Trip to Nicaragua (...and Costa Rica...for 2 hours)

We are back from a week-long trip to Nicaragua. Ostensibly, the purpose of our trip was to renew our visas for another three months; it helped, of course, that our friend Amanda happened to be on break at her grandparents’ beachhouse on the Pacific Coast with compañeros from her study abroad program. It was a good week, with much stimulating conversation with idealistic young gringos, good books, and delicious pescado a la plancha (fresh grilled fish!). Of course, I am currently suffering through a bout of GI troubles which I suspect may have been caused by something I ate during our trip down there… The pictures shown here sum up the week we spent with Amanda and new friends in San Juan del Sur:


A view of San Juan del Sur from above.



The beach house.



View from the house - Right on the beach!



A gorgeous sunset.


Due to a lack of lack of photo opportunities at border crossings, we were unable to pictorally document our travails through Central American immigration, however, and it was an interesting experience, so here’s the short of it. When we got to the Guatemalan-Salvadoran border, we were told by an overly concerned immigration official that if we did not leave the “4-country region” (Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua) within 5 days, we would be fined $114 each and be required to leave the region by the end of the week. We had been alerted to this possibility by someone who has been living here a while, but we thought we’d risk it and maybe try to ho and hum at the border to see if a few pieces of green paper wouldn’t buy another three months’ legality in the country. Unfortunately, because we were traveling with a commercial busline, we had few opportunities to stand face to face with an immigration officer to have a semi-private conversation; moreover, some of the immigration posts seemed too official to allow bribery by suspicious individuals (as a South Asian, I am permanently suspicious in all continents; I was actually asked, “Are you sure this is your passport? The picture looks different from you,” to which I responded apologetically, “Yes, it was five years ago. I lost weight.”). In any case, we realized that our final destination, San Juan del Sur, was about an hour from the Costa Rican border, so we decided that we would try our luck there… Despite the Salvadoran immigration official’s insistence that we would just have to cross the border briefly to renew our visas, we had a feeling that we would have to stay in Costa Rica for a few days to get the 90-day renewal.

So, we took a local bus from Managua to Peñas Blancas, the nearest border crossing between Nica and Costa Rica. When we got off the bus, we were immediately accosted by a guy offering us immigration forms for a dollar. It turns out that this guy was not at all working with immigration or some other official entity; the alternative to paying for the immigration form is not to pay and just get the form when it is your turn in line at the immigration window. In any case, I told him that we didn’t want an immigration form but that we needed to talk to an immigration officer, because we needed a renewal of our visas. He told us that we would have to stay in Costa Rica for three days, and I told him that we didn’t have that much time, and he said, “Don’t worry, I will find you a ‘muchacho’ who can fix everything for you today, no problem.” So we followed this man a ways and were introduced to the ‘muchacho,’ who, incidentally, spoke amazingly good English, showing us his badge and introducing himself as an official “tourist guide.” The fees were laid out for us quite clearly: $7 + $2 to exit and re-enter Nicaragua, for a total of $25 each to be on our way the same day with renewed 90-day visas to the 4-country region. (Fishy arithmetic, eh? The remainder of the money went to our “muchacho” and to various officials along the way.) The majority of the time, I was worried that we would get caught and end up in immigration jail in Managua; Elena, on the basis of her experience last year working with detained immigrants, was completely unconcerned (“We’re not breaking any laws here, it’s the immigration officers who are breaking the law”). So, with my concern visible on my face (“el muchacho” kept turning to me and saying, “don’t be worried, these things must be done calmly”), I went along with the whole ordeal.

Despite feeling extremely sketchy on the Costa Rican side, walking directly 20 feet from the entry line to the exit line at immigration, and despite somehow stepping ankle-deep in mud at the side of the road, we got back to Nicaraguan immigration to be escorted by our muchacho, who apparently has an "arrangement" with the supervising Nica official. On our way through the last gate, three steps from freedom, a Nicaraguan official reached his hand out and slapped our muchacho on the back, saying, “Are you making problems? No more problems, that is the last one today, got it?” So, we were the last non-Central Americans of the day to be assisted by our muchacho in getting under-the-table visa renewals.

After our week at the beach, on our way home when we boarded the bus in Managua, the bus attendant inspected our passports, and, with a puzzled look on his face, said, “They stamped you twice.” And I said, “Yeah, that is for exit, and that is for re-entry.” He looked up at me, still confused: “The same day?” “Yes,” I said. Still confused, he shrugged his shoulders and handed back our passports, and we had no trouble at the other Central American borders. So we are back in Guatemala, legally!