GETTING IN
Despite my best efforts, I was unable to convince staff at the Monteverde bus terminal to conjure a direct connection to Nicaragua. Instead, I was told to wake up at 3:30am and take a bus to a highway junction – that’s right, not a town but an actual roadside – where I’d need to flag down onward transport to to the border at Peñas Blancas. This seemed mildly concerning, but there was no alternative without backtracking and adding extra legs onto an already-convoluted travel day, so I embraced the adventure and eventually found myself deposited at La Irma not long after sunrise. A couple of local gentlemen heading in the same direction disembarked alongside me, and they were sweet enough to take me under their wings. After a half-hour wait, we collectively hopped aboard a passing bus to Liberia – one of Costa Rica’s major transit hubs. Once there, I had to walk a few minutes to a different bus terminal where I got myself on my third bus of the still-young morning (note: this terminal was also a good spot to exchange currency before exiting Costa Rica). My memory’s hazy, but I think I finally arrived at Peñas Blancas around 9am, which was actually ahead of schedule for once!
On surface level, this border seems a lot more straightforward than the Panama/Costa Rica crossing. There are amiable volunteers on the Costa Rican side who offer English-speaking assistance. It’s necessary to pay an exit tax before departing Costa Rica – this can be done online (as I did) for $8, or paid in person for $10. Leaving Costa Rica thereafter is a relative breeze, and it’s a few minutes’ walk through no-man’s-land to reach the Nicaraguan immigration hall – which is when the chaos begins. Officers here are grouchy, workshy, and will not speak any English with you. They’ll also charge you all sorts of unexplained fees and keep you waiting interminably for their own entertainment. In short: they’re fucking horrendous. And sadly, I’m not great at taking bullshit from anybody, let alone ill-mannered government employees on power trips. Now I’d actually done my research for this border (following the chaos from last time), and knew that the sum total of all the various fees should amount to $13. So when my immigration officer requested a different figure, I demanded a clear outline of the charges with receipts which instigated a mild altercation that led to her delaying the inevitable-stamping of my passport for a full twenty minutes while making a brouhaha by refusing to accept my cash. She eventually took the $13, I called her a piece of shit (in English), and I was finally on my merry way.
(I thought I’d had a bad experience at this border, but it turns out that numerous others friends I made later in the trip had to suffer as long as two hours trying to get across. Get here as early as you possibly can to account for all the crap that’ll be thrown at you after exiting Costa Rica.)
This wasn’t an ideal arrival to Nicaragua, and the welcome wouldn’t get much better. After stamping, I walked up the road to a fairly shabby bus station, where I waited alongside locals on a rubbish-strewn patch of grass to continue my journey. I had to find a connection to Rivas (the nearest transport hub to the border) and it took about 30 minutes of sitting in the baking heat for a vehicle to finally materialise, and then another 40 minutes of sitting inside a loud af chicken bus before I was on my way. So much for being ahead of schedule!
the Peñas Blancas border crossing
WHERE
I wanted one last ‘beach’ experience before committing myself to inland adventures, so my intended destination was San Juan del Sur – a popular surf/party destination for locals and travellers alike. I was fortunate to befriend a couple of lovely Nicaraguans (working in Costa Rica, but back for the weekend to visit family in San Juan) without whom I’d have been totally lost. We got off the crazy chicken bus at another highway junction (outside La Virgen), and after a few failed attempts, they eventually managed to wave down a passing pickup truck that agreed to drive us 20 minutes down the road to San Juan. For free! We got dropped off right outside a really cool dumpling restaurant that had great vegan options, and as I’d eaten nothing for ten hours, I gorged myself silly and chatted to a couple of other friendly travellers before finally heading to my hostel around 3pm. I’d rocked up on a Saturday, and pretty much all the other guests were emptying out for a beach party which I had no intention of joining. Of course, after a much-needed shower, I somehow found myself dragged along anyway! It was enjoyable enough, if superfluous to actual requirements. Secluded stretch of coast outside of town, nice conversations, lots of beer. Therapeutic after such a draining travel day.
