Another day, another border...

Our first day in Nicaragua is all about transport & negotiation. We leave Liberia on the 9:30am bus, headed for the border at Penas Blancas, but as we approach we are stuck in a long line of trucks. This line is so long and so immobile that some of the truck drivers are stretched out on hammocks slung under their trailers! But this isn't enough to dissuade our (kamikaze) bus driver – he drives on the wrong side of the road, and when it appears he might be foiled by oncoming traffic he simply drops off the edge of the road onto the grass verge. This is off-roading at it's best, and at such a slow speed that it's not heart attack-inducing...quite.

We make it safely to the border (closely shadowed by the international “Tica” bus which followed our lead down the road) and are immediately besieged by money changers, taxi drivers, and a host of others whose purpose is less clear. We have already changed our colone coins to cordobas at the bus station in Liberia (with an enterprising young man who operated next to the entrance door of all the “frontera” buses), but we decide to try our luck changing some of the paper money as well. Chris chooses his favourite money changer and waves a 10,000 colone bill at him...the guy seems to ask “how much do you want for it” so Chris asks for 400 cordobas. We've been working out rough costs in Costa Rica based on 500 colones = US$1 (also the exchange rate used by most establishments if you pay in US$, or if their price is in US$ but you pay in colones – weirdly the latter is more common); and we reckon the Nicaraguan exchange rate is about 20 cordobas to the dollar. The money changers don't try to barter so we're probably short-changing ourselves, but it's a relief to cross the border with some local currency in our pocket and we know that 400 cordobas will go a long way in Nicaragua!

Now there is nothing to do but wait in a line to enter the Costa Rican immigration office. Luckily, since our bus arrived first, we are near the front. Too bad for one of our fellow passengers who must've gone to the bathroom when we arrived, and is now stuck behind the passengers of the Tica bus and another bus! Everyone around us is filling in immigration forms that the Tica bus staff have doled out, and we wonder where to get these but reckon we'll wait until we get into the actual office. In due time (after rescuing the elderly, mothers with small children, and one particularly feisty young woman from the last stages of the line), the policeman at the door allows a few of us to file in. No sign of the immigration forms and the line is moving fast, so Lisa pops out to ask one of the ladies who crowd around arriving buses – she appears to have some blank forms in her hand. But not for us, apparently – she directs Lisa back to the policeman, who duly produces some blank forms from the large pocket on the front of his jacket (we thought he had bullet-proof padding in there!). We scribble in our details quickly, including the always tricky responses to “country of residence”; ”planned address”; and “departure/arrival country”. The latter seemed obvious to us (which country were you last in, and where do you plan to go when you leave the current country), but we were strongly corrected at the Costa Rican entry point where the responses were rewritten as “Costa Rica” for both! You can stay, but you can never leave....

Despite the horror stories about long lines and fierce questioning at this border crossing, we are sent onwards to Nicaragua with no questions and with only 15-20 minutes waiting time. It's a dusty 1km walk along the roadside to Nicaraguan immigration, and we share the walk with the feisty woman as well as a pair of Nicaraguan ladies carrying huge bags on their heads. We have to edge around a truck disinfection gate and dodge a few oncoming trucks – frankly, this border point could do with some reworking to accommodate buses and pedestrians, as it seems to be designed solely for the verrrrry slow processing of trucks!

Shortly before the immigration office the usual “helpful volunteer” (complete with official-looking immigration badge) scoops us up and insists on leading us into the border control office. At least it appears to be the right building – we remember the Thailand/Cambodia experience all too well and are on high alert at border crossings! We pay a mysterious $1 “tax” at a small window (attempts to argue about this are futile, and for $2 not really worth the energy), and then move to a new window where we pay $12 for a “tourist card” (which clearly states a value of $10 – hmm) and watch copious amounts of triplicate paperwork being completed on our behalf. Again, no questions – and on this side, no waiting – so we're soon on our way to find the bus. Fortunately for our helper there is only one door to the immigration area (must make for fun times when it's really busy, since it's not really wide enough to be both an entrance & an exit!) so it's easy to latch onto us again and try to provide some more assistance. This takes the form of trying to persuade us to take a taxi (emphatic no – they are about 5 times the price of a bus), then leading us to the gate where buses & taxis await and trying to hand us over to another “fixer”. Somewhere around here the conversation turns into a plea for a tip for his great help. Unfortunately for him, the answer is a flat no, and further pleading and whining does nothing to aid his cause. He heads off in search of a more generous traveller.

