Wheels of Chaos - Nicaragua TukTuk Challenge

19/03/2026

14/03/2026

05/03/2026

Well Liz landed back in the UK just this morning and I arrived in Guatemala last night. It has been the most amazing and fun adventure and we have been able to raise over £2000 for our fabulous charities.

Norwegian Log has been incredibly generous in their support of our adventure and a wonderful sponsor. They have also written a fabulous write up!

At Norwegian Log, we are incredibly proud of the wonderful community that surrounds our cabins. Many of our log cabin owners share a love for the outdoors, adventure and making the most of life. Sometimes that spirit leads to something truly extraordinary.

01/03/2026

We made it! We spent a large part of our day off at a very fascinating chocolate tour on Ometepe. Our guide spoke of the history of chocolate but also fluctuated between the spiritual connection of chocolate and the science behind it!

We stopped there for lunch as we were sat on the water, overlooking one of the volcanoes. It was stunning and the food was delicious – the magpie-jays clearly agreed as they flew off with half of mum’s! We spent the rest of the afternoon admiring the wildlife near our cabin!

The following day, we were heading back to the ferry (thankfully it was far less windy than coming out) and we stopped off at a nature reserve. It was a lovely walk but not half as many birds and animals as at our hotel and then we were on the way to San Juan del Sur.

We were getting used to the gears, dodging lorries who seem to forget you’re there, off road driving, etc. and so it felt like quite an easy breezy drive to our next stop. The hardest part was our challenge – stop off at a pulperia (family-owned, hole in the wall, basic food shop) and grab some specific local foods and drink. Well we got the fresca en bolsa (juice in a plastic bag) but the other two items no one seemed to have. One pulperia recommended another team go to a supermarket! When I asked our pulperia owner what she recommended, I just got a blank stare. My Spanish clearly needs more work!

Bag of juice in hand and slightly unsure how to drink it (you bite the corner and drink, I just hope you’re thirsty because you can’t really put it down or stop!), we headed on!

The highlight of San Juan del Sur was when we swapped the tuktuk for a boat and headed out to spot some humpback whales. We were unbelievably lucky and saw two pods – one group of four adults and another group of mother, calf, and their es**rt. It was beyond incredible.

We also stumbled across a school of sardines and so we saw a huge number of spotted dolphins and magnificent frigatebirds – each species had to number over 100! It was impossible to know where exactly to look and because we were on a research boat, we stayed out much longer than planned as they needed to try and identify the mother of the calf and they don’t flute often with young (show their tails as they dive down deep). As such, we got to admire a stunning sunset from the boat!

And then all of a sudden, it was our final day in the tuktuk and we had to drive 100km back to Granada. I’ve had the most amazing time in the tuktuk and the whole trip has been one huge adventure but after 100km? I was very happy to arrive and hand over the keys. I’m sure I’ll miss it when I’m less stiff.

After some relaxing in the pool (and a quick but very important detour to buy some chocolate rum!), we headed to dinner for the final time. Tragically, we didn’t win and I’m convinced it’s because we submitted a photo of a dead crab but the challenge didn’t specify that it had to be alive! Regardless, we had the most fun time and we all arrived back in one piece, and so did our trusty tuktuks.

We also raised a total of £1814 which means around £600 to each of our fabulous charities! Thank you so much to Norwegian Log and to all our friends and family who donated and/or helped fundraise. For anyone who was waiting to see if we’d survive before donating, we did and you still can by clicking the link below…

https://www.justgiving.com/team/wheelsofchaos

28/02/2026

Happy Birthday to wonderful little Harry James Gregor Thompson. A huge name for a little boy but he will grow into it for sure. Gosh how time flies but I can't wait for all the years ahead filled with adventures cuddles 🥰🥰

25/02/2026

We had a tuktuk free day in Popoyo and traded it for a jeep to a nearby community. We learned how to milk cows, make plates, and cook corn tortillas (they are made just with soaked corn and a little bit of limescale). We also stopped by a local school and said goodbye to Beryl, planting her in a place she hopefully won’t get squashed by running children. The most fascinating part though was learning about village life and how self-sufficient they are as they are often cut off from everywhere during the rainy season.

