Thursday We were up bright and early like 4 AM get ready to leave the hotel at 5 AM. Off to Nicaragua. We drove for about an hour and then stopped and had breakfast by that time the sun was coming up. We drove for another hour and a half two hours through Liberia and onto the border between Costa Rica and Nicaragua. Line we get off the bus and went into customs to get an exit stamp in our passports for Costa Rica. Then onto the 50 m of no man’s land in to Nicaragua. Our tour guide to go passports and went into customs. We sat for a half an hour and waited for them to come out with our passports, then we had to get out of the bus and pick up a passport so she could look at our faces. A lot of money changed hands between the driver and whoever he had to see and our tour guide and whoever he had to see. Then on the road again for another hour hour and a half two hours to a small town highup overlooking volcano caldron that was full of water. We stopped there for about a half an hour and got accosted with people selling pots and jewelry. There were a bunch a little stores but they were just selling knickknacks and wanted us to come in and buy, we didn’t. Back on the bus and into a national Park and up to the top of an active volcano to stand at the top and look inside. We couldn’t see the red magma but there was lots of steam and smelly air and you could hear the magma bubbling below. We stayed there about 20 minutes or so that was about all we could handle with the fumes. Back on the bus and into Granada a UNESCO world heritage site. We drove around a little bit and then went straight to the restaurant for lunch. It was fantastic , most people had steak, I had chicken and of course tall bottle of cold Coca-Cola. Very good food and very good service. Then out to get into a horse drawn carriage for a tour of the city. Our driver was Salvador he tried to say his name was Salvador Dali but we didn’t believe him. He told us of the history of the country and the many people that tried to invade and take over the country. It’s amazing what we don’t hear about Nicaragua. Are usually only hear the bad stuff about this country but it seems pretty nice and they’ve done quite a bit for them selves even though they spend over 60% of the government money on the military. We stop for a bit at the biggest cathedral or church in the city with a big park out beside it with lots of people selling their wares. We weren’t even off the carriage and they were trying to get us to buy whistles and necklaces and pots. We hurried into the church to take a look around and take some pictures it was a pretty plain church for a Catholic one, but it was still very impressive. I’m back on the carriage and I have to find our tour guide on the bus. We had to wait for four people to come because they let one of the tourists drive the horses and they were probably all drunk so who knows where they went. We were stopped beside another church so of course I had to go in and take a look around. Even inside the church we were accosted for money. Back on the tour bus and off for our boat ride on the Biglake in Nicaragua. About 15 minutes to get to it which was the shortest ride of the day. We struggled on to the boats and actually had to put on lifejackets. And off we went across this big lake that was 145 km wide and 175 km long, don’t quote me on that I can’t actually remember the numbers I just know it was huge. This lake is full of hundreds of little islands that were formed because of the volcano irruption in the 1700s I think it was. And of course who built on these little islands, people that had lots of money. The biggest house belongs to Canadian. One of the islands that we stopped by didn’t have any construction on it and it had howler monkeys. They were playing by the water so we hung around there for about five minutes while everybody was taking a boatload of pictures. Back to the dock, found the bathroom which was interesting. Very dark inside the doors didn’t really close, there were two sort of side-by-side, one had toilet paper the other didn’t so the toilet paper roll was passed back-and-forth between doors. Also one of them flushed and one of them didn’t. A fun time in a Third World country. Back on the bus then off to the border. It was about an hour and a half drive and we had to go through three checkpoints and then wait while our passports got stamped. Only took about a half an hour shorter than on the way in. Into no man’s land weaving in and out of heavy truck traffic and to the Costa Rican customs where we had to get out and go in and get our passports stamped and show that we were actually leaving the country soon. On the way through customs into Nicaragua and on the way back through there was a long line of trucks in both directions. On our way back into Costa Rica I noticed the line of trucks was 3 km long. On the Costa Rican side there was a huge parking lot for the trucks to wait. Our guide said sometimes they wait two weeks to get through the border. From the border back to the hotel was about 2 Hour Dr. by the time we got back the sun headset. So we left in the dark and arrive back in the dark.
Jean
”Adventure may hurt you but monotony will kill you”
