A roadside gift store and gardens in Costa Rica
I left San Jose about 12:30 yesterday after having lunch with Carlos the owner of the house and Jeff the student from Taiwan. The weather was nice all morning and then a heavy rain came in. I had looked at the weather report and it said 40% chance of rain almost every day for the next week. Carlos offered to let me stay one more day at no charge, but I knew I had to get going, and it wasn't like the weather the next day was going to be any better then this day.
So we parted with me promising to call him when I got back to Michigan, I knew he was a little worried about me on my return trip. I gave gifts to everyone including Ana and Jolenis the maids (for all the great work they did), and headed out to cross San Jose one last time. Of course it was as busy as ever and it took a good hour to drive the 10 miles (if its that far) across town and finally get going north and towards the Nicaraguan border. Of course I took a wrong turn once, by the airport, but quickly got back on track.
One of many Iguanas they had in a cage at the souvenir shop.
My plan now was to try to get as close to the borders I had to cross the night before, and then try them first thing in the morning, when I'm fresh and hopefully the border people are too. I was also planning on not using handlers this time and stumbling around all day if I had to if thats what it took to save some money. I wanted to reach Santa Rosa National Park up in the Northwest corner of Costa Rica by nightfall. This would put me close to the Nicaraguan border for the morning. I had not done any camping on this whole trip and wanted to do it at least once in Costa Rica before I left. Costa Rica is warm and wet, and is certainly different then camping in the northern U.S. (where I'm used to camping). But it does have a lot of National Parks and places to camp.
I drove in just after dark to the campground. The entrance information booth was closed, and there was no one to pay. It was only two dollars a night anyway. I made my way in and it was pitch black, and really warm and humid. I was soaked with sweat just getting my tent up and everything unpacked. After I did though I was able to relax and sit on the picnic table and listen to my MP3 player. I hadn't used it at all on the trip and wanted to see if I could pick up any stations. I got one kind of fuzzy one that was playing a song by The Moody Blues of all things. I just sat there in the now cool wind blowing thru the trees in just my underwear with the moon coming out, and it felt so good. Worth the effort to try and camp, and certainly a lot cheaper then a hotel would have been.
Finally I get to camp out, here in Santa Rosa National Park, Costa Rica
Of course right on schedule a big storm came in and it rained really hard for a good part of the night. The bike and I were covered and we did fine, though I really didn't get much sleep because of the rain, and also because it was so warm. Tropical camping is somewhat different then what I'm use to.
In the morning even though I wanted to sleep in I knew I had the border to deal with, and wanted to get across Nicaragua by night fall. So I was up at 6, still late for the sun, but...My goal was to hopefully get to the El Salvador coast by Friday night after crossing Honduras. This would get roughly half of my border crossing's over within the first two days and then maybe I could spend a day at the beach before heading north and having to deal with Guatemala and Mexico (I remember that long trip across Mexico!). The El Salvador coast was one of the prettiest places on the trip, and I wanted to get back there, having done almost no beach time on this trip.
So as I got up and started breaking camp I met my neighbor Harold from Germany. We talked for a bit about our trips. He was in Costa Rica for 3 weeks and had rented a car and was traveling around camping. The park has two campgrounds, one up by the park offices where we were at, and another one down the road by the ocean, about six miles. There is a warning sign not to use the road because its so rough, he did anyway and got his rental SUV stuck. It cost him $180 to get it towed out! I told him he was lucky he was in a place he could get one. Some of the places I've been on this trip I'm not sure you could have found a tow truck.
My neighbor Harold at the campground, he was from Germany and touring the country for 3 weeks.
He told me a troop of Howler Monkeys had come thru earlier in the morning making their characteristic deep throated grunts and howls. In fact they were still in trees not far away and we could hear them making their howls. Its funny in Michigan we have flocks of crows that come in and make racket and then move on. Here they have groups of monkeys that do that. As we were standing there talking the worlds largest rodent, I forget what its called came walking into the campground. Harold got all excited and told me it was just the right size for eating. I thought that's kind of an odd first thing to think of seeing a new animal for the first time. I don't think Harold was a vegetarian!
For me being down here is like going to a local zoo in Grand Rapids when I was a kid. Every time you turn around there's something you've seen on television or at the zoo. Leaving the park they have a Armadillo crossing sign, and an Iguana crossing sign, later I was to see a snake crossing sign in Nicaragua. I'm not sure there is anything they don't have down here. The nice thing of getting out and going camping or like taking the tour last week is that you don't have to go far, or look very hard to find them. Harold told me the pond down by the ocean has crocodiles in that as well. Ok, I'm ready for a Python or a Jaguar now..
Speaking of sharks, I got to the Costa Rican side of the border, refused help from the handlers and was able to get stamped out of the country and with some questioning and remembering the building that I got my vehicle permit in, was able to take care of that paperwork as well. It helped that the guy spoke some English too, but at least I was the one who found him by myself. I started out at the Nicaraguan border OK, two kids and the immigration guys helped me. The kids were determined to see me thru the whole process. I got my bike spray' d for what I don't know, supposedly mosquito's, that was $3, and then with the kids help I found the place to get my passport stamped, that cost $7. Then who shows up but the guy that helped me get into Costa Rica. I tell him I'm not paying him anything, but the truth is he's asking me questions about my insurance and other things, and I can tell I'm going to have problems if I try this alone.
