Granada Nicaragua to San Jose Costa Rica

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This is how we crosed the Penas Blancas border from Granada Nicaragua to Costa Rica.



1. Catch the bus to Rivas. To get to the bus stop in Granada walk past the market and the Pali supermarket. Walk past the garage and take the next left. The bus stop is on your right. We caught the bus at 6:30am. It cost C$30 and arrived in Rivas at 8:10am.

2. Catch the bus to Penas Blancas. In the same bus station as you arrive you can catch the bus to the "frontera" (border). People will approach you when you are getting off the other bus and ask you where you are going and direct you onto the right bus. Our bus left at 8:25am. It cost C$28 and arrived at the border at 9:15am.

3. Arriving at the border. The bus will park to the right of a fence. When you get off you will be swarmed by people trying to carry your bags, direct you, sell you forms and sell you bus tickets. Walk through the gap in the fence and show your passport.

4. Walk past the shops to the blue and white building. Pay $1 entrance to the building which is a Rivas tax.

5. Get your departure stamp. You will need to fill out an immigration form. You can buy these from plenty of people selling them outside or inside the building. We gave $1 for our forms. You can get them for free by walking to the front of the queue and asking the immigration officers for them. We saw 1 local successfully get some and 1 tourist struggling to get some (we left before we saw if he succeeded). Most people bought forms and filled them out whilst waiting in line. At the desk you need to pay $2 for a departure stamp. Have exact money as they don't have much change. Also they do not accept cordobas so bring US $.

6. When we exited the building a TransNica bus had arrived and a ticket lady approached us. We decided to buy a ticket on the TransNica bus through to San Jose which cost $12. You can catch buses the other side of immigration instead for about $9 according to our research but we decided to pay a few more dollars to get there quicker. We got on their bus and drove to Costa Rican immigration.

We had heard that a return ticket is often required to get through immigration. We were heading back to Nicaragua from Costa Rica so bought a return bus ticket from San Jose to Managua from the TransNica representative for $25 (valid for 1 year).

7. Enter the Costa Rica immigration. TransNica had given us the immigration and customs forms to fill out. In the Costa Rican office leave your bags to the side and queue up. At the desk we were asked how long we were going to stay in Costa Rica and asked for proof of our onward travel so we showed our newly purchased bus ticket. There was no fee for our entry stamps.

8. Pick up your bags and exit through customs. There was a lady collecting forms but she didn't look at them. Put your bags through the xray and leave the building and get back on the bus. In this area there are offices for TicaBus and TransNica and also offices for transport in Costa Rica. Our bus left at 11am.

9. After leaving the border there was a police check after about 1/2 hour. A policeman entered the bus and we had to show our entry stamps. The bus stopped for 1 15min break on the way to San Jose. There was quite a bