Crossing the Frontier into Nicaragua – 5/24/2013
May 27th, 2013 by rallyadmin
The clock in the room says it’s 5:00 AM, the phone says it’s 5:00 AM, my watch says it’s 6:00 AM and the phone alarm hasn’t gone off. It’s a bright almost sunny morning. My watch, obviously, is wrong. We must have lost another time zone coming into Costa Rica. Both of us try to get some more sleep but it’s no use. Shower and then down for breakfast.
At check out we ask for the local time and, yes, we’ve gained another hour. Out to the car in the almost completely empty parking area. Load up and head into the early morning rush hour traffic. It takes us the better part of an hour to get through the outskirts of San Jose but we get to a 4 lane highway that leads to the airport and we start making some decent time.
By the airport, we’re back on the Panamericana and, at the airport, the wide 4 lane highway drops back to 2 lanes, the old Nacional Highway. It’ll be like this all the way to the frontier with Nicaragua. This road road runs all the way from San Jose to Nicaragua and it runs through every small town along the way. There’s a lot of truck traffic so the going occasionally slows quite a lot until we can get past the truck in question and get back to speed.
As we get closer to Nicaragua, we notice to changes. First, there are a lot of police checkpoints and, second, the terrain changes from tropical jungle to semi-arid grassland.
First, the terrain. We’re in the northwest part of Costa Rica and this area doesn’t get much rainfall. Instead of banana and fruit plantations, all we see are cattle ranches. To make matters worse, the developers who built the resorts on the Pacific coast not far from here have also taken much to water that is here and piped it to the resorts. That is a real sore spot with the locals.
The police checkpoints are here to stop illegal Nicaraguan immigration into Costa Rica, an even bigger sore spot with the locals. The difference in wealth, culture and history between Costa Rica and Nicaragua has made Costa Rica the desired haven for the poor of Nicaragua. Obviously, the Costa Ricans see it exactly the opposite. Because Costa Rica has no army or military of any kind, the police are at the front line of stemming the immigrant tide.
We eventually get stopped in one of the checkpoints. Of course, we’re going to Nicaragua, not from Nicaragua, so this is really just document check. An very pretty young female officer comes over, flashes a beautiful smile and asks for the documents. She says that everything is fine and we can go but another policeman in civies stops us and wants to see in the car.
He’s obviously a drug enforcement type. We show him our documents, open the car, he barely even looks in, asks what’s in the duffle bags and starts chatting about our trip. In a few moments he changes from “drug-enforcement” cop to “curious but friendly” cop. And he sends us on our way.
At just about noon, we make it to the frontier. And this border crossing isn’t quite as crazy as the Panamanian/Costa Rican crossing yesterday but there is the required couple km long line of stopped trucks. We pass them (they’re stopped and empty) and head into the border area.
As we drive closer to the frontier proper, we come upon a couple km long line of trucks. We pass them (the usual practice for cars and buses – the trucks might be there for hours or even days) and keep driving until we find the passport control building. Meanwhile, there have been people yelling at us to trun back. When we finally stop, a young man comes up and says to follow him and climbs on the running board of the Jeep.
He barks driving instructions and gets us to the exit aduana building for Costa Rica. We park and go inside. Fill out some forms. Hand over the forms and passports. Sit back down in the waiting area. Wait 20 minutes. Go back to the window. Passports stamps. Temporary import permit for the car surrendered. Get a receipt for the permit. Give the “guide” (who is wearing an official Costa Rican ID card) a 10,000 colon note for “his collection” (he officially can’t take tips). He has a wab of assorted Central American currency notes which he says he gets from the people he guides through the process. Works for me.
His last words to us are to now go to migracion control and have our passports stamped. Then we’re done with Costa Rica. We pull up to the passport control building, park the car next to a high fence that separates the cars from the trucks. And the money-changers who are screaming that we need to change money for Nicaragua.
The guide books uniformly say to not change money with these guys. There’s a serious counterfeiting problem in Nicaragua. They say always use ATMs. We pass on the money-changers and head into passport control. Into line with about 10 people in front of us. Wait.
Finally at the head of the line, I hand over my passport and the usual page flipping and scanning. Until just as the “stamp, stamp” should be happening, the woman looks at me and says that there is a problem.
“A problem? What problem?” “You must have at least six months until the expiration of your passport for entry into Nicaragua.” “But we’re only going to stay 2 days.” We can’t stamp your passport if you don’t have at least six months left.” “What do I have to do?” “ You have to go to the US embassy in San Jose and get a new passport” Now this is a serious pile of crap!
Both John and I argue with her about her at least stamping the passport so the we can try getting into Nicaragua. She finally relents and takes the passport to a superior and explains the situation to him. He comes over and says that they (Costa Rica) don’t have any problem with the passport but Nicaragua will and they are supposed to stop us before we get out of Costa Rica and try to enter Nicaragua. I tell him that we are only “transitos” and we’ll be out of Nicaragua in 2 days.
