The journey into Nicaragua

We left La Fortuna. Quite an early start to the day. One that turned out to be interesting to say the least. One must always remember it is all about the journey not the destination. We had a very bumpy ride in a very crowded and hot van (and of course no airconditioning)... luckily we all know each other fairly well .. bit smelly humidity in these parts is incredible. After about 2 hours before our border crossing from Costa Rica into Nicaragua we were stopped by a couple of police with a radar gun. It is quite common here, the police use them everywhere, the speed on the open road is usually 80kmh and in towns is 40kmh. The driver was not speeding but because we were a Turismo bus they thought they would stop us. They checked the driver's licence and it looked like we were ready to leave when the other policeman counted us and discovered there were 11 passengers and the driver was only licenced to carry 8. Then the police unbolted the number plates from the car and we thought that was it as we had to catch a boat at San Carlos. The tour leader said similar things had happened before and it had cost her $US40 to buy them back, but this time she was not going to pay as they would radio the next stop and say we were easy money. After a while they let us pass, but with no number plates, the driver was unable to carry any more passengers after he dropped us off. We arrived at the border. It was hot. It was humid. It was interesting. We had our passports stamped out of Costa Rica, then we wandered through trucks and buses and people. It was hot. It was humid. It was chaos.

This is us walking through the trucks in no man's land between the Costa Rican border checkpoint and the Nicaraguan side. It was Hot. It was Humid