Crossing the Border to San Juan del Sur

I left Costa Rica on Sunday morning along with a few others from the blogging workshop. I was dropped off at the airport in Liberia to wait for the local bus to town (it was late).

Taxi drivers offered to take me to town for $30, but since the local bus only cost $1, I figured it was worth the wait. Even if it was hot! I caught the bus along with a British girl, we stood in the back and talked about our travels til the bus arrived at the station.

The information desk was closed for lunch, but some helpful people told us which bus to take and where they would arrive. I only had about a half hour to wait. There were plenty of people selling drinks and snacks. Sliced mango with limes, banana chips, cashew nuts, sodas, and all sorts of sweets.

I met a young guy from England who was also going to SJDS and we decided to share a cab from the border. That would make it an easy decision to take a cab instead of dealing with more busses. 🙂

We left on the bus to the border at 1230 sharp. They put our luggage under the bus and off we went. This was the local bus, so we took a different route than I took on the Ticabus coming South. It stopped every so often for people getting on/off. It went through a lot of small towns and there was beautiful scenery to see along the way. No AC, but with the window open it was pretty nice with the breeze.

The bus dropped us off at the border (Penas Blancas) and we walked up to the immigration office. Made the mistake of not paying the exit fee beforehand (which I was informed there was none in Costa Rica- there IS). It cost $8 to leave. We had to go back along the road to one of the little houses to pay the fee and get our paperwork stamped. Then back in line for the officials to collect those papers and stamp our passports.

After completing the paperwork, we walked a few minutes over the border to Nicaragua. It was very simple to enter, we just paid $12 to the official and he stamped our passports. We were in!

We had already made a bargain with a taxi driver while we were walking in. He would take us both to SJDS and drop us at our hotels (different ones) for $25. Off we went! It was a nice ride and pretty quick. It only took a while to find my hotel since the driver wasn’t familiar with SJDS. We asked directions a couple of times (at least he had no problems with doing that!). I gave him a couple of dollars extra as a tip since I’m sure he wasn’t planning to take so long to find my hotel. It still only worked out to $14 for the ride. 🙂

Just In Time

I left Granada this morning on the Ticabus (there is alsoTransnica) and arrived in Costa Rica just in time to start my blogging workshop this afternoon. 🙂

I really didn’t think it would take SO long to drive such a short distance! The bus left Granada right on time at 0700 sharp! We got to the border around 0830 and didn’t get through there til almost 1100!

We all piled off the bus and hung around waiting for ????? (they did make announcements in Spanish but I am not at that level yet). No one was allowed back on the bus. It was hot, but thank goodness we had a nice breeze and the clouds helped a lot. There were all kinds of locals hanging around.

They had food and drinks: regular little roadside restaurants with tables in the shade set up selling bar-b-que chicken and plaintain chips. Cold water, fruit juices and sodas. Lots of people wandering around to change money, sell you sim cards for your phones, guys selling leather shoes and trinkets, gum and cigarettes (individually), hammocks, women selling sweets and cashew nuts.

After about an hour and a half, a little Nicaraguan lady came out of the station with our passports. She called our names one by one and we were allowed to collect our passports and re-enter the bus. We drove about 300 meters and had to go through the whole rigamarole again on the Costa Rican side of the border (tho it went much faster there). I’m sure glad we didn’t have to wait for the dozens of trucks!

They dropped me off around noon at the Ticabus station in Liberia where I tried to find another bus to my final destination. The bus from Granada just goes direct to San Jose. The ticket costs the same $29 whether you want to get off in Liberia or go all the way to San Jose.

I probably could have found something to get me a little closer to the beach, but since I was cutting it so close to the time the class started, I just took a cab.

There are shuttle buses that run from the airport to the resorts, but it would have cost me $10-15 to get to the airport and then another $20-25 from there. Considering the extra time, I figured it was worth it to just take the cab straight from the bus station for $40 direct to the hotel. My driver Angel was fast and spoke enough English to make the trip even more interesting. 😉

More manana!