Part Eight

January 6 / 1999
Nicaragua

The border post was located in the highlands so we were spared the heat of the lowlands as we began the process of exiting Honduras. With a guide it didn't take long and within an hour we had moved on to the Nicaraguan side with a new guide. Obtaining visas was not a problem, it just took a little waiting in line (which our guide told us we could have circumvented if we paid a small fee) and everything seemed to go smoothly.

Diane was happy that it all was going so well and said the fateful words "This has been the easiest crossing yet, we'll be on our way in no time!" At the next office a woman immigration officer thumbed through my passport and stopped abruptly at my old (1996) exit visa from the country. She said that it had not been stamped with an exit stamp for my motorcycle! She rapidly spoke a few sentences to my guide and then pushed my passport and papers under a pile on her desk and carried on dealing with all those in line behind me. Our guide told me it was a problem and that we were going to have to wait for a while.

Wait we did, for about five hours, sitting on a concrete bench in the immigration office. The whole thing didn't make a lot of sense since I had all the entry and exit stamps of the neighbouring countries right there and it all was in a chronological order. However, she had to have records checked to ensure that all was in order and that meant phoning the border where I had crossed previously (west of here) and have them look in their files. Of this would take time, and she had to go to lunch, and the phones were busy, etc.

Our guide was upset because he wasn't making any money as they could only provide services to one person at a time and all his friends were busy rushing clients through. (It appeared to us that almost everybody that drove through the border used guides). He assured us that it would all work out but that we might have to pay something to expedite matters. We resolved ourselves to the fact that it would take a while, even preparing to spend the night there if necessary, and the time passed fairly quickly.

At last the papers were passed over to the guide and we moved on to the next offices where we had to pay a small fee and then the guide asked for about $25 to give to the police. I passed it over and he disappeared into the office and came out smiling with our final papers stamped and even my old exit stamp validated. We were happy to have it all over but somehow I felt that we had been taken by the guide for that $25 as I didn't think the police saw any of it. I confronted him with this but of course he denied it. In hindsight, I should have told him that we would go back to the police to discuss it but I wasn't on the ball enough. In the final analysis, it still turned out to be faster and a lot cheaper (visas at the embassy cost $25 US each) than if we had gone into Tegus.

By the time we finally pulled onto the road after the border it was almost 4:00 and we didn't have much daylight left to find a place to camp. The nearest town was over an hour away so when we saw a neat restaurant / bar with a gated, grassed area beside it we pulled in and asked if we could park there for the night. Once we got to the owner (we suspect he was napping), he gave us the okay to park. He spoke a little English and was very nice. After taking a long walk on the road, we had supper at his restaurant, grilled chicken with salad (our first in ages), french fries, rice and Coke. This fine meal only cost $5 each. The place was very well constructed and maintained, something we were not accustomed to lately and so we were sure to tell him that. Actually, our first impressions of Nicaragua were that it was very clean and the people a lot friendlier. The only downside to the place was the loud music that they played until midnight. I used my earplugs and managed to get some sleep but Diane had to contend not just with the music but my snoring!

We got a good start and stopped at the first large town (Estelli) to replenish our supplies. We did not keep much on hand going through the borders because we didn't know what they would confiscate so it was great to find a fruit stand and bakery. The town was very clean and organized and were not harassed at all. The people have noticeably lighter and curlier hair here and we did not feel as much out of place as in other countries.

The countryside was agricultural, there being more mechanization obvious here even though we did still see adobe brick "factories" (a couple of men with buckets and wooden forms mixing mud and sawdust) beside the streams. We saw corn fields, rice paddies, and cattle ranches. Flood damage was still evident and we passed some US military in "hummers" and numerous large military dump trucks on their way to do repairs. We stopped for lunch at a nice viewpoint overlooking Lago Managua and the hot plains below. The main bridge on the highway to Managua had been washed away so we had to take a lengthy detour before arriving in the capital. Thanks to one our guide books we had several options to try for places to stay.