A Nicaraguan policewoman checks our paperwork at the gate & welcomes us to Nicaragua. She points us in the direction of the buses – we're pleased to see that these are brightly decorated school buses, which were conspicuously absent in Costa Rica. We wade through a swarm of eager taxi drivers (where we discover that offering $2 – the actual bus fare - for the taxi journey to San Jorge is a good way to scare them away) and try the first bus in the line, but he points us towards the second (empty) bus. We clamber aboard after confirming the fare is $1. It's a bit of a relief that all the buses we've taken today have allowed us to board with our backpacks...we didn't relish being separated from them around the border area as we hate that trick of someone grabbing your bag & insisting on becoming your (paid) porter.

Tipping for random, unrequested services

We're aware that some of the above (and undoubtedly many of our earlier posts) make us sound like cheap jerks – after all, we might not be rich but we have a lot more than most people in many of the countries we've visited, and what's a $1 here and there? But Lisa is pretty firm on tipping – basically, she'll only pay if the person has actually helped us to do something we couldn't have done on our own. Chris is much nicer (and also much more inclined to give money to homeless people in “normal” life) and quite a few of our “fixers” have picked up on this, so he's the one who tends to get asked – sometimes he says yes but not always, and at the moment he's still stinging from handing over $8 to a fixer in Puntarenas who took us to the hotel we were already on our way to (what can we say...the town was scary, and the guy was charming!). It's hard because some people are undoubtedly in genuine need, and don't have a lot of options for official employment, but also we don't appreciate being taken as cash cows simply because we're foreign. Especially now after so many months with no income (and no guarantee of finding jobs immediately in Canada) we have vowed to keep our costs to a minimum. And overall, it must be better to support charity or industry to ensure that the most needy people are the ones who are taken care of and/or that more genuine employment opportunities are created.

(Lisa has an analogy...it's rather like not feeding squirrels in the park. Lots of people do it because the squirrels are charming and have big pleading eyes. But in the end it's bad for them because they become dependent on handouts – what if there were no more visitors? It's better to support the park environment to ensure that they have a safe home with lots of natural food sources. But this proves to be hard enough to achieve in parks, so it's wishful thinking that we can extend the concept to people all over the world...)

Our bus drives around in a circle and stops again at pretty much the same place, where the driver hops off with some words about “leaving in 20 minutes”...at least, that's what we think he said! No problemo, we have a big ring of cinnamon bread that we bought in Liberia at PPK (= pan per kilo!) so we settle down on the bus to enjoy it. It's a good chance to people-watch as well, and we note a lot of similarities to Nepal – outdoor cooking on wood fires, little shacks set up as shops & restaurants, and people carrying a lot of strange packages on buses (our favourite is the guy who has at least 20 large bags of pink candy floss tied to a long pole). Slowly some other people filter aboard, occasionally accosted by roving salespeople who work the buses. There was one on our bus from Liberia who seemed to sell EVERYTHING, but the main guy here is selling some perfume/body spray, and his main marketing tactic is sticking the spray container directly under people's noses. From their reaction we don't expect him to get rich from this stuff!

Eventually the bus is about 2/3 full and we pull out towards Rivas. We make frequent pick-ups along the highway so it's not long before we're forced to put our backpacks on our laps to free up the seats next to us. At least we're both next to a window so we can enjoy the scenes of Lago Nicaragua and the small communities we pass through. We'd heard that baseball is very popular in Nicaragua and this is supported by the number of baseball diamonds we pass (as opposed to the ubiquitous soccer fields in Panama & Costa Rica). We even pass a couple of games in progress. There are also lots of wind turbines along the shore of the lake, and more being built from the looks of it. We wonder if this was controversial – does anyone think it disrupts the view of the lake and Isla Ometepe's twin volcanoes?

Lisa also spots a few crumbling mansions and notes that the layout of the land seems to reflect Nicaragua's history – i.e. there were a few rich people (Somoza's supporters) who owned grand houses & fincas, but the majority of people were effectively their slaves, living in tiny makeshift shacks around the edges of the properties. Now, the rich people are gone and the grand houses are reduced to shells, but the average person's home is still made of corrugated tin or haphazardly connected bricks, and consists of just one large room which is shared by everyone (including the chickens, the pigs & the dog). Again it reminds us of our time in Nepal, although we didn't see any ex-mansions there!

After an hour or so, we arrive at the market in Rivas. We're surprised that it's so huge...it seems like the whole town is comprised of market stalls & small shops. It's vibrant but also overwhelming – especially since the usual crowd of fixers greets our bus and tries to filter the foreigners towards their services. The one other backpacker we've spotted is herded on to a Granada-bound bus – too bad, as we were hoping that we could share a taxi with her to San Jorge (where we can catch a boat to Ometepe).

