Tag Archives: Border Crossing

Our Border Crossing from Costa Rica to Nicaragua Part 2

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I have lots of great stories about our time in Nicaragua to share with you, but I won’t leave you hanging any longer about the drama that unfolded trying to get back into Costa Rica. So we are going to go a little out of order here. Hang on tight, I know you can handle it.

Oh and also, with the high stress nature of this situation, picture taking was not a priority, so please enjoy my home made art work to depict how things went down. I’ve added additional notes about this artwork at the end of the post.

So, if you’ve read yesterday’s post, you know that our trip to Nicaragua went off without a hitch. We sailed smoothly through the entire process, and ended up in San Juan del Sur safe and sound.

Despite the ease of our voyage, we were still a little wary of what would happen on our return trip. We had booked in with the same tour company, and the idea was we would be meeting up with that same day tour from Grenada on their way back into Costa Rica.

Things started out great!

Things started out great!

A great idea in theory, but the timing of this rendez-vous seemed pretty sketchy. We were told to be at the Maxi Pali, a grocery store chain, in Rivas, Nicaragua at 4pm. Our shuttle would arrive to pick us up sometime between 4 and 5:30, depending on how long the sightseeing on the tour took.

We had never been to Rivas, and the though of standing outside a grocery store parking lot seemed rather unfortunate. But, based on the great experience we had with the tour company on our way over, we figured everything would be fine. We also confirmed everything that day before,just to be on the safe side. So we were entering into the situation  with confidence.

Oh dear, where are they?

Oh dear, where are they?

We arrived at the Maxi Pali around 3:40. We took turns going into the grocery store, and grabbing a couple snacks for the road. Then we sat and waited

and waited….

and waited….

and waited…

Every time we saw a shuttle go by, we would stand up thinking it was ours, but no luck. Before we knew it, it was 5:25, dusk was setting in, and we were suddenly faced with the real possibility of being stranded in Nicaragua.

We instantly went into problem solving mode. Although I didn’t have the number for the tour company, I did have one for the tour operator who booked our trip. It was just a matter of finding a phone that we could use. Well, not only a phone, but one that we could use to phone another country.

Shaun headed into the Maxi Pali and asked every employee he ran into. No one was willing to give us a hand. Meanwhile, I waited outside with the bags, and for the first time in the entire trip, I got a little nervous about being alone, being a women, and being so obviously a tourist.

I swayed back and forth from wanting Shaun to find a phone so we could sort out the shuttle, and wanting him just to come back and stand with me. After about 10 minutes, Shaun came back out, no phone. It was time to make a decision.

We're saved!

We’re saved!

Just as we started discussing our options, a tourist van pulls in. We recognize the company name and we are extatic. As a couple of their passengers get out, we grab our bags and walk up to it, but they don’t open the door for us. We walk over to the driver’s window who is now giving us a very strange look.

The tour guide comes out and asks us  “What are you doing here?” We respond that we are waiting to go to Tamarindo with them.

“Not with us,” he responds. “We are going to Playa Coco in Costa Rica, the Tamarindo bus is long gone. The only reason we stopped here was because someone had to pee”

Our jaws dropped.

Our shuttle had forgotten us. We would have been stranded, but by some amazing, magical twist of fate, someone asked the driver if they could pull over to pee, just as they were about to pass the exact grocery store we were waiting at.

No pee…no stopping…no border

Without a moment of hesitation the guide whisked us aboard his bus, telling us just how close we came, and how lucky we were.

We felt LUCKY! I literally have never been so elated in my life.Everyone on the bus marvelled at our story and welcomed us into their tour group with open arms. I told the guy who had to pee that he had a magical bladder, and I was so thankful for the massive beer he had had with lunch. We ended up having an amazing ride back to Costa Rica, and met so many cool people along the way.

In the past, I might have focused on the “what if’s” and been mad at the tour company for screwing up. But I don’t feel that way at all. I’ve been working so hard lately on gratitude and positivity, and I truly feel that living my life with this kind of outlook is sending all sorts of magical situations my way. This amazing lucky moment, being one of them.