Next morning, I shook off the hangover, got a quick peak at the main San Juan beach (which I hadn’t sighted at all the previous day) and then set out for Granada where I was planning to reconnect with a great travel buddy I’d made in Panama. This is a journey that should take around two hours, and my commitment to local transport had yet to be fully-eroded at this point. After almost five hours on three different vehicles (and having to crouch perilously close to the exit doors on two of them), I somehow arrived in Granada physically (but definitely not mentally) intact, found my buddy, and thankfully had lots of fun thereafter. It was great to have a friendly face to travel with for a change – we stuck together for the remainder of my time in Nicaragua – as it made the later journeys more bearable, though still far from pleasant.
Granada’s colonial architecture is gorgeous and we were fortunate to be in an awesome hostel right in the heart of the city’s historic centre. I loved how vibrant the central square was after dark (they were doing public karaoke in front of the cathedral!), and I learned how kind the locals can be when they’re not deafening you on public transport! I had to pay a visit to the chaotic, seemingly sketchy main market in order to make some repairs to my weatherbeaten backpack, and people couldn’t have been nicer to me.
While in Granada, we booked an excursion to the nearby Masaya Volcano which was a pretty disappointing ‘tour’ (we were rushed through a ‘museum’ and a ‘hike’ with minimal guidance and information), but it was fun to peer into an active crater, albeit from frustrating distance! Volcanoes would continue to be a theme, as I then backtracked to Ometepe – a stunning volcanic island in the middle of Lake Nicaragua with two prominent peaks that define its landscape. We climbed the smaller peak and spent a lot of time lounging around on hammocks at our very rustic lakeside accommodation. It was nice to be so isolated, but things were costlier than expected as a result. I also made the mistake of signing up to another backpacker party, mainly because it felt like every traveller I’d interacted with since arriving in Nicaragua had mentioned this one. It was fine, but primarily designed for 20-somethings who are either undersexed or looking for easy highs, and therefore another needless expense. One thing I did enjoy: knowing a zillion people at the party, despite the fact that I’d only been in Nicaragua for five days. There were folks I encountered who remembered me from as far back as Panama! It’s wild how so many of us backpackers stick to such similar trails.
After Ometepe, it was an arduous nine-hour journey to León that required ferrying back across the water and heading to Managua where we had to find a connecting colectivo to Nicaragua’s second-largest city which, like Granada, is home to many colonial relics. I was hoping to enjoy some of the architecture but, as was so often the case in Central America, the trip took much longer than expected, and we didn’t get in until after sunset. By this point, I was behind schedule and still way overbudget, so my plan was to simply overnight in León before attempting another massive journey to the Copan Ruins in Honduras. That’s not how things turned out (as you can read here), but regardless, it was where this leg of the trip ended.
San Juan / Granada / Masaya
GETTING AROUND
I relied on the infamous chicken buses while here and they almost destroyed me. I’ve always preferred options used by locals wherever I go – not just because they’re the most cost-effective methods, but also because they offer a more authentic experience and a better insight into the everyday reality of whichever country you’re in. One thing I struggle with in the world post-smartphone revolution is the decibels, however. When I first started hitting the road, it was possible to sit on public transport and either read your book or have a conversation with your seatmate or just lose yourself in the outside scenery. It’s become increasingly impossible to do those things as time goes by and more and more clueless/entitled buffoons seem to think that everyone should hear whatever’s playing on their phones. Nicaragua was next level in this regard. Busloads of people blasting crap at full volume; a neverending cacophony that renders every journey here an act of unwitting ear-rape.
Compounding the above: trips in Nicaragua are never straightforward routes from A to B. They require multiple connections, often either directly from the highway or from terminals that are sensory overload. Tickets were always a little more than what we’d expected, and there’d be extra charges for luggage (which sometimes cost more than the tickets themselves). And nothing runs efficiently. Buses won’t leave until they’re either full or the driver gets itchy feet: I got aboard one vehicle in San Juan at 11am, and it didn’t start moving until 12:30pm. They’ll make multiple pick-ups and drop-offs along the way, and there is no. such. thing. as ‘full’ or ‘too many’. There were multiple instances where buses were so crammed that I ended up hanging off the doors as there was nowhere else to place myself.
