Nicaragua is giving me AIDS

Not related but did you overland through the Northern Triangle? You got survival tips?

>>1224834
What the fuck? I thought Nicaragua would be like El Salvador, Honduras and parts of Guatemala: cheap and no foreigners. Not that I've ever been to any of these countries.

>>1224880

He's a retard.

Grenada and San Juan del Sur are the two most touristic cities in all of Nicaragua. Take a motorbike ten minutes outside of either city and the tourists will all but disappear.

I rented a motorcycle in León and rode to Cerro Negro to climb the volcano. Once I got outside of the central market area, I didn't see a single gringo until I got to the park entrance.

So far as Managua goes, it's the capital and largest city in the country. Hardly any tourists go there because it has a reputation for being relatively rough.

It's sort of like going to Paris and complaining about all the tourists.

>>1224874
What's the northern triangle?

>>1224915
The bike is being fixed so I'm stuck on foot, although I did a lot of off-bike travel on this trip and never felt trapped in the bubble like this.

Near as I can figure cheap locals hotels just don't exist in this country: where I was paying ~$4-7 for dorms in Mexico, and ~$5 for hotel rooms everywhere in Guate, dorms are $10-$15 here, which hurts on a long trip like this. The fact that everything for tourists is priced and charged in USD (despite it not being the currency here) is surely a big part of the problem. Since the only budget accommodation (besides camping, which I need bike for) are flashpacker hostels, I'm at a loss as to how to get away from that.

The local people in Nic also seem very noticeably poorer than countries north, despite the huge numbers of tourists and expats, so where I've been able to find local food, the quality and hygiene are abysmal.

>>1225155
Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.

>>1225163
Guatemala seemed quite safe. Even Guatemala City at night (and I was all over it) seemed fine. The western highlands of Guatemala are very native and conservative and seemed completely safe, but overall Guatemala is just a lot more developed and nice and cleaner compared to the others; I think it really helps that the (shit, criminal-minded) beaner aspects of the country are leavened with the (dignified, community-oriented) native.

El Salvador felt a lot less safe. Went out at night only in small towns, and even that was probably a bad idea. Even during the day at times it was pretty spooky.

Honduras I just drove through since it's supposedly so unsafe and just generally shit. Can't speak to it.

Nicaragua seems pretty safe, but it's also REALLY dirty and poor outside of tourist areas. The perfect roads everywhere threw me at first, but I realize now the reason they're so good is that there are hardly any vehicles on the roads (instead of every man woman and child having a motorcycle like in Guatemala, they mostly ride bicycles here).

BTW, it's Mexico that's more difficult to overland. LOADS of corrupt police and checkpoints everywhere in the North, and bizarre lack of police and loads of corrupt 'community checkpoints' in the South. Plus lack of gas stations and gas in many parts. Conversely the centre of Mexico is nearly first world western in terms of perceived safety.

...and all the borders are easy enough to get through with a vehicle without any help except El Salvador, where they require so much paperwork and hoop jumping I paid a tout. Although I might have been a rare case having no problem getting into Nicaragua (everyone else seems to have lots of trouble).