We had a lovely few days doing pretty much nothing when we arrived in Nicaragua. This is very unusual for us, but at this point we were about half way through our trip and needed a break from moving around.
San Juan del Sur is on the backpacker trail, and is a bit of a party town on the Pacific coast. We decided we didn’t want more partying at this point, so we opted for a very nice Airbnb option at Rancho Chilamate, about 20 minutes drive on dirt roads by a small town called Escamequita. Rancho Chilamate is a horse ranch set in beautiful countryside. It was hot whilst we were there, low thirties most of the time, but with a strong breeze. We had a lovely room, with air conditioning and a nice ensuite with cold water shower (this is very common in Central America, and is perfectly OK in most places as it is so hot you really don’t want a warm shower). Our room opened onto a courtyard around a swimming pool, with a small yoga / gym area off to one side, it just perfect for a few days relaxing. The ranch is home to a few people helping out, and it was fun spending a some nights drinking and chatting with them and meeting their friends, neighbours, dogs, and cats.
Our journey from Costa Rica to Nicaragua was really smooth. We’d expected an all day trip, as Costa Rica is very geared up to car travel, rather than public transport, and so buses are infrequent. We caught our first bus at 4:20am from Monteverde bus station, the only bus option that day which would pass through our connecting point on the main highway. We met three other travellers also going to Nicaragua, which was very reassuring that early in the morning. At 6am we arrived at our first stop of La Irma, which is basically just a crossroads on the main highway with a petrol station and restaurant. We checked where we should wait for a border-bound bus, which turned out to be on the gravel by the side of the main road. Two of the other travellers (some lovely German girls called Lara and Lena) knew about a bus to Peñas Blancas (the border point) at 6:15 am. We’d heard this from our hostel in Monteverde too, but hadn’t found any evidence online. So we had thought we’d have to wait for another two hours for the long-distance Tica bus which went from San José, across the border, and all the way to Managua. However, right on time, the 6:15 bus appeared and we flagged it down (it helped to know the destination town name, as the bus was speeding towards us with just a small scrolling destination sign on the front). We hopped on, with one seat left (thanks Chris for giving this to me!) and Chris squeezed in with the others up front. While I listened to a podcast Chris was making friends with Lara and Lena up front, sharing their life stories and snacks!
We made good time and stopped just near the border where lots of people got off. I turned to the local next to me and he said no, this isn’t your stop. Then a guy in front explained that this was the stop for people without a passport to be driven over the border avoiding passport control. It was amazing how blatant this was, and how many people got off the bus here. We were warned not to do this as apparently we’d likely be kidnapped!
Once at the actual border we got off the bus and waited for our bags, thankfully our new friends were happy to take it slow and wait for us, as our bags had fallen sideways off the main luggage area and were last off. We went to the immigration building, it all slightly confusing and we were approached by a guy trying to sell us the exit tax. We were all very wary and said no, we’d just pay in the building. After a long queue in a very hot room, we reached the front only to find out we were supposed to pay the tax at a machine in the room. We checked the machine but it was broken, so we ended up (this time on the instruction of the staff) paying the people outside. It turns out to be a fairly efficient and official system, someone logs on and pays the tax for you, links it to your passport details, prints a receipt, and charges a small fee for their time. So it cost us $10 instead of $8. This saves you from having to create an account and wait for an email (which we wouldn’t have been able to do as we had no data).
Once through the Costa Rican side, we had a short walk to Nicaragua. We had to show our exit stamp to a random official waiting on the pavement. Once at immigration we had to pay a $1 local fee, we’re unsure what for, but thankfully we had enough small notes to pay this. Once inside, the process was relatively quick, with more fees to pay in cash of about $13. Once through a bag scanner and outside we had to show our passports to an official on the side of the pavement (we mistook him for a bus driver and tried to walk straight past!). The whole thing took about an hour, we’d been warned it would be at least two hours, so we were pretty happy.
We were immediately hassled a lot more on the Nicaraguan side, with offers of taxis, even being told there was no bus that day. We ignored everyone and found the bus station, once again timing it well to only have a five minute wait for a bus to Rivas. Once on the bus we had a good journey chatting to Lena and Lara. The conductor popped back to ask us where we were going to, and on finding our destination told us we should have got off at a random road junction about five minutes before. Lesson learnt to tell the conductor our ultimate destination for the day, and not just where we think we need to go next! Thankfully we had lots of time before check-in so could take our time for the small detour. The conductor made sure we were dropped off at a suitable bus stop, where we said goodbye to the others who were heading elsewhere. While we didn’t see Lara and Lena again, we did keep in touch and Lara sent us loads of great recommendations later on the trip as they were consistently ahead of us!
An old yellow American school bus soon turned up, and we were ushered on board after squeezing our big bags into the storage space underneath. The bus was pretty full, lots of school children going either to or from school (we couldn’t work out which as it was after 11am at this point). There were big speakers strapped to the luggage racks, blasting out power ballads. At the final stop (which seemed to be in the middle of a busy town centre street), we got off to find our bags had been unloaded and left on the side of the road. They were both intact so we hauled them on again. After being hassled for taxis again, we decided to hide in a cafe and plan our next move. I chilled there whilst Chris had the unenviable job of buying our food for the next few days. He managed to get some quotes for taxis whilst walking around, and we went with a nice guy called Miguel who had been the least pushy but offered one of the best prices. Having paid about $32 for both of us to get all the way from Monteverde, we then paid $21 to get the 20 minutes to the ranch!
We had a really nice time at Chilamate, only venturing out each day after 4pm when it got cool enough to do the 2km walk to the little local village to buy cold drinks. The village was really small, with a few ‘pulperias’, basically small rooms to the side of people’s houses selling drinks and snacks. On our final day we went horseriding, at the nearby Big Sky Ranch, it was a nice slow ride through trees past howler monkeys, across a small river, and finally along the beach at sunset. It was beautiful, such a lovely setting with the Pacific Ocean and the sun going down. A wonderful way to finish a lovely few days relaxing.
