If Los Angeles is a thousand suburbs looking for a city, then Nicaragua must be 5 million people looking for a country.
Today’s border crossing was the most difficult I’ve ever had to do. I still do not understand half the things I did today. All I know is that I’m glad I hired someone to do some of my paperwork for me. I needed to get my car inspected by Nicaraguan officials. The hardest thing about that was that they weren’t all in one place, nor was it very clear who to go to. Some random guy in a corner was the first official, then the second one was in the buildling. Then I signed out, and had to go get some signature by a third official, who the guy I hired went out and found on the streets. I gave him 7 bucks for his help. I suppose also because I hired a guy, they didn’t even bother asking me where the vehicle was or what it was. They just saw the piece of paper and signed it. I’d strongly recommend anyone going into Costa Rica from Nicaragua to hire a guy. Just give him a $5 tip. Trust me, it’s worth it. I bought my Nicaraguan cigars at the duty free zone and moved on.
Surprisingly, that was the easy part. The much harder part came in the Costa Rican side of the border, some 300 meters away. I parked my car out to the side, because all the parking spaces were full. Immediately, a guy approached me and spoke in broken English. I told him I don’t need assistance, but when I saw the line to the Migracion, I changed my mind. He says he can get me through the line in 5 minutes. I try to lower the price, but he’s firm. The line had gotten so long because of all the travelers trying to get into Costa Rica. I would have had to wait at least 45 minutes. I hired him, for $5. I cut in front of all the people in line, and the cop was telling me there’s a line outside. But as soon as he saw the guy I was with, he says, “I like you, go ahead.” I suppose they share the earnings of the day or something. Then he led me to the next station, where I had to buy insurance for my car. This is the only country where I had to buy insurance at the border. It’s required, but I got through Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua without one, and even the Mexican that I bought was never asked for. Thankfully, it was only $15. The guy I hired starts getting aggravated, and says, “give me my money.” I keep insisting on him to wait, one because I didn’t have change, and two because I thought he was going to stick with me the entire time. Apparently, he was just saying $5 to let me cut in line. He starts getting really upset, and I tell him to wait one minute. He doesn’t even wait, and starts screaming, “give me my $5 now!” I ignore him and go inside to buy my insurance. Thankfully, she gives me change in dollars, and I hand it over to him. He leads me to the next station, Aduana, where the Costa Rican officials ‘checked’ my vehicles, signed some papers, and recorded into a ledger. While waiting in this line, I could see the guy I hired back with one of his buddies, happy as hell, and shaking hands over the fact that they just earned $5. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Not because I paid him $5, but because he thought $5 was a large enough sum of money to openly celebrate. I felt somewhat sad that he chose this life of aggression.
Mind you, though, that I didn’t do all of this knowing that I was cutting in line of everyone else. Every other border had different windows for different type of travelers. The truckers have different windows to go to and the guys on tour groups have different windows as well. And none of them were ever so busy as this one.
Costa Rica’s border papers for the car had nothing written in English underneath each of the items they were asking for, like color, vehicle name, passport number, where I’m from, birthday, etc. I was surprised because I’ve always heard Costa Rica is economically stronger than their Central American neighbors. Thankfully, I ran into this one guy who used to live in Miami, Florida. Daniel was a mechanic out of Honduras, trying to get to Costa Rica’s Capital to visit his ailing grandmother. He had left at 2AM and was driving straight through. His English was good enough that I could understand him, and he helped me with the process. He helped translate between the officials as well, which I think helped officials think very highly upon me and never gave me any problems. They smiled, was very courteous, and shook my hand and bid me farewell. Then came the Fumigation. Unlike Guatemala, the only other one I had, this one was a drive through, exterior fumigation. I had to quickly roll up my windows because I didn’t know it was gonna start spraying me. Next Aduana line, some 300 meters from the border, they looked at my paperwork and entered it into the computer. I let Daniel cut me in in this line so he could go on his way.
I kept driving, happy that what may be one of the toughest border crossings was behind me. I think this border took me a full 2 hours (just checked GPS, I got in at 11AM and left at 1:13PM (subract 1 hour for local Nicaragua time), which is scary because if I didn’t pay those guys, who knows how much longer it could have been? At least an hour more, I believe), which is still a lot better than some of the other horror stories I’ve heard about. I finally got pretty close to a city called Liberia, where my concern over the mechanical check ups preceded my hunger. After a lot of confusion, the mechanic who didn’t speak a word of English swapped the fuel filters, rotated the tires, and checked tire pressure. The biggest mistake I made so far is not having brought some front brake pads. I didn’t know this before, but the front break pads are responsible for 75% of the actual breaking system, and I have very, very little left. Since Mercedes is rare in these countries, I went to another mechanic shop store, where they said it’s really hard to come by. This guy Jesus was ever so resilient, though, and offered to help me. He and I didn’t understand each other for the most part, but I believe he said he’s going to the Capital on Monday, and will be back on Tuesday with the parts. I hope he doesn’t forget and finds what I’m looking for.
So I figure, well, I’m really low on the brakes, and it’s becoming painfully obvious. I am starting to piss off a lot of drivers behind me, because I’m going super slow, and slowing down at traffic lights very early on because I need to use my engine to break for the most part. So I decide to just head over to the nearest beach and just chill there. I follow this car for a while, but there’re so many beaches here that it’s hard to go wrong if you’re not looking for a particular beach, and also very hard to go right because some beaches have no signs leading towards it. I just take my chances, and without looking at the map, just head towards wherever the car wants to take me. I reach Playa Coco. It starts raining really badly at this point, and I’m walking around, looking for a hostel. This one guy I try to speak Spanish to, but he talks back in great English, saying if I’m looking for a decent cheap place, just go around the corner to Hostal Mar & Mar. Alvaro’s his name.
I get to the hostal and this lady who doesn’t speak a word of English doesn’t dumb down her spanish for me to understand. She writes down 6000 colones on the paper (less than 12 bucks), I ask to see the room, and the deal is struck for one night. I think she was also aggravated because it was raining, I didn’t understand her, and I asked to see the room above as well (which Alvaro recommended if I wanted things quiet). That and she didn’t have change for a 2000 that I needed to split to pay the full amount. I ask her if I can’t pay her the 1000 tomorrow. Clearly upset, she reluctantly agrees. It’s still raining like hell, but I decide to forgo trying to grab my umbrella from the back seat and venture out with my 2000 colones to just get the change as soon as possible. I don’t go too far, buy a coke, and get my 1000 colones in change and give that to the hostal’s attendant, Evina. She heartily laughs at this view of a drenched Korean dude with a coke bottle in his hand handing her a wet 1000 colones bill and gracefully accepts.
It’s amazing how it’s always, always the little things that seem to turn over a sour relationship.
I go out to talk to Alvaro again, just to see if he can’t help translate for me when I call Jesus on Tuesday. But on the way there, I talk to this guy, who seemed pretty cool at first but ended up being a pothead. He kept trying to sell me weed, talking about how they got great weed in California. I said no, I’m just trying to enjoy the view here, and he says, yeah, the view is even better when you’re smoking weed. I finally get to Alvaro’s place, where apparently they know each other. Alvaro and I get to talking, and I find out that he was in Switzerland, and made a trip from there to New Delhi, India once back in 1978. He went through Greece, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. He said that the world seemed to be much more free back then, which both of us agreed is a really sad thing. I finished talking with him, promised to meet him at 1400 hours tomorrow, and head over to watch the final minutes of the sunset. Thankfully, the sky was clear, and the sun set majestically in between the cove and a small island protruding peacefully in the bay.