Paul and Lynette's Travels: 11/01/15 Cycling around Granada Nicaragua

We had booked this 14 day Cycle tour through Intrepid, although it is run by Exodus. We travel through Nicaragua, Costa Rica and into Panama.

This morning after breakfast Diana our tour leader gave us a full briefing, safety instructions and trip notes. The group consisted of 17 riders, 15 from the UK and 2 Australians, 1 tour guide and 3 support crew (Paul the mechanic, Alvaro support rider and Nano our driver). We started by walking around the corner to get our bikes. Those who had custom items such as seats and pedals had them fitted by Paul very efficiently, we test rode round the shed before setting out. We biked through the centre of Granada and headed down to the shore of Lake Nicaragua, the 10th largest in lake in the world, and the only one with fresh water sharks. We were heading to the Asese Peninsula recreation area, we had been riding about 45 mins, the group was spread out quite a bit, with Paul (mech) taking the lead, Alvaro in the centre and Diana bring up the rear. One of the riders Ollie had had a bit of debris caught in his derailer, so he and Diana were some way back from the main group. Ollie was in front of Diana when 2 men ran out of the bushes and pushed her off her bike, she managed to get out a scream as she fell, which alerted Ollie. He dropped his bike and started to run back, they pulled out knives, holding one to her throat and one to cut away her backpack and ran off before Ollie reached them. Diana was bleeding from her elbow, from a very deep gash, and couldn't move her leg.
We found out as one of the passing drivers drove ahead to alert us that something was amiss and Ollie rang his father. We all rode back to find her in considerable pain, there are 5 Doctors in our group of varying specialities. Jane and George took control, we had just managed to her into the back seat of a utility truck before the paramedics arrived and transferred her to hospital with George accompanying.

After much debate we decided to continue on our journey. We headed to Villas Mombacho restaurant, where we had a welcoming drink, gave our lunch orders then took a short lake cruise, seeing exotic bird and other wildlife. We shared a Guapote the fresh fish caught from Lake Nicaragua, it was delicious! Rode back to town, dropped our bikes off, had a short break and the hotel. Throughout the day we were getting updates about Diana and the police were dropping in and out to speak to Ollie. At 2pm we headed off in the bus to Volcan Masaya National Park the site of Nicaragua's most active Volcano. The volcano itself was steaming sulphur so we couldn't see into the vast crater, if we could we may have seen the parakeets that make their home there. We drove back to Granada for dinner and an early night.

Throughout the day we learnt Diana had been transferred to a private hospital in Managua, she had X-rays to determine that the ball of her right femur had been sheared off. She was to undergo an operation that night to pin it. Ollie went with the police in the afternoon to positively identify the suspects the police had apprehended. As usual they really caught themselves, one was trying to sell her mobile phone, and once caught he gave up his friend.