We spent the afternoon relaxing by the pool, before heading to the beach to watch the pelicans fly home for the night!

The next day, we’d planned a leisurely drive to the port and I’d keyed in some lovely bakeries and artisanal places to visit but we got told our ferry was actually an hour earlier and so we headed straight there. There is a large building project to convert the dirt roads into a proper Pacific highway and so we are driving along roadworks galore and our maps are saying we no longer are on a road. With a fairly limited timeframe, all the teams are getting a little anxious about whether we are on the right road and so I jump out and ask a worker in my best Spanish (i.e not very good) if we are on the road to Tola. We are, excellent. I message the other teams to confirm but we have no signal! Luckily, everyone carries on.

Some of the traffic we frequently come across
Mum did some excellent driving as we got stuck behind a lorry blocking the entire road trying to reverse. After 10 minutes, it gets free but hadn’t secured the ramp and so it slams its brakes on and something else happens where it needs to stop suddenly (I think someone’s stuff blew away)! We overtake as we no longer have any faith in that lorry and make it to the ferry terminal.

One of the crew parks our tuktuk on the ferry because it is tight and we take our seats. My sunglasses blew into the lake which continues a glorious trend of something happening to my sunglasses whenever I travel! And we are in for a very windy and bumpy journey to Ometepe.

Our challenge for the day was to recreate a famous boat scene from a film. I had a wonderful plan but it was too rocky so we went with ‘You’re gonna need a bigger boat’ with the help of a German backpacker! If there is any justice in the world, you will never see it.

After an hour, we had arrived. Ometepe is an island within the 7th largest lake in the world and home to two volcanoes! It is gorgeous. Our hotel has wooden cabins overlooking a little beach and one of the volcanoes. We have vultures, caracara, osprey, cormorants, you name it! You can also see (and hear!) the howler monkeys all around. We went for a little walk along the beach and someone had brought their herd of cows to have a drink which was lovely to see!

23/02/2026

We had a 70km journey to Popoyo and so after breakfast and our morning briefing, we were off! Mum drove out of the city and we’d planned to drive for 30 minutes or so each but we were somewhat limited on where to pull over and so drove half each instead.

The first half was not the most exciting, although we did drive on a stretch of the Pan-American Highway which connects Canada to Argentina (and whilst still not an exciting drive, it was cool to be on such a famous bit of road). We also got our mighty tuktuk filled up with petrol and stopped off for some mysterious fruit.

And then we were turning off and going onto a road still being built in places so we had to contend with bumpy dirt tracks, road works and various large machinery, and horses that decided to run across the road at the last minute! There’s a large number of cattle just wandering around but they tend to move at a relatively steady pace. As my trusty navigator said, “I was waving at a man and then suddenly there was a horse trying to get into the tuktuk”.

We also decided to diverge from the route and head to see the salt flats and whilst interesting, we decided not to stop as they weren’t stunning like the ones in Malta and so we returned to the designated route but it wasn’t long before I was telling Mum that I’d go a different way to get to the hotel. The maps lied. We’d gone about 15-20 minutes down this road to get to a wooden fence blocking the rest of the way and so we had to turn around and go back the way we came!

We made it to the hotel though (eventually) and went for a swim to cool down before walking along the beach to get a cocktail (or two) from the Salty Koala and watch the sunset.

21/02/2026

Awake early and not leaving until 9.30am on the first day, we decided to have an early morning swim in the lake. It was a wonderful temperature and the morning light was gorgeous. At 7am, we were back down at the restaurant to grab a cup of tea (or two) and some breakfast. And it seemed like before we knew it, we were having the team briefing and were off.