We discovered this "hitcher" at the border crossing, ironically right after they spray' d my bike with insecticide. A walking stick over a foot long, reportedly its bite is painful and can cause swelling in the throat. A crowd gathered and in typical mob fashion, stamped it to death (well one guy did, the others were just worried and told me it was poisonous).
The bottom line is he did help me not have to pay insurance, he did get a good rate on my money exchange for Nicaraguan money, (unlike another guy who ripped me off for probably $25 with a bad exchange rate for Colones a short time earlier) and all the paper work he was throwing at me I ended up just letting him do it for me....... Another $10 for the permit (someone else told me that its free for Nicaragua), another $10 for the police to help get me thru faster, (no doubt more money for him) and then a $10 fee for him. So I probably lost $30's with him, and another $25 on the money exchange even though I try' d to stop by a bank before I got to the border to have it exchanged there. They said I would have to do it at the border. I did not agree on the exchange rate before hand and by the time I figured it out it was too late, he had given me a terrible rate.
I did try to find the exchange rate on line, but Nicaragua's currency (the cordoba) wasn't even listed at the site I was at. I also try' d to find a calculator before I started back, but of course their so overpriced in Costa Rica I didn't want to buy one. But those are at least two things you can do ahead of time. One is know what the exchange rate is, and then either figure it out yourself how much your going to change and how much you should get, and either write it down for the exchange guy to read, or better yet, bring a calculator, figure it out, and then show it to him. This works really well as well going into a store, a hotel, or anywhere you don't know the price or can't understand them. Either have them write it down, or give them the calculator. Some people can't even read, but everyone seems to know numbers. Especially when it comes to money. The other thing to do which I didn't do was call each embassy, talk to someone and find out the exact procedure and how much it should cost. Then ask them to fax, or give you the web site that has that information on it. Make a copy and then have that and the embassy of that countries phone number with you when you go to the border, if you have problems, show them the paper, and the phone number of their own embassy. Granted this takes a lot of time to do, but I think in the case of Guatemala and Honduras it maybe the best way to get some insurance against corrupt officials. However this doesn't solve the problem at the borders of the maize of lines and paperwork you try to get thru on your own in the heat and being pummeled by handlers, all without speaking the language. Eventually its like you end up asking one question or accepting their help, and then your in for it, you can't get rid of them. Its hard to understand just how difficult this situation is, and how hard is to deal with it if you've never done it before. And believe me the handlers know....But having said that you can still try to barter a deal, and state it before they start helping you. If they want your business bad enough they will often take a quarter of what some of the other ones are offering. This still does not cover mysterious charges they keep coming up with as they run away with your license and $10 only to return and say, that's over, now we need to do this. The only thing to do in that case is I get guess stay with them every step of the way.. You get the idea again how hard this is. All these suggestions help, but still don't solve the problem of using handlers, corrupt border officials and not speaking the language.
One of the many volcano's in Central America. This one in Nicaragua.
So for the border it came to $40, $30 of it I'm sure went to the handler, and I probably lost $25 in the exchange rate, but I did reduce the damage in a lot of ways, and I had done almost three quarters of the crossing alone. I should have stuck with it, or simply not given him anything for his help, considering what he did to me the last time. I wasn't sure how he would take that, the thing is his service is worth something, just not what he thinks it is. Actually its the governments themselves that allow it to go on. They could seal off the area from non-authorized personnel and also have instructions printed up in different languages and mark things to make it easier so people could find their way around. Like that's going to happen. ( I know, I just need to learn to be the tough gringo!).
I drove all day after getting thru the Nicaraguan border, stopped to eat once and though I spent maybe two hours at the border I still was only able to put in about 250 miles today. While the roads are pretty good, its the traffic, slow vehicles and a lot of towns that end up slowing you down. I got as close to the Honduras border as I could before dark, now tomorrow I'll have to deal with it and the money exchangers, first thing.
More of the Nicaraguan country side.
The prices in Nicaragua are probably the lowest of anywhere. Gas is under $3 a gallon. I had a lunch of 3 taco's, coleslaw, beans and a drink, and it came to $2. And this was at a gas station restaurant, not a roadside stand. My hotel, while no television or hot water, or screens for that matter, is about $10. As I was unloading my bike a scorpion came walking in the front door (my first sighting in my life of one of those too). A dark brown one, about 4 inches long. I literally kicked it out. I was so ready to just leave after that, like how am I going to sleep thinking its going to come in under the door again. The thing is, where am I going to go? Its dark, I'm at the border, I'd have to drive back 30 miles to find a place. No, people all over the world live with scorpions, and all these other creatures I'm running into. I'm just banking on them not being able to climb! I also sprinkled baby powder all around the door, hoping that would detour it. My gringoness coming out again I guess,
It should be an interesting night as well as an interesting morning at the border tomorrow....
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