A tale of the worst border crossing of life.

Costa Rica is a beautiful country with many beautiful natural wonders, excellent infrastructure, and incredible wildlife. It is also considered to be quite "safe" and has a booming tourism industry -the biggest industry in the country according to the country information section of the Lonely Planet. Because of all of these reasons, it is also quite expensive for a backpacker on a budget. Therefore, we decided to leave after only a few days in Monteverde and Tamarindo (or Tamar-gringo, as I've heard it referred to. lol.). Our next planned destination: San Juan del Sur, a beach town in Nicaragua famed for its renowned surf and thriving backpacker culture.

We had become quite close with Linda and decided to continue to travel together for awhile longer. After a breakfast (serenaded by a group of Howler Monkeys in the trees above us) we boarded a local bus en route to Liberia where we would transfer busses, head to the Nicaraguan border and then cab to San Juan del Sur. A bit of a long travel day, but not too bad, we thought.

While on our first local bus, we met three Canadian guys who were heading the same way as us. The longer I travel here, the more Canadians I meet. It's actually kind of crazy. I swear, every other person we meet is Canadian! These guys were fairly nice and we chatted on the bus. We lost them briefly when we took a different bus at our stop in Liberia, but when we reached the Nicaraguan border we were reunited, in addition to a friend of theirs. It was here that our problems began.

The crossing started innocuously enough. We stood through a line to get out forms to fill out, and then were directed to a machine that would scan our passports and allow us to pay the $7 Costa Rican exit fee. After this we would be allowed to exit Costa Rica, walk the 1km of no-man's-land, and then cross the Nicaraguan border. Sounds simple enough, and it really should have been. The only problem was the silly $7 fee. The machine that was supposed to scan our passports simply would not work. We stood in line for 40 minutes as more and more people tried and gave up, and sadly enough our passports didn't have the magic touch either. Just. Not. Working.

"Can we just pay cash instead?" I asked the solitary English speaking border official.

"No" he replied. "Only card".

"But it's broken" I implored. "What can we do?"

"You can wait."

"Wait for what?"

"For it to start working."

Ok then, thanks for that buddy. I tried a new strategy. "Here I can pay cash right now. I can even, you know, pay a little extra....."

He wasn't having it. I could not sway his mind, and neither could the fairly large amount of people who were experiencing the same problem. We had no other choice but to hop in a cab, pay the outrageously inflated price of $20 (its a lot here, ok guys?), and head to the nearest town to pay at the Western Union. Thankfully, our cab driver was playing a mix of 90's throwbacks and the music was bumping, the sun was shining and the entire predicament had turned into a bit of a joke with the Canadian guys helping to reboot the machines at the border. We were just imagining what it would be like if random people tried to reboot the official machines at the Canadian border!

Good times at the Western Union!

Things were not that great at the Western Union as the long line up of people (mostly locals) circled the entire building. However, our little thrown-together group decided to make the best of a crappy situation and brought out food to share, bought some cheap local beers at a close by store, befriended another traveller standing in line, and brought out someone's bluetooth speakers to play some music. After a 2.5hr wait our $7 was paid and we were back to negotiating cabs, making our way to the border, getting processed by both the Costa Rican and Nicaraguan sides and splitting a cab to our nearest hostel. It was quite late by the time we got in, but we were surprisingly full of smiles. It was a much longer and sometimes frustrating day than we had planned, but at the same time, things really weren't that bad. It's hard to be upset when you arrive in paradise with new friends.

Ah, travel. There's always either a good time.... or a good story!

 

Posted with Blogsy