He goes off and confers with a woman who is probably his superior or equal. They talk and then disappear into another office with the original officer. She comes back with the passport and says that they will exit stamp the passport but that Nicaragua may not allow me to enter. If that happens, come back and go to the US embassy in San Jose.
We thank her. Stamp, stamp. Then John’s passport. Stamp, stamp. To the banos and past the still screaming money-changers. Then back to the car and into no mans land. But this time with a potential serious problem. Tension is really ramped up now.
We end doing exactly what we did trying to leave Costa Rica. We drove right past the passport control and aduana. When a Nicaraguan “guide” finally catches up with us, he tells us the error of our ways and promptly hops on the Jeep running board. These guys are nothing if not aggressive. We don’t mind, though. Without a guide coming into Costa Rica, we’d probably still be there trying to figure out what to do next. The fees, tips, additions to “collections” are cheap considering the help that we’ve gotten.
He turns us around and guides us to the parking area for both passport control and aduana. As soon as we get out of the car, one of the three young men (yes, now there’s three of them) asks for our passports and $2. (There’s a $1 entry fee for each of us.) He leads us to the passport control and we get in line.
To say that we’re nervous is an understatement. We’ve never had any passport issues on any of the trips that we’ve done. Our visas and passports have always been in perfect order. Now, I’m standing in line with a passport that may not get into a country for a 2 day stay because of an expiration date that’s only 5 months out, not the required 6 months. And, there are three people at the window that the immigration officer is giving a serious workover. Maybe he’ll be worn out by the time I get to him.
While I’m in line waiting, a beggar woman comes through the line panhandling. As usual, I just shake my head. There are always beggars at these border crossings and nearly everyone tries to ignore them. But as she walks away, my karma alarm goes off. Is this a big karma test? What goes around, comes around?
I call her back and give her a 500 colon coin. It’s not much but it’s more than she had when she came in. She thanks me. I just keep thinking about karma.
Finally, the immigration officer lets the Mexican trio that he’d been working over go and quickly processes the two people in front of me. I walk up to the window and hand the officer my passport, the filled out tourist form and a $20 bill to cover the $10 entry fee for John and myself. Maybe dazzling him with greenbacks will help.
I just stand there trying to look calm while he rifles through the pages, types on his computer, rifles the pages again, studies the identification pages, type some more and then opens to a clean page and “stamp, stamp”. And hands me back my passport. “Welcome to Nicaragua.” “Thank you, I’m very glad to be here.” And so is John.
Passport control isn’t usually an issue but getting the car through aduana is. That’s why we keep hiring these young men to “help” us through the process. And the Nicaraguan process isn’t really that complex. The “guides” have gotten some forms stamped and have gotten the attention of an aduana officer to check over the car.
He checks the title against the form. He checks the plate number. He checks the VIN number. He looks at the engine. And then he says to empty the car. What?! Yes, everything out. He goes through all the bags. And then opens all the spares boxes in our lockable steel box. While he’s poking around, one of the “guides” mutters to John that the aduana officer is being an “asshole”. No kidding. We’ve had the car searched before but never like this.
Eventually, he runs out of bags and boxes to open, seats to look under and storage compartments to poke around in and calls over a junior aduana officer to finish up with us while the “ah” takes a mobile call. The junior officer speaks some English and tells us to list on the inspection form what spares we have and the number of each type.
We give him a “really?” look. He gives back the universal “its-not-my-idea, what can I say” look. The younger officer gives the form to the older “ah” officer who scribbles something on it and walks away. The younger officer gives the form to John and one of the “guides” snatches it and they take John off to finish the temporary car permit application while I repack the car. And wait.
About an hour later, John and the “guides” show up with the temporary permit. The only thing left to do is settle up with the “guides” who, of course, think that they are worth more than we think they are. We haggle. They haggle. We eventually settle on an amount and part ways. We’re in Nicaragua and on our way to Managua for the night.
As we head out of the border zone, I ask John how much did the insurance cost. He says he didn’t buy insurance, that we already had insurance in the policy that we bought for Central America, that we just printed yesterday in Costa Rica.
I ask John to get out the policy and check to see if the policy is valid for Nicaragua. It’s not. John had shown the cover sheet to the Nicaraguan officials when he was getting the permit and they said that the policy was okay. Whatever. Now we’re driving with no insurance.
We drive carefully trying to avoid any need for insurance. The thing we’re more worried about is a document check. We make it to Managua without incident or a document check. Check into a hotel. We’re planning on being in and out of Honduras tomorrow. We just have to get out of this country with no insurance.
Obi-wan