Most people I know hate their jobs, or if they don't hate them, find something to complain about them. Most of us make a pretty decent living, have breaks at work, holidays, and maybe even a great space to do our job. The people in Nicuragua are so grateful for what they have that they don't complain. I think of the guys who work on the local buses. On local buses here (also called Chicken Buses), there are 2 or 3 men. One is the driver, one man tells the driver when to stop and go to let poeple on and off, he also collects the money and, almost every one I've seen, has gone out of their way to help people with heavy loads, including myself. These guys are running between the front door and the back door, or if there isn't a back door, the rear door on the very back of the bus (the one we use for emergencies). Back and forth, regardless of weather, heat, rain, sun, they run back and forth, constantly. Sometimes, there's a third guy, who rides on the roof, he is in charge of any extra cargo that won't fit inside the bus. These men, while not always friendly, work their butts off. They don't roll their eyes at people or give big sighs, they chat with people, help them on and off, and give directions.They are happy to have a job at all. I think that usually, the more you have, the more you take for granted. These guys showed me that you can appreciate the things you have, even if sometimes, they are hard. I can't even imagine doing what they do and then going home to a small house, with possibly a dirt floor, maybe one room, maybe your own bedroom if you're lucky. And to do it everyday.
Anyways, back to my story. We got up early; we'd already prepared our bags so we wouldn't have to do that in the morning. We bit the bullet and had the free pancakes, since we were on a time crunch, and most breaky places didn't seem to open until 9 am. We were planning on taking the 8 am bus so we had to eat at the hotel. When we got to the rooftop, where breakfast was served, there was a whole menu! This had not been there on the first day. I ordered a smoothie and Jan ordered granola with milk so she could have some cereal. I facetimed my grandpa, it was his birthday! Happy BIrthday Grandpa!! He's the reason you're reading this blog! He asked me to write it for this adventure I'm on.
The smoothie (wrong flavour) and granola finally arrived and since we were in a hurry, I had to drink it really fast...now I didn't feel good! Jan got hot milk with her granola, not what she wanted at all. So, she threw the granola into the cereal bag and we went down to get our bags. No one was working reception yet but the guy on the night shift had left us information so we could leave money with the security guard. As we were trying to figure out how much U.S. and how many cordobas to put down, the girl walked in! Thank goodness. We left the money with her, change and all and left in a flurry of bags. We arrived about 15 minutes early at the bus meeting point, but the bus was already waiting so it was a good thing. AND it left almost 10 minutes early, so it's a really good thing we were early! We told the driver where we wanted to get off and away we went. We knew we weren't going to be getting off at a station so we were grateful that the guy on the bus rememebered to tell us when we'd gotten to our stop. It was comical really, because about 4 guys were all yelling our stop name, but it wasn't the one we were expecting! haha...we figured it out when he pointed at us. There were 2 stops on the road to go to and a guy waiting told us which one we wanted. We were hesitant, as it seemed he was telling us the one where we had just come from but our bus did arrive. Though, it was full so.....our bags had to ride on the roof! This is the first time I've had to do this and while I wasn't too worried, Jan was. Every time we hit a bump, Jan wondered if our bags were still up there. I actually think there was a guy sitting up top with all the stuff. We stood the whole journey as it was so busy. At one point, the bus stopped and the guy was yelling "Gasolina! Gasolina!", and the guy from the roof, dropped down a jug of some liquid, which didn't look like gas, but evidently it was. And then someone else came over with a barrel of something that they also put into the bus...strange! At least it got us where we were going.
We arrived at the border crossing to a mass of people yelling at us and trying to give us papers. We had read not to take any papers from anyone and not to give people money to do your passport for you. So, marching right along, we ignored all the yelling and vying for our attention. When we got inside the gate, and our passport had been checked, we paid C$55 ($1U.S. each) to get into passport control. Then, we waited in line and when we finally got to the officer, we were told we needed to fill out a declaration form (which no one had given us and there were no signs for). We borrowed a pen, filled it out and got back in line. When the guy took my passport, he told me now I had to pay C$50 (or $2 U.S. each). I had C$80 left. Perfect! Afer some misunderstanding and some confusion, we realized we didn't have enough cordobas for Jan, and the passport officer refused to give change for $20 U.S.. Standing there, not sure what to do, a fellow traveller came over and asked if she could help. She gave us the money we needed and though we didn't see her again, we are so grateful to her for her kindness. She didn't need to do anything and she saved our butts, big time. This latest episode of the mean passport controller was the last straw, we were offically done in Nicaragua...we'd had one too many incidents in this country! Our first stop, in Costa Rica was showing our passport to a police officer..He was so friendly, asking us how we were. Jan was like "oh yeah, I love Costa Rica already!" We trudged through the "no man's land", hoping we were almost at the border crossing, when we came to a fork in the road. We chose left, which turned out to be correct. It led us to a line up of people. We waited for about 30 minutes or so before being let into a very air conditioned building. I chose the shorter line, of course, and it ended up being the one that everyone cut into. Bus drivers, handicapped, old people, all cut into this line....but finally it was our turn. We had to show our exit tickets, which we both had on our phones. Worried, they might not accept this (we had been doing reserarch on crossing this border), we held our breaths. Not to mention a few travellers had been sent away, evidently missing something. We were lucky though, and had no trouble. We put our bags through an x-ray machine and we were home free. What a weird experience. Once we exited the building, we walked back and forth on the road, where everyone was lining up, to buy our bus tickets and have money exchanged. I could have easily skipped the line, boarded a bus, and not had my passport stamped (something I would never do!). We waited for about 10 minutes and then our bus arrived. Compared to the local buses in Nicuragua, this bus was a luxury.S
It had big comfy seats and an under the bus compartment for our bags. I watched the country side roll by on our way to Liberia, one of Costa Rica's bigger cities. Once we arrived, at a normal bus station, and not the random area that nicuragua calls "terminals", we found the ticket counter and bought our tickets to Tamarindo. A whopping $3 later, we were ready! After some confusion about where to go, and different people sending us to different line ups, we were finally on the correct bus. Actually, it was an old transit bus..with very hard seats. Two hours later and we'd finally arrived! What a journey! It took us just over 7 hours, 4 buses, one border crossing, and $11 to get here but we finally made it! Have I mentioned I love the beach? Our hostel was right around the corner from the bus stop, so in no time we were changing into shorts and walking around town, looking for some food to eat. And, as a bonus, that weweren't expecting...we have air conditioning!!! Woo Hoo, it definitely makes up for the fact that we have shared bathrooms in this place...well almost!
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