According to our guidebook it should cost about C10 to the pier (50 US cents each) but we're getting offers of $5, so we run away from the bus area in search of the parque central. We find a large and interesting-looking (but closed) church, but no park, and then realise that the best place to get a collectivo taxi is in the market center – argh. It's very sunny & hot so we're keen to be on our way, although we stop at a couple of “financerias” (your guess is as good as ours) and a bank to try & change our remaining colones. At the bank there is a security guard who won't let people enter with umbrellas, helmets or large bags – so Lisa waits outside with the backpacks and chats to a bicycle tuk-tuk driver (who offers to take us to the pier for $5, but is not too bothered when she says no – it would be a heavy load!). We soon learn that official financial institutions have no interest in colones so we change the rest in the market (money changers are everywhere, waving big sheafs of currency). We also find a collectivo who charges C15 per person so we climb in, and he plays some Christian music until we pick up another passenger ;-)

We arrive at the pier just after 2pm and try to figure out the boat schedules. There are small boats (lanchas) and ferries, but as far as we can see there is no collective schedule. An official-looking woman finally tells us that the next boat is a ferry which leaves at 2:30pm, and points us into the boleteria (ticket office). But we balk a little at the price of C70 & ask about the lanchas – the next one costs C45 but won't leave for over an hour. Chris decides that we should pay the extra so that we can arrive on the island sooner and perhaps catch the public bus to our destination, a finca on the south side of the island (far from the main towns, which are both in the north). We pay for the tickets, then for a “port tax” (C10...we wonder if these “taxes” will persist throughout our stay in Nicaragua), and finally are allowed to pass through the gate onto the pier. We see several people swimming in the lake, and even some horses taking a dip! It's neat to see how many people travel by horse or horse & cart in this area – surely more economical than a car.

The ferry is small but has enough seats for everyone, and surprisingly they're showing a movie , “Under Siege 2” – dubbed in Spanish, of course. We thought this was a short trip – you can see the island clearly from the pier! - but the movie makes us wonder if we are wrong...In the end, the journey is about 1.5 hours so we'll never know if Steven Seagal catches the bad guy!

When we arrive at the small dock in Moyogalpa, there are several fixers waiting to show us to hostels, tour companies, etc. We shun them for a while – although we grab a free island map from one woman – but soon realise that they are actually nice & helpful people. When we tell them we want to go to Finca Magdalena, they point us towards the local bus which is just about to leave (the last one of the day, lucky!). For the bargain price of C25 each, this bus proves to be a great tour of the island & a good introduction to local life. It picks up all sorts of people on their way home at the end of the day; calls at the other major town, Altagracia (which is actually tiny but has a cute park & outdoor market); and passes numerous locals travelling by foot, bicycle & horse. It's so nice that there aren't many scooters or motorcycles here, and we hope it stays that way rather than what we saw on the islands in Thailand. We are also happy to see that the road to the south of the island which is listed as “under construction” on most websites is actually almost finished – you can see the last piles of concrete road-building blocks stacked up around the town of Balgue, which is where the bus route ends and just 1km from our finca. Too bad that 1km is uphill all the way, as it's still hot at 5:30pm and we are tired & thirsty after our long day of travelling.

We are rewarded at the end of the walk though, as we reach one of the ex-grand houses which has been pieced back together by a co-op into an atmospheric hostel with a great view. We try to figure out the accommodation options which seem to be either a double ensuite room for $26 or two dorm beds for $3.50 each – of course, we opt for the latter especially when we see that it's a 3-bed dorm with no one else in it! In fact, we discover that there are only 5 other guests – a pair of German girls who are travelling with an Australian guy, and a German couple. We all meet over dinner – generous & deliciously fresh food which must have been grown by the co-op. The German couple climbed our local volcano earlier that day (and look exhausted), and the other group will climb it tomorrow – Chris thinks he might join them but Lisa is not keen. It sounds like a lot of hard work without anything particularly exciting or unusual to see!

After a round of cribbage and a splash of Costa Rican cream liqueur (Lisa's is immersed in some of the finca's delicious organic coffee), we race quickly through the (cold) shower and hop into bed. We're pleased that we've managed to rig up the mosquito net to cover both beds (we use the term loosely – they are actually folding camp cots) and thus we can avoid covering ourselves in DEET for a few hours at least! We fall asleep to the sounds of frogs, geckos and many other creatures of the night....