesterday a beautiful ride. By accident we got off 8 km from Leon but with weird luck the same damn grey truck appeared and picked us up again. Mike and I made it for the train station on foot and I started bitching about my damn typewriter. I had hurt my back hauling it around all yesterday and the back of my shoulder was sore. I took it out of my pack and was ready to donate it to anywhere in particular.
I held on to it. We got some drinks and waited for the train to move for an hour. Then we spent four dusty but whimsical hours in a cattle car getting up to El Sauce, such fun. It is great really, with a nice ambiente , people are friendly. Yeah, there are pigs in the street but they keep the place clean. El Sauce seems to have left the war behind. There are trees and sand streets, old buildings and a very nice clean church.
It rained as the night began to fall. Fresh, not tropical looking at all. We stayed at a nice hospedaje just up from the church on the far side of the RR tracks. Had a good dinner at the hospedaje, went out to look at the town then crashed after a quick visit to TELCOR to try a call to Mom, no dice, the rain scrambled the lines to Managua.
Mike got caught talking all night with some Nicaraguans. Woke up, went right into travel mode. Mike bought bananas and bread. That was breakfast on the bump and roll. The dirt road was relatively good and the East German flatbed converted into a bus with awnings and tubes seemed to work well as we rolled over the mountains in cool morning weather.