A couple of notes about the art work in this post

  • Despite what it may look like, Shaun and I were actually fully clothed during this adventure
  • I can also attest that we both had hands at the time of this event as well.
  • Yes, my head is consistently larger then Shaun’s in these pictures for a reason
  • The stringyness of my hair is actually a fairly accurate depiction of its actual state at that time
  • This will be the first and last time I make my own art work for the blog. You can’t even begin to imagine how long these took me lol

Have you ever experienced something that made you feel lucky?

Pura Vida!

Kate

Follow me on Twitter:@caketress

Our Border Run from Costa Rica to Nicaragua Part 1

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Ahhh border crossing…how I loathe thee…

Ever since the gong show of our border run to Panama, Shaun and I had been dreading crossing the border to Nicaragua. We had read that crossing the border into Nicaragua was more difficult then Panama, so we were preparing ourselves. Despite our hesitation, I was SO excited, because crossing the border into Nicaragua didn’t just mean exploring another country, it meant meeting up with my absolute bestie Colleen.

Motivated by my urge to squish my homesickness with a big ole Colleen hug, I entered into our border crossing with the mantra of “BRING IT!”…This attitude worked, and we made it BUT in the process we nearly had the biggest disaster of our entire trip…intrigued?  Here is how things went down.

VERY early morning shuttles

VERY early morning shuttles

Similarly to what we did in Panama, we booked a shuttle to take us over the border, and boy was it early! The shuttle was actually the day tour that goes from Tamarindo to Grenada, and it leaves at 4:30am. So, in what felt like the middle of the night, we said goodbye to Bearly Bear and crept out of Villas Macondo into our awaiting van.

We were driven to Liberia at which point we switched vans and were driven to a soda for breakfast. We actually didn’t even breakfast was included so that was an added bonus. Shaun rocked a little gallo pinto, while I had fruit and coffee.

It was at this point that I noticed how incredibly complex and organized this tour company was. During our breakfast about 6 different vans full of people pulled up. Each tour guide had a list of travellers and as everyone was served their breakfast in record time, they organized people into their corresponding tours.

So many trucks

So many trucks

Since we were the only people just being shuttle over the border, we were actually in a van by ourselves. We finished our breakfast and hopped aboard for the 50 mile drive to the border.

We knew we were nearing the border when we started seeing the trucks. Miles and miles of huge big rigs lined the streets. Our guide later told us that they can sit there for over a week waiting to cross the border. Seems like an ordeal that I don’t need to add to my bucket list!

Once at the border, we grabbed our bags and went through Costa Rica Immigration. Piece of cake, in and out in less then 5 minutes. At this point, the Grenada tour pulled up, and we were told that we would be getting on their bus to actually drive over the border.

Driving through no mans land

Driving through no mans land

Unlike Panama, you can actually drive a car across the border into Nicaragua. Why not walk you might ask? Well between the border of Costa Rica to Nicaragua is about a kilometre long stretch of no man’s land. The road is lined with chain link fences and groups of people holding big wads of cash follow you the whole way down the road, yelling at about exchanging money. I’ve actually heard that it used to be much worse, as there used to be no fence, so people would actually get swarmed. Not fun.

The fact that we were getting on this lovely little air conditioned tourista bus sounded like a great idea to me!

We drove down the little road, and turned into another little building. This was where we would go through Nicaraguan immigration, and pay our city tax. The rest of the tour members got to poke around the vendors and duty free while the guide took care of their paperwork, while Shaun and I had to go through the process ourselves.

smiling through a border run....unheard of!

smiling through a border run….unheard of!

Our tour guide David was SO amazing. He spoke perfect English and helped us figure out all the various lines ups we needed to go to. He even sped up the process by translating things, and helping us navigate where to pay the city tax. All in all it cost us 6 dollars to get in the country plus a 1 dollar city tax.