The large minority team were there to see us off and we were the first tuktuk they called to leave. This was our moment…and we stalled (I won’t say which of us stalled to preserve Mum’s honour 😜). She recovered quickly though and we were off!

Each day, we are given a couple of challenges to complete for points and today we decided we’d focus on the driving and worry about challenges when we were more confident…well we ended up in a vivero (plant nursery) we found at the side of the road and I’m trying to explain to a woman using Google translate and my poor Spanish that we needed a native tree to Nicaragua. Yes, we would buy it. It needs to be a sapling/baby tree. Where are we planting it? Somewhere in Nicaragua. We haven’t got that far yet. And that is how Beryl the Lluvio del Oro joined the Wheels of Chaos team!

Once we got Beryl into the tuktuk, I took over the driving. We spent a lovely couple of minutes of me just trying to get it to start (nothing wrong with the tuktuk, I’m just incompetent)! Had a lovely pootle along the road and then suddenly I’m turning left onto a duel carriageway. For the non-technical car people amongst you, tuktuks aren’t known for their speed. But we survived, a bemused police officer waved at us, we detoured into a little town and then joined a main road again! Heading into Granada, Mum took over but it was a surprisingly smooth journey in!

We did pop to the market in Granada to see if we could complete the second challenge but the one stall I found offering the food, didn’t actually have any but a very helpful shop owner gave us a tip about a cart that appears in the evening so hopefully we will be able to complete that later on!

So we headed back to the hotel to swim and relax (we explored Granada for a couple of days earlier this week). Tomorrow we head to Popoyo which is a 70km drive!

21/02/2026

Just a brief update as promised - we start the Tuktuk Challenge properly tomorrow. Today was about meeting the others and learning how to drive the tuktuk.

I might be naturally talented at a lot of things but driving a tuktuk takes more work than I anticipated. We finally got it started (after Mum took over) and we headed out on the lakeside road. We took it in turns to drive along the road and practice braking, turning, etc. Diligent students that we are, we also both had a go at stalling whilst going up a steep hill. We were incredibly successful at that, less so at starting it again but we got there eventually.

I can imagine the confusion of the locals who saw a number of tuktuks driven by gringos going backwards and forwards repeatedly. We passed one man three times and on the final time he gave a rather large but confused wave. In turn, we were slightly confused by the people hunting (successfully) an iguana with a slingshot. Apparently they have less parasites during the dry season...I think we might skip trying iguana.

Tomorrow will be a shorter driving day than the rest but that's probably a good thing. The photos/footage should get better (as our driving hopefully improves, we should be less terrified for our lives) and we get our first challenges in the morning! So another huge thank you to anyone who has donated/sponsored/hosted events for our fabulous charities - APOPO, Orangutan Appeal, and MAP. We hope you enjoy following along and aren't too traumatized to share the roads with us when we get back home!

19/02/2026

The smell in much the same way humans do. Some material gives off molecules that we perceive as smell. These molecules enter our nose when we breathe or sniff. The nose then sends a picture about what it smells to the brain. The brain compares this picture with other odor images stored in memory to determine if it’s the same or different.

Importantly, the ability to tell the difference between small changes in these odor pictures improves with practice. Like a wine connoisseur that might be able to distinguish the subtle differences between a cabernet and pinotage aroma from years of experience, the rats also get better at distinguishing subtle odor pictures with training.

This also makes it possible for them to identify a very faint odor based on its resemblance to prior experiences with stronger versions of this odor. For humans, you can think of this as recognizing the smell of coffee regardless of whether it is being brewed in the office down the hall or coming from the cup you are sipping from.

16/11/2025

In the summer my dear friend Jenny Lees of Pearl Island Arabians held a special day showing friends around their wonderful stud. Unfortunately it was in the high twenties so some of the ladies couldn't attend. 🥵 However they still managed to raise £150 to add to our fundraising making it a whopping total of £750 to date. 🥰🥰🥰 Thank you so much to everyone who contributed. ♥️♥️