a story of travel, a Nicaraguan volcano, a motorcycle accident, a creepy hostel, and the powerful friendship between five friends

December 30, 2022

There are so many levels removing us from home, thought Louie as he lay on the top bunk of a creaky hostel bed, feeling pain shooting from his shoulder with each minuscule movement.

I heard him toss and turn restlessly across the room. His ruminating continued:

We flew to Costa Rica, took buses and walked across the border to Nicaragua, taxied to a hostel, rented motorcycles, took them an hour to a ferry, the ferry took us to an island in the middle of Lake Nicaragua, and I had a crash on the other side of the island, where we are staying the night in a creepy, vacant hostel. 

My passport and all my belongings are in another city, my crashed motorcycle is at a random person’s house, and we have nothing but the clothes on our backs and some Nicaraguan cash to get home.

Louie went through the last few amazing days in his head, hoping that the past few hours were just a terrible figment of his imagination. 

***

Two days earlier, Louie, Julia, and I flew to Costa Rica to visit our good friend, Cameron Bogard, who had been backpacking solo through Central America for three months. 

Lovingly known as “Bogey,” the vagabond was wrapped in a grimy, sweaty group hug as soon as we saw him.

Our buddy, who left the state of Idaho that past October pale and cold, was now a tan, fauxhawked wayfarer with a surfboard under one arm and a fresh tattoo on the other. 

The next few days were picturesque: from the airport, the four of us bussed up to the Nicaraguan border, crossing it on foot.

There, we bargained with a local taxi driver who agreed to drive us an hour to our destination: San Juan del Sur, a town on the southwest coast of Nicaragua, known for its bustling little city life and beautiful bay.

When we arrived in the town, we met Bogey’s Australian friend, Georgina, whom he met while traveling; she would also spend the week with us. We ate delicious local food, caught waves on Hermosa Beach, and met travelers from all over the world who also planned to spend the fun New Year in the vibrant setting. 

On the third day in paradise, we rented some scooters and planned to take a day trip to Ometepe Island.

Formed by two giant volcanoes and centered in the middle of the largest lake in Central America, Ometepe Island is known for its tropical rainforests and diverse flora and fauna. 

We sped through farmlands and little towns for an hour and caught the ferry at San Jorge.

As the ferry docked at 1:30 in the afternoon, we traced our eyes up the striking image before us: Volcano Conceptión covered in a velvety green blanket, wearing a cottony lenticular cloud like a Santa hat.

Nestled at the base, the small port town of Moyogalpa was dwarfed by the sheer size of the volcano. 

We hopped on our bikes, and Bogey led the way on his olive green scooter.

As our caravan exited the buzz of the little city, the scene around us changed immediately. Brightly colored block buildings gave way to lush farmlands with modest homesteads. Sheep, spotted cows, and plantain farms peppered the landscape.

Every once in a while, we saw a stray dog on the side of the road. Nicaragua is crawling in “nica dogs”—skinny and mangy but never aggressive as they trot along their merry way. 

We snaked along the gentle cobblestone curves. Louie gunned the throttle, feeling the warm wind dance through his hair. 

“The only word I could use to describe the smell of the air was fresh. All the vegetation and no industry made the atmosphere humid and crisp simultaneously,” he mused.

“I felt so relaxed and at peace in a different country with my friends, riding through the countryside by ourselves like locals.”

The mid-afternoon sun was illuminating Volcano Conceptión like it was an ethereal image. Louie was mesmerized by its sovereign beauty. It was one of the most surreal moments of his— 

Louie was out of control. 

He wasn’t looking at the road. 

The next few seconds passed like lightning, but he remembered it all in slow motion. 

“I was going too fast, and we were entering a small village,” he said.

He peeled his eyes off the volcano just in time to see his motorcycle approaching the back of Jules’ bike like a bullet zeroing in on an oblivious deer.

To avoid a catastrophe involving his friend, he hit the brakes—hard. The bike started fishtailing: 

“I could feel myself actively crashing. I almost got control again, but I swerved into oncoming traffic.”

The bike slammed down hard on the cobblestone, with Louie still trying to wrangle it.

He and the bike skidded for a while—all the weight of the crash falling on his right shoulder. He left some of the skin from his arm and hip a few feet behind him: forever embedded in the abrasive rocks of the now-infamous site. 

The rest of us snapped our heads back when we heard the screeching of the tires, just in time to see our friend smash into the unforgiving road.