The first was a luxury hotel that had a reputation of never having a single successful car break- in since the hotel opened. This was due to an extremely professional security force that monitored the parking lots (which included a fleet of rental cars). It was a convention hotel that was very quiet (remember it was just after the New Year) and I managed to get to speak to the busy manager who understood how much it meant to us to have a safe place to park for the night. She got onto her portable radio and let security know we were okay. We were very happy, here it was, just after noon and we had a good place to park!

The city called to be explored so we headed into town, feeling very comfortable because we were not looking for anywhere in particular, just finding the route through the city for tomorrow. Traffic was not heavy, and fairly well behaved (for Cental America) and we cruised the main streets until we saw a giant new mall where we stopped and went for a walk. It, like the rest of Nicaragua was very Westernized, and it felt very familiar. The people here wear American clothes, jeans, t-shirts, runners, etc.

We carried on, now used to the roundabouts and glorietas and worked our way down towards the waterfront (of the lake, Managua is not on the ocean) but found ourselves slightly disoriented as the main streets disappeared into pothole filled narrow streets in the poorer section of town. A gas station attendant gave us directions to get back towards the hotel (which was actually 11 km out of town) and by then we were ready to settle in for the night.

Managua is a surprisingly large city, spread out over a great area with not much of a downtown core (wiped out by a series of earthquakes and floods over the years). It did have a good mix of the old and new and was surprisingly clean. We still saw the contrasts though, horse drawn carts sharing the four lanes of traffic with new Landcruisers. Something too, that we hadn't seen for a while were all the vendors and windshield cleaners that choked the lanes at the stoplights. We are sure that theirs is a very high risk profession, dodging cars, trucks and buses continuously.

Back at the hotel we were directed to a quiet spot under a light and we relaxed for the evening. Security was good..... they had one man in a new Jeep Cherokee, one on a motorbike (we assumed these were chase vehicles), and several on the ground making the rounds. It was very hot that night but we had no qualms about leaving the back and windows open for air!

In the morning, as we enjoyed our coffee, we were delighted to see several deer wandering the park like grounds. We went for a walk, coming across several tropical birds in large cages. They said "hola" to us!

After breakfast we headed south towards the Volcano Masaya. It is a national park which has an active volcano that you can drive up. We arrived there before the gates opened at 9:00 and were the first ones up. We gave an American hiker a ride up. We stopped at the interpretative centre, which was well done, and then headed up to the rim where you could hike up several different viewpoints and cones. We spent a couple of wonderful hours up there in the wind, seeing some great examples of natures power. We even had managed to find some post cards for our scrapbook. We hadn't been able to find any since Antigua.

Down the volcano and onto the lush, fertile coastal plain that was filled with plantations. We battled a strong crosswind that came off of the giant Lago Nicaragua, where there is the largest freshwater island in the world (you guessed it, another volcano) and carried on south until we turned off the main highway to go to a small town and hopefully, a nice beach to spend a day or two. The town was San Juan del Sur, a sleepy town with not bad beach.

We checked out the hotel across the river that I had stayed at last time and found that it was destroyed either by a flood, hurricane or earthquake so we decided to try a more isolated spot 22 km down the coast on a dirt road. It was a well graded road that had some steep climbs and descents that were made interesting by the sporadic heavy rain that turned the road to grease. The van did well but I sure was glad that we had mud and snow tires all around. Going down the winding hills were the most scary because if you used the brakes too much the front locked up and you couldn't steer!

It seemed like a long way but we were rewarded at the end by a wonderful eco-reserve operated by the government. We paid a nominal $5 to get in and we found ourselves camped on a fantastic beach. It was a bay about a kilometre long with a gradual sandy beach stretching the entire distance. The waves were not too large so we could swim and best of all there was no one to bother us. The preserve was because this was a turtle hatching site. We were lucky enough to be there at just the time they might be hatching.

