CorWil en Nicaragua: Day 1 (Will's perspective)

Hello there! In October 2016 I traveled to Nicaragua to visit my partner for a week. We're going to attempt to write our own accounts of the trip, from our own perspectives - as part of a fact-finding mission I suppose, and more likely, to add to the comedic value.

Oct 13, 2016
Step 1: USA al Liberia, C.R.
You know the night before a big trip, important day, or the 2016 US presidential election, how it can be hard to get to sleep because you're so excited, nervous, or really nervous (in the respective order of the examples listed above). Looking forward into an international flight, 4 bus rides, and an international border crossing by foot certainly gave me a bit of nervousness to go to bed with. For those of us that live in Northern New Mexico, or anywhere else that is 2 hours from a major airport, travel days have bonus travel hours stacked on. To make sure I was all set for a 6:00am flight out of Albuquerque Intl', I woke up at 1:30am, left the house by 2:00am, and was on site and in the airport by 4:15am. The rest of the trip was straight forward and easy, had some wonderful cloud-scapes out of Albuquerque, with blanketed clouds across the entire southern plains, not parting until we reached Houston for the connection to Liberia, Costa Rica. That flight was filled with beautiful views (I am a big fan of always getting a window seat, I've always loved maps, what could be better than a real-time birds-eye-view), we flew right over Galveston Bay and the Galveston Channel, giving a good idea of why the Texas coast is so hurricane prone, level-flat, and not a tree on the entire Bolivar Peninsula. Corilia and I had put our truck onto a ferry across this very channel 10 months ago on New Years Eve. Our Plane then flew south across the Gulf of Mexico, off-shore oil rigs and their attendant tanker ships emerged in and out of low elevation clouds that dotted the entire gulf, the scale of the human infrastructure in the gulf was incredible to see from this angle. As we continued south we eventually came upon the northern coast of the Yucutan peninsula, we flew directly over the port city of Progreso, with the larger city Merida lying immediately inland. This area of Mexico's coastline is well known to nearly every human on earth, it's just a few kilometers from the famed Chicxulub site - doesn't ring a bell? Think dinosaurs and a big flash of light that happened 65.5 million years ago! From the air there is no discernible crater, it's all been covered by sediment, but geologist use seismic data to map out the crater site and estimate how much material was flung upwards during the impact event. At this point in this post my partner is probably rolling her eyes at my descent into geography and wikipedia so I'll speed up here ;). The other big flight view highlights came upon entering Central America, the sight of a large body of water surrounded by land, with a medium sized city lying at a pinch in what appeared to be the northwest tip of the Lake indicated Granada, Nicaragua, my final destination (4 hours later). Lake Cocibolca (also called Lake Nicaragua) is surrounded by Volcanoes, and even has several large volcanic islands within the lake itself. We landed in Liberia, Costa Rica a little less than an hour later at 1:05pm. The airport had wifi at the terminal, so I was able to facebook video call Corilia and let her know I had made it! The wifi didn't last long however and I was in a hurry to get moving and not miss any buses so we cut the chat short and I proceeded to the official immigration area. Immigration and customs was a breeze, I opted for a transit visa as I was only planning on being in Costa Rica for another 2 hours, which meant no fees of any kind. Immediately upon exiting the airport I felt the tropical heat and humidity that defines the region.

Step 2: Liberia, C.R. al Peñas Blancas y la Fronterra
"Buenos tardes, con permiso, Buscandamos para el bus al terminal en Liberia?" Short bus ride and 1$ later in Liberia's primary bus terminal "Este es el bus al fronterra?" pointed in the right direction, then a nicely padded modern bus and a $2.50 ride and we were headed north through the Guanacaste countryside. Northwestern Costa Rica is relatively open, seasonally dry (wet season from approximately June-December), these dry conditions create savanna-like conditions, leading to the people of Guanacaste having the 'Sabenero' (literally translating to 'Savanna-ers') culture, much like the cowboy culture of the Northern American west, tied to cattle, grass, and the climate that controls it. Verdant green countryside of rolling hills grading into more impressive hills and valleys as we drove next to Santa Rosa and Guanacaste National Parks. Distant views of Volcanoes to the northeast were my first ever looks at Strato-volcanoes (also called Composite volcanoes), the big type associated with convergent plate boundaries. The bus was sparsely populated, we picked up some people in La Cruz, the largest city south of the Nica/CR border. 4 men who boarded the bus appeared to be from Haiti, french speaking and not carrying any baggage, I figured there must be a small Haitian population here in Costa Rica. When we neared the last small village just a few kilometers from the border, we began to encounter huge numbers of trucks park on the shoulder of the highway. 18-wheelers waiting their chance to move through customs before the weekend. We passed this for at least 2 kilometers, hundreds, maybe a thousand 18-wheelers parked with engines off. While Central America has a Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), it still is not entirely free movement between Nicaragua and Costa Rica, probably stemming from Costa Rica's implicit support of US involvement during the Nicaraguan revolution during the 1980s. Through the line of trucks I began to see lots of people of either Haitian or African nationality walking around or waiting for buses, and eventually an entire tent-city encampment just off the highway. I asked the driver, who filled me in that these were migrants from Africa and Haiti trying to make their way north to the USA, but who could not cross the border into Nicaragua without Visas. More on this issue here at Tico Times (a Costa Rican publication) and here on NPR.  It was a solemn sight during the trip, something I maybe expected to see in Central America, but not in this context of international refugees. A few minutes later and off the bus into the Costa Rican exit office, where 1 form and a stamp of the passport lets you out of the country and into the 1 km walk between the Costa Rican side and the Nicaraguan side. The Nicaraguan office was practically deserted inside, and a temporary tourist visa stamp, $12, and a few slips of papers that acted as receipts and wa-lah, Bienvenidos Nicaragua.

