Everyone should take a long, multi change, bus journey in their lifetime – it tries the patience, allows for ultimate contemplation/meditation, lets you see all the social characteristics of a country and those that visit it all in one fell swoop.
Yesterday I started out in Playa Carmen, Costa Rica, sharing a bus with a bunch of Americans one of which (the young one) decided to be all bullish and in a stentorian voice tell everyone about his stay, talking over, around and across me and deciding to rubbish the country we had all fallen in love with, obviously no one corrected him as it was 0800 and well, anyhow he then fell asleep sprawled across his and my half of the seat and then started snoring. Sometimes I wish I wasn’t British as I obviously didnt cause a fuss. Then, thankfully, a change in bus at Liberia and on to a much roomier, far more enjoyable local bus to the border – time to watch the world, towns and social interaction go by whilst trying not to get sunburnt or sweat to much…cue Massive Attack Blue Lines for the journey up to the plateau of La Cruz and then it was time to cross the border.
Within about 5km of the border both sides of the road were 2 deep in lorries parked waiting for the right price of the produce they were carrying before shipping the goods across, amazing, and it signalled this was going to be a weird crossing. We all got off the bus, I guess I should just follow the people, they must know where – right – queue up for a while, praising air conditioning and find out you have to go somewhere outside in the general direction of the official’s pointing finger to pay a departure tax. Ok but where?
Turns out you walk back 100m, down a dusty bank and at the bottom you find a couple of sheds with metal bars across the windows and people behind them taking your cash and giving you a receipt.
Back to the desk queue, oh of course, find a departure form, being held by the guy outside, who you tip for giving you the free form, fill that in, queue again and bingo walk out of the room, turn the only way I haven’t gone yet and start walking – this is no mans land.
A strange 5 min walk with police and guns on the side of the road sheltering from the heat under trees and your surfboard on the top of a rickshaw ahead of you with the kind Victoria getting a lift.
In the distance you see an even more basic shed, show your passport, move on through, next theres a gazebo, show your passport move on through – try to ignore everyone grabbing your bags wanting to carry them, then walk another 1 mins to a non-discript building, pay $2 to enter then queue up again, realising too late that you are in the car entry queue…oh well Victoria helps out again and we queue together – passport gets looked at – $15 please, what? is this a bribe, a mass of Spanish ensues in which it turns out the Customs Officer is asking Victoria when she is going to leave me! We just pay, eventually get change from the lock box in the booth nextdoor and move on through…hook up with some other out of place looking tourists and book a cab – Victoria heads off to her new home in Popoyo and I wait 40mins for the others to have their passports returned to them (they came through on the bus and weirdly had to throw all of their passports in a used bin bag as it came down the bus!!!) walk through another gate, show your passport again to some semi official looking dudes (see pic below) move on through, squeeze in cab, drive 5mins down the road oh, yep, pulled over to show the passport again, this time the army officer has a clipboard, an actual clipboard with a list of passport numbers and names on it! he goes methodically through the list and double checks before returning our passports. Finally I’m in Nicaragua and we are speeding past Isla Ometepe, an island with two volcanoes, on our way to my home for the next week; Sna Juan del Sur.
Amazing journey – wish I could have taken more photos but I didn’t want my passport checked again. I’ve heard the crossing into Panama involves a disused railway bridge with holes in it – I’m sure the ones to come are going to crazier and crazier.
Thanks also to Argentinian Victoria and American Chris for their help getting me across.