I was, for the first time on our trip, quite sick with a cold, so I promptly went to bed as soon as we got there. I couldn't have picked a better place to recuperate, no dogs, traffic, music, only the soothing sound of the surf crashing on the shore.

Diane went out with a flashlight in the middle of the night to look for turtles. She wasn't the only one out as the staff and some of the military who were guarding the area also were out. She didn't see any turtles but the next morning when we walked the beach we came across several sites where we could see rubbery egg shells scattered around large holes. Hundreds of small hermit crabs were busy cleaning up in and around the egg shells.

We spent the day walking the beach, swimming and relaxing. The weather was in a constant state of flux, sunny and hot for a few minutes, then cloudy and windy, followed by light drizzle and then by heavy rain. This pattern was to continue for as long as we were there making it a little difficult to dry any clothes or get much sun but were so happy to have such a wonderful spot to ourselves. As everywhere in these countries, people would appear out of nowhere and then disappear but no one bothered us at all. Even the reserve staff never came around, even though we expected them to come asking for some more money.

We didn't go out looking for turtles that night because no one else was out and we were too lazy to get out of bed. However, the next morning we found tracks in two separate spots where turtles had dragged themselves up the beach, dug holes (and presumably laid eggs), and pulled themselves back to the sea. We also saw several more sites where presumably eggs had been dug up. It was a bit of a mystery as we could not figure out if the turtles had hatched and dug themselves out or if people or perhaps a dog had dug them up.

We relaxed for the whole day and decided to stay one more night because we hoped the road might dry up a bit and also we wanted to hit the frontier at a reasonable hour. To be honest, it was such a nice spot we were reluctant to leave. But, the journey must go on so we headed off the next morning. The road was not too bad and we enjoyed the rural scenes.

Everything was done in such a labour intensive manner. We passed a small gravel pit where we saw a man balanced twenty feet up the face patiently loosening and prying rocks and gravel to roll down to the bottom and then he would have to go down and shovel it into the truck by hand. An all day job that could be done with our equipment in a matter of minutes.

We gave a local hitchhiker a ride to the main road as there was no bus service and traffic was very sporadic. After a quick walk along the waterfront of San Juan del Sur we headed to the border, passing alongside part of the huge Lago Nicaragua, which by the way once was part of the ocean and so it still has a large population of fresh water sharks! The lake is quite shallow and because of the constant high winds is very turbid and not suitable for swimming.

We passed through the Nicaraguan side of the border in about an hour with the help of a guide. It would be very difficult to pass through without their help so we never regretted the fee (in this case $4 US). It was a very busy border with more people moving back and forth than at any crossing so far. The Costa Rican side, which we expected to be easy and civilized (according to our books) turned out to be a confusing, extremely busy exercise. Long line-ups stretched out the doors and well out into the parking lot. Guides were not very numerous but one young fellow said he could help us get through "mas rapido", more quickly so we followed him towards the front of one of the lines (which was watched over by a soldier).

Then things got a bit confusing. An older guide started talking to my guide and me and what I got out of that was that my guide was no good, and that it was going to cost money (about $20) to expedite things. I became a little uncomfortable when he folded the money up and stuck it into the passports and took off so I quickly grabbed him, got our passports back and in the process caught him trying to pocket half the money. So I took all of the money out and proceeded to wait by the wicket and watch how things transpired. I must give the officials credit, they did not dally and worked extremely hard, it was just that the process could not handle the volume of people who were there.

After a time, I passed the guard the passports and he passed them into the wicket (after disappointingly noticing that there was not cash in them). Of course by this time it was lunchtime and the next office that I had to go to for my vehicle permit, shut down for 1-2 hours. When it reopened, the lineup in front of me proceeded very slowly as each vehicle requires quite a bit of paperwork. When all was said and done, we were hot and tired, and it was now 3:30 (we arrived at 10:30). We were both tired of border crossing but at least now we were in Costa Rica.

Part 9

caravana@vanagon.com
Copyright © 1999-2001 Ron Lussier. All rights reserved.
This page last updated January 16, 2000.