Step 3: La Fronterra al Granada
Immediately upon leaving the immigration entry office I was bombarded with taxi drivers waiting to take you north, people ready to exchange money, and a slew of other services to be offered. A guy who I met on the bus from New York and had gone through the customs and immigration process together named Meyer and I began talking to Taxi drivers about destinations and negotiating prices. He was headed to the Pacific Coast at a well known tourist destination called San Juan del Sur, and I was headed about 100 km north to Granada, not exactly on the way. Someone offered him a $15 fair to San Juan del Sur which really couldn't be beat, while I resigned to ride buses to Managua, the country's capital and maybe get off on the way in Masaya to catch another bus to Granada, which would probably cost $3 but take at least 3 hours. Just as I was about to jump on the chicken bus north (to Rivas, the country's 2nd largest city and a major transportation hub in southern Nicaragua), the taxi with Meyer pulled up and the driver offered $35 to Granada, an hour plus cab ride alone for that price - deal! The Driver's name was Simon, he was fast, professional, and slick. As he drove the 20km to Rivas he jumped on one of his two cell phone to call a friend taxi driver who was to take Meyer over to the coast, and he and I would continue north to Granada. We enjoyed views of Lake Nicaragua, wind turbines, and gorgeous looks at Ometepe, a huge volcanic island on the southwest side of Lake Cocibolca. We dropped off Meyer with another driver in Rivas, and Simon and I continued north at 100km per hour, passing buses, trucks, 18wheelers, motos (motorcycles), bikes, pedestrians, 2 horses, and even a few 'tuk-tuks', 3-wheeled contraptions made in Asia in the 70s. Simon and I talked about a great deal of subjects, from proposed plans to put a canal through Nicaragua, to wind turbine projects, to translations between english and spanish, and whatever else we happened to drive by. I also talked about the purpose of my traveling, to see my novia, I think this made him step on the gas a bit, Simon must've been a romantic at heart! As my spanish trumped his english, it was a great private conversation lesson for the whole drive for me, I really do love speaking in spanish, even if it is pretty elementary at times. We made great time; we were going to get to Granada by 5:00pm, which was perfect since that's when Corilia got off work and I could go directly to her place - equally good on the time since I hadn't been able to contact her since landing! We pulled into Granada right on time, the streets were alive with kids in school uniforms, cars, motos, and just general activity. The colonial architecture that we would see more of the next day was everywhere, beautifully colorful buildings of every color scheme imaginable. It's difficult to describe your feelings of excitement and joy at the prospect of seeing your loved one after 3 months, it was at once nervousness, excitement, and wishing to hasten the rest of the trip by just a few minutes. Corilia's workplace was easy enough to find, it's next to one of major landmark churches in town, Iglesia Xalteva, a beautiful church painted in yellow and white with a magnificent steeple front. We rounded a corner and there was a big green building with her schools name in front. Simon and I double-parked in the road, I grabbed my bags, thanked him for his professional driving skills, suggested he should look into the Nicaraguan equivalent of NASCAR, and gave him a tip for making such good time. This next bit was out of a movie, I crossed the street, dodged a motorcycle, opened up the steel gates that led to the school, and waiting behind the locked metal door was my partner Corilia in a rocking chair with her feet resting on the door patiently waiting and watching the street! I think she startled the whole busy block when she started screaming and jumping up and down. I couldn't resist motioning to Simon the taxi driver, 'Mira! Mi Novia!' and he quickly got out of his cab to meet the woman I had just talked about for an hour, he was sweet and I think liked the idea of two love-birds reuniting after so long. Also in the park and watching this spectacle was one of Corilia's co-workers and his family, who laughed and made fun of us quite a bit, they invited us to dinner at their place that evening and we accepted quickly - Corilia claimed that the mother of the family makes the best gallo-pinto (a type of rice and bean mix) in the city! Corilia then took me inside and showed me around her school, her room, I gave her the care-package of goodies I had been carrying for nearly 17 hours, and we may have hugged and kissed a lot ;)! Dinner was great, walking the city hand-in-hand was great, and we grabbed Corilia's bag and mine and walked a block and a half over to our lodging for the week, a friend of Corilia's place that was very, very posh and just really, posh, deluxe-primo; pool, beautiful architecture, A/C in the bedroom, the whole bit. It was a long day, and every step of the traveling was unquestionably worth being able to see, talk to, hug and kiss my partner.

Total Travel Time: 17 hours

2 hours car ride from Las Vegas to Albuquerque airport
2 hour fligh: ALBQ-Houston
3.5 hour flight: Houston-Liberia, Costa Rica
2 hour bus from Liberia, CR to Nicaraguan Border
1.25 hour taxi from Nicaraguan Border to Granada