Taxis are a more expensive alternative that I used on occasion in San Juan and Ometepe. Although there were times when I successfully haggled (my Spanish had graduated to basic functionality by this point), there were more instances of our getting blatantly ripped off – too weary and/or clueless to argue. Of course, ‘ripped off’ is a relative concept in a country where the transport options are considerably cheaper than in the West and where the quality likely reflects that. But the cumulative toll of the disorder, the fare-hiking, the stuttered connections, the complete disregard for people’s time, and the noise (holy shit, I will never get over the noise) is an enormous one. It was absolutely my choice to persist with local transport even after it had become obvious that my tolerance had run dry, but if I were ever to return to Nicaragua let it be known that I would absolutely fork out the extra expense to take private shuttles. I had more than my fill of authenticity here, and vowed that for the rest of these travels I’d try and avoid chicken buses wherever possible.
Ometepe Island
REFLECTIONS
This is the poorest country in Central America, so challenges were to be expected, and it’s ridiculous to impose British conceptions of proper public etiquette onto people for whom such conventions are completely irrelevant. Still, it’s astonishing how the contrast from Panama and Costa Rica is felt almost as soon as you cross the border – Nicaragua is louder, more hectic, less manicured, so it follows that the infrastructure will be less developed (this would also set the tone for all the countries in between Costa Rica and Mexico). To be able to use it at all, as a haughty outsider intent only on having a good time and beelining to the prettiest destinations, is an imposition and even a privilege. I technically had other options, yet repeatedly chose to put myself amidst the chaos. It’s wrong to complain about it afterwards, though at the same time it’s disingenuous to conceal my true feelings.
Aside from being scarred by the buses, my memories of Nicaragua are pretty positive. Locals were incredibly tolerant of the arrogant foreigner in their midst, went out of their way to express kindness on multiple occasions, and totally had my back when needed: from the couple who shepherded me to San Juan, to the hostel receptionist who spent an hour making alternative travel arrangements when my ‘planning’ spectacularly backfired. My Spanish, while still miles from passable, improved enough whilst here to have some very basic interactions which helped maintain the good-vibes-when-not-aboard-chicken-buses.
Nicaragua’s not the greatest place to be plant-based – people barbecue a lot of dead animals, and beans+rice didn’t seem to be as widely available a staple as in Panama or Costa Rica. And I remain annoyed with the money I dropped on both parties, but I suppose I had decent enough fun and it was a good opportunity to meet other people. Things were about to get unexpectedly lonelier for a few days, so I have fond recollections of the amiable conversations I struck up all over the place here. (A couple of those conversations were particularly notable – with local drifters who spoke perfect, American-accented English, and who claimed that they were victims of ICE’s barbarity and had been deported accordingly. I saw no reason to question them.) And it’s a country that offered much in the way of aesthetic pleasures. I found the colonial charm of Granada and the pastoral beauty of Ometepe enchanting, the latter evoking so many memories of my beloved Cambodia. There can be no higher praise than that from me. Though I repeat: never stepping on a chicken bus ever again!
RECS
RECOMMENDATIONS
- Hostel De Boca En Boca. If you’re unopposed to hostels, then this is one of the best that I’ve EVER stayed in. Nestled right in the heart of Granada’s old town, next door to Iglesia La Merced, it boasts everything you’d ever want – privacy curtains, multiple power points and lockers, hot showers, a swimming pool, a bar, excellent free breakfasts – at insanely affordable prices. They absolutely nail the balancing act between ‘party’ (they’ll organise social activities every evening) and ‘chill’ (noise curfew strictly enforced from 10pm; if you’re after good times thereafter then it’s easy to head elsewhere from such a great location). Thoroughly recommended.
- Café de las Sonrisas. A café staffed entirely by deaf/hearing-impaired Nicaraguans. There’s a hammock factory and souvenir shop adjacent to the spacious courtyard, and lots of eye-opening information about the work they hope to achieve in terms of empowering this marginalised community. Go there and support such a wonderful initiative if you get the chance.
- Bigfoot Hostel. I’m shouting this place out not for the hostel (which is the home of the famous ‘volcano boarding’ parties, and which turns into a drunken shitshow after 7pm as a result), but for the tour agency that they run. Their communication via WhatsApp was excellent prior to my arrival, and their service when dealing with the implosion of my onward travel plans was above and beyond. Can’t thank them enough.
Click here for the full Nicaragua gallery with additional trip details.
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