“Tuani” is Nicaraguan slang for “good.” Yet right now was definitely not “tuani.”

I was riding a bicycle down a big highway in Nicaragua with my family. We were on a “guided” tour from a beautiful volcanic lake back to the city of Granada where we were staying. The problem was that our guide was lost!

Huge trucks were screaming past inches from our bikes. Our guide had no idea where we were going, and my parents were getting fed up. We were not having fun.

After urging our guide to get us off busy roads, he led us to a mountain bike type trail. It was an overgrown bumpy road that was too steep.

After about 30 minutes of riding, Alfredo, our guide brought us back to a paved road. The malodorous smell of gasoline clung to the air. We rode further, hoping we were close to our destination, the tour company called Bicimaximo. Right now my whole family happened to be thinking that it should have been called Biciminimo.

We were hoping that we were nearing Bicimaximo. Then the guide turned us onto a new dirt path that seemed to wander aimlessly through the country side. Our guide then stopped and by now my parents were beyond fed up.

Our American phones were of no use and our guide could not reach the tour company to come get us. We then flagged down locals and learned we had been going up the wrong road! At the bottom of the hill we had just worked so hard to get up, we decided we could ride no more and attempted to flag down a taxi or a passing car. A few cars seemed to slow down, but none stopped. Finally a Nicaraguan bus saw our cue and stopped for us. It appeared full when it arrived but somehow they managed to fit our five bikes in the back and all of us into the bus.

The bus was packed. A whole family sat on one seat that would have fit only two kids on our school bus. People were standing in the aisle. I know that at home, our school bus driver would have yelled at us if we tried to fill the bus like that!

When our ride was over, we arrived at the bus station still a few miles from our destination. A few more wrong turns and a dead end street, and we finally made it back to Bicimaximo.

Arriving to Bicimaximo, the shop happened to be closed so our guide with a key brought us in where we dropped our bikes off. My sister and I walked back to our hotel, to take a shower and get into different clothes. Our parents stayed behind for they wanted to speak to the owner about our bad experience. After a while our parents came back to the hotel, telling us that they had made peace with the owner, Baker, and had invited him to join us for dinner.

Baker happened to be quite nice and a shower was all we needed to calm our nerves. We learned quite a bit of Baker’s history and what had brought this 26-year-old Virginian native to Nicaragua four years ago. When Baker went home, our day ended; fulfilled with happiness as well as fatigue and grit.

But on that day we had learned something important; make sure you know your guide knows where they’re going because otherwise they can take you anywhere!

RACHEL BURNS is a fifth-grader at Harriet Beecher Stowe Elementary School in Brunswick.