We immediately pulled over and ran to Louie’s aid. He was on his feet, holding his shoulder gingerly as blood started to seep through his shirt.

He was in shock; everything happened so fast that he couldn’t wrap his head around the last thirty seconds.

Everyone sprung into action: I checked Louie’s injuries and assessed the damage to his shoulder. It looked a little out of place.

Bogey assessed the bike—it was leaking fluid. Jules watched the other bikes on the road while Georgina helped Bogey.

The smell of burned rubber and gasoline lingered in the air.

Because Louie crashed outside of someone’s house, the homeowner came to check on the scene playing out on her driveway. She was concerned about Louie’s well-being and asked if she could help.

We didn’t know the extent of the bike damage, and we didn’t want to keep using it if we didn’t have to. Bogey conversed with the woman in Spanish and asked if we could keep the bike at her place until we returned that direction, thinking that it would be just a few hours.

The gracious woman agreed, and Bogey went to store the bike near the house. 

I figured out how to make a sling out of a t-shirt for Louie, and we decided that he would ride on the back of my motorcycle until we returned to get his bike.

We continued on our quest to Ojo de Agua, a natural volcanic spring, hoping it would lift our spirits and take our minds off the looming situation.

When we arrived, we went for a dip in the crystal blue water, rinsing off the sweat and grime that had accumulated over the past few hours. 

It became evident that trying to return to San Juan del Sur that day was out of the question.

As night quickly approached, we knew that trying to get the unreliable bike back with us in the dark was highly unsafe.

Bogey pulled up Hostelworld.com on his phone and tried to find a cheap hostel to keep us for the night: the only vacancy was at the Lazy Crab. 

As we pulled up to the hostel, our hopes were high. The excitement of changing plans and adapting to adverse situations buzzed in the group’s energy.

However, as we walked into the empty, quiet, Rastafarian-themed establishment, the vibe quickly changed to unease. The place was pretty much vacant.

After a quick scan of the reviews under the hostel listing, he realized there was no one there for a reason—the place was weird.

We swallowed our anxiety and tried to get a few hours of sleep and leave early in the morning to catch the 9:30 ferry.

A long, restless night ensued as we tossed and turned, losing precious hours of sleep because of the pounding music from the club next door. Quite the juxtaposition.

***

We woke at 5:45 with a pep in our step, eager to exit the “Twilight Zone.”

As soon as we set off on the bikes, the unsettling vibe quickly changed to wonderment as we rode through the early morning light. Everything from the little farmhouses to the vast fields was highlighted in a pastel glow.

Colors were softer—tension in our shoulders eased as we inhaled the dewy morning air, feeling the warm breeze tease our second-day outfits. 

We pulled up to the house where we had left the bike. In the back of our minds, we wondered if someone had stolen the bike—we DID trust a stranger with an expensive machine.

However, we were pleasantly surprised when Bogey wheeled the orange and black bike around the side of the house. Even better: it ran!

Louie gave the homeowner some Nicaraguan córdobas for her kindness, and we set off to catch the ferry. We were one step closer to pulling this off!

We were exhausted. The trip from here should be easy, I thought. If the bike didn’t break down and we didn’t encounter any other problems, we should be home before the late fee is added to our rental payment. Ah, how naive was I to think Ometepe was done with us.

***

Despite missing the first ferry to get off of Ometepe Island and running out of gas on the stretch back to town, one valuable thing kept us all (mostly) sane when things just didn’t seem to go right: we were all in it together.

Ironic humor surrounds difficult situations when you’re with people you love and trust. 

 “It’s good to have your friends to rely on,” said Louie after reflecting on the crazy day on Ometepe.

“Many unforeseen things happen, and you realize you can’t do everything alone. I realized that I didn’t have to feel guilty about accepting help, because that’s what friendship is.

“I felt fortunate to have a group whose overall well-being came from everyone’s individual well-being,” he added.

The most remarkable thing we took away from the trip wasn’t learning how to make an arm sling out of a t-shirt or learning how to siphon gasoline with our mouths, even though those things were pretty neat (and gross—just ask Louie how gasoline tastes). It wasn’t even learning that we could rely on our reasoning and resourcefulness to keep ourselves safe.

Most importantly, the trip became an anecdote for friendship—a friendship that can withstand the distance across continents, the strains of travel, and the uncertainty of a foreign accident.

Louie said it best: “The trip to Ometepe Island became a valuable lesson on interdependence.”