up a steep hill

We rented a car near the middle of our second week in Nicaragua and went driving in the northern highlands. Lured by idyllic rhapsodies of an unmarred travelers paradise, and fed up with being spoon-fed a tourist experience (i.e. a surf camp), we set out on the uncrowded, surprisingly well-maintained Nica highways (well-maintained apart from the absence of any road signs--that is).

In one small town off the main highway on the road to Jalapa near the Honduras border and in the heart of coffee and tobacco production for the north, we made a mandatory detour up one of the steepest dirt roads I can ever recall driving up in a car. On our way back through a day or so later, we stopped for lunch (deep fried chicken, plantains, gallo-pinto) and watched as a public bus driver decided how to best negotiate the wall of a hill. In the end, he had his full payload of passengers disembark and walk up the hill. What was funny was how commonplace a thing this was to those passengers. No big deal. It certainly wouldn't have flown here. I liked it.