So we ended up with new stamps in our passports and all sorts of little pieces of paper to tuck in our passports (David told us not to worry about them, we could just use them for our “scrapbook”). He then introduced us to our driver, a young Nicaraguan guy who would drive us into San Juan del Sur. Not a cab per say, but a great guy who spoke a little English and gave us a bit of a tour along the way.

It is hard to believe that everything went so smoothly. We couldn’t believe our luck! Everyone was amazing and we felt like the whole process was just beyond simple…that is…until we had to come back over the border 9 days later…THAT is when disaster nearly struck.

You’ll have to check back tomorrow to hear the crazyness of our return trip!

Kate

Follow me on Twitter:@caketress

Border Run to Panama Part 2

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So, when we left off, we were on the bridge crossing over into Panama.

I am happy to report, that we made is safely across, and neither Shaun nor I fell into the water. Success!

The next check point was Panamanian Customs. Essentially a small room, with a man at a desk who was collecting money,and giving you a sticker for your passport. Today the fee was 3 dollars are person, but apparently these fees change frequently.

There wasn’t really a line up, everyone was just cramming their way into the room, and jostling to be next. You can imagine how fun that was with backpacks and our surfboard. We heard the guy at the desk mention something about immigration around the corner.

I had also read about this on-line. Once you’ve gone through Panamanian Customs, you have to turn a corner, and go into a separate building to go into Immigration. It would be SO easy for someone to just keep on walking, and enter the country. I’m just taking a wild guess that this would be very bad.

Once leaving customs you need to take an immediate left, and go down some stairs, and straight down the first side street. There you will find the line for Immigration. We made it there without incident, and there was even some guy there who had our names on a list. That was fairly comforting, as by this point we felt like we were flying solo.

We stood in line for another 25 minutes or so, and finally made it up to the counter. This seemed like the “big” counter. That one that ultimately decides whether you are getting in or not. We watched lots of people ahead of us having difficulties understanding what the border officials wanted. All we had were our passports, and a copy of our return flight information. We made it to the counter, and after much scrutinizing, our passports were stamped again, and we were on our way. I’ve heard that sometimes they require you to provide proof that you have at least 500 dollars cash, but today, our documents seemed to do the trick.

We exited this second line up, and a guy stopped us. He said he was a friend of the bus driver, and told us to wait with him. He was pretty aggressive, telling one of the guys in our group to give him a cigarette, and making Shaun give him an extra 5 dollars for the surfboard. As he stood there spitting, and doing pushups, we all kind of looked at each other, wondering whether we should just give up on the shuttle, and take a taxi.

About 30 minutes went by, and another man came over, and said they were ready to go. We walked down the street about 100m, and there was a van, with a couple people from our original group waiting for us. We never did figure out what the confusion was, and why we were left waiting for so long, but either way, we now had a ride.

Leaving the "ferry" terminal

Leaving the “ferry” terminal

We piled in the new van, and headed off to the boat to Isla Colon. We picked up another Panamanian man on the side of the road. He spoke a bit of English, and was obviously in charge of getting us onto the boat. After about an hour, we got to the ferry. We sat in the terminal for about 30 minutes. I enjoyed a Pipa, while Shaun went to pay the additional fee to get his board on the boat.

So happy to be on the home stretch

So happy to be on the home stretch

The boat arrived, and we piled on. It was a beautiful ride, and a welcome breath of fresh air after line ups and shuttles all day. After about 30 minutes we pulled into Isla Colon, and it looked fabulously funky. We grabbed our stuff, and trekked into the middle of town to look for a taxi to our place. It took us a while to track one down, but finally got into the back of a pick up truck.

I will laugh at this picture for the rest of my life

I will laugh at this picture for the rest of my life

A man, and a women sat in front arguing for the entire drive. I couldn’t help but take this picture. Here they are, yelling at each other with a small Yoda figure perched in the middle on the dashboard. After such along day, you have to appreciate the little things.

We arrived at our hostel, Panama’s Paradise. Although no one was home, there was a little note with my name, on the door. It had everything we needed in it to check in.

Keys on the door, thank goodness!

Keys on the door, thank goodness!

Our arrival did truly feel like paradise. We stripped off our sweat drenched clothes, and I settled in for a BIG siesta.  Before falling asleep I glanced at my phone. It was 12:30. The entire process had only taken 4 hours, but it felt like it had been a week.

Keep tuned in this week because I have some great content coming up. This week I will be recapping our entire adventure in Bocas del Toro, Panama. You won’t want to miss it, this place is AMAZING!

What are your border crossing experiences?

Pura Vida!

Kate

Follow me on Twitter: @caketress

Our Border Run to Panama Part 1

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Border hopping…it’s one of those things that every traveller has to go through…and turns out…I’m not a fan.

As we were planning our trip, we knew that we would need to leave Costa Rica at least once to meet the Visa requirements. A Visa in Costa Rica is only 90 days, and since we are here for 5 months, we would have to leave the country in order to get ours renewed.

Although we originally thought our border run would be next month through Nicaragua, so many people told us how wonderful Panama was, we to do it early to see the sights.

I had done a lot of research about border hopping, and it all seemed like quite the ordeal. Since we are fairly laid back travellers, and like to avoid stress as much as possible, we opted to book a tour to take us from our hotel in Puerto Viejo in Costa Rica, to Isla Colon in Bocas del Toro, Costa Rica.

You can certainly take public transit to the border, walk across, then catch it again on the other side, but that seemed far to adventurous for us.

We woke up bright, and early to catch our shuttle, and by the time it made it to our hotel it was VERY full. It was lucky there were no tunnels to go through, because all of the backpacks and bags were piled sky high on top of the roof of the van. We were given wrist bands to wear so we could be identified by the shuttle driver and began our journey. We slowly winded our way through the endless banana fields, until we reached our first hiccup.

woops, road block!

woops, road block!

Yes my friends, that is a tree, right across the road. I am pretty sure that every shuttle we have taken through Costa Rica has involved some sort of strange occurrence, and this one was foliage based.

The shuttle parked, and everyone got out, while a maintenance crew worked away trying to clear the tree.

man down...he was actually just watching ants, but this picture looks tragic

man down…he was actually just watching ants, but this picture looks tragic

As you can see, Shaun was thrilled. It seemed like we were going to be stuck for hours, but they worked fast and It ended up only taking about 25 minutes. We all hopped back on the shuttle and carried on. Shortly there after, we arrived at the border.

This is where the my stress levels started increasing a little. Unlike Nicaragua, cars are not allowed over the border into Panama. Our van stopped just before the archway of the border, and we all got out. We were handed our bags, and an immigration paper. Our shuttle driver left, and we assumed we needed to find our next shuttle driver on the other side. Some of the people on the tour just started walking towards the archway, while a few of us stood on the side of the road filling out our paper.

Rookie move.

By the time we had filled out our paper, and started walking towards the archway, our group was split in two, as the rest of the tour group was much farther ahead in the line up. The remaining few of us gathered together on the hot pavement with all of our gear, and waited in line. I had been cold in the morning, so I had put my sweater on. Getting out of the van had happened so fast that I hadn’t had the chance to take it off. Now with Tatonka, Titty Tonka, and our food back lugged over my shoulder, I was a sweaty beast.

After about 25 minutes we made it to the front of the counter. This turned out to be Costa Rican Immigration. They stamped our passport, took our paper, and we left.

This picture doesn't even do it justice!

This picture doesn’t even do it justice!

Now, in doing my research, I had heard a lot of talk about this supposed “bridge”, and let me tell you, it lived up to all my expectations. To enter Panama, you have to walk across this rickety old railway bridge. The slats are loose, and there are gaps that a 7 year old child could easily fall through. Did I mention you have to do this while carrying all your gear? It was impressive to say the least.

Did we make it over the bridge you ask?

You will just have to wait and see, because this my friends, is a two parter.

Tomorrow on Hostels and Hot Rollers, Our Border Run to Panama Part 2

Pura Vida!

Kate

Follow me on Twitter: @caketress