Blog 12 - Boats, Buses & Liquid Cheese

This blog entry is a detailed summary of the events of one day:  Sunday 7^th December 2014 – The day we crossed over from Nicaragua to Costa Rica.  Although I’ve somehow managed to write an entire entry about a single day, we have not a single picture with which to illustrate the story.  So, instead we have an informative map of our journey so far, plus a selection of photos showing random things we’ve seen, which haven’t made it into blogs or photo albums.

It was time to leave Ometepe and head back to mainland Nicaragua, ready for the onward journey to Costa Rica.  Given how ill I had felt on the ferry ride over to the island, I decided that we should this time sit on the lower deck of the boat.  Our choice was rewarded with a screening of the original King Kong, played on a 14 inch television at the front of the cabin.  We were getting quite into the film and were just up to the part where (sorry, spoiler alert) the giant monkey has grabbed the woman and all her friends are on their way to rescue her, when we started to lose signal.  Rather than try to fix this problem by twiddling the aerial or whatever, one of the boat people just switched the channel to some really annoying Spanish pop music videos from at least 30 years ago.  Was not impressed.

A morose pig strolling along the beach in El Cuco, El Salvador.

After a great deal of negotiation on price, we took a taxi from the ferry port to the border town of Penas Blancas.  As seems to be the custom at borders, we were immediately accosted by a man who told us that by far the best way to get across the border quickly, would be to pay 12 dollars each to a coach company.  We decided to do this and gave our passports to an official-looking woman with a clipboard and an ID badge and all the proper stuff.  After filling in the immigration forms and handing over our money and our passports, we were directed to a coach and told to simply to wait next to it.  Mild panic started to set in when 45 minutes later, there was no sign of woman or our passports.  Eventually she reappeared and doled them out again, so all was well.

The stage door for the production of one of our favourite TV shows – Person of Interest, which Nick randomly found while on the hunt for food in Queens, New York.

So, onto the coach we went, full of hope of a swift, painless border crossing.  We travelled two minutes across the border and then had to get back off the coach and queue up in possibly the world’s longest queue.  Honestly, it rivalled the ones at Alton Towers during term-time.  Not that we ever went in term-time, as our mother would generally phone up the school and tell the secretary that all three of us had come down with a mysterious stomach bug (probably too much Sudafed), and we’d all have a day off to go to Alton Towers with no queues.  Those were the days.

Anyway, we had to fill out forms again on the Costa Rican side and then get back on the coach, which would take us to Liberia.  So, the “quick” crossing had taken just over 3 hours.  Well worth the money.  I think this would be a good point to mention that we had not eaten since breakfast, and as we reached a fairly substantial traffic jam an hour away from our destination, the time was approaching 6pm.  I was beginning to lose it a little bit, when Nick suggested we tuck into half a loaf of seriously squashed bread and a warm, old jar of peanut butter.  I declined the peanut butter, but munched my way through six slices of bread while waiting for the coach to get moving again.

Slightly offensively-named bread in Nicaragua.

Finally, we arrived in Liberia, which for an inland city was surprisingly sandy and windy.  Not the best combination.  We checked into our hostel and went in search of food.  As we were so ridiculously hungry, we made the mistake of just choosing the first restaurant we found.  We ordered nachos – one of our favourites, so imagine our disappointment when the plate arrived covered in LIQUID CHEESE.  This was possibly the most upsetting thing that has happened to me during this trip.  I refused to eat the nachos, Nick did his best but even his iron stomach was no match for this monstrosity.  Also, they cost us 14 dollars!!!  It turns out people were not exaggerating when they said that Costa Rica is a great deal more expensive than the other Central American countries.  We had a couple of pints, ate at McDonalds across the road, and then went to bed. 

The End.