Hilly riding on a road slowly becoming busier have brought us to town of Esteli.

Nicaragua is a cleaner country than others I’ve cycled through. Even have seen these places to sort your trash and recyclables. We also see less trash along the roads as well. Today we also saw a road crew cleaning the road.

I didn’t realize I was on a cycle route, when I saw this sign announcing its end. Today we also saw one or two caution cyclists signs. Also see locals on bikes as well.

Not long after this sign, we had some good climbs again.

We passed this large facility for drying coffee. It seemed to be sorted into different small plots, perhaps owned by different people.

Also nearby was this building labeled “Centro Solar”.

Sign told us the web site is: grupofenix.org, listed as “sustainable development in Nicaragua”.

We came past the Taliban bar. The owner came out and was proudly explaining the name.

This comedor served a good lunch.

Later in the afternoon we came past tobacco fields and also some drying barns. You could smell the tobacco.

Nearby was this suspension bridge over a mostly dry river bed. Believe a lot more water here during the wet season.

These horses also nearby.

Not long after this stop, we had our longest climb of the day, 300m of climb. We had 1060m overall today.

Close to the top, we saw cactus again.

However, also irrigated fields.

The road into Esteli was busy but without too much difficulty we found our way to central park and hotel nearby. A local cyclist spotted us and invited us to a night-time ride this evening.

We didn’t attend the ride, but happened on it when walking in the park after dinner. It was fun to see the locals out for a ride.

They had a police pace car. Some with helmets, some without. Some with lights and some without. A total of perhaps 40 cyclists was nice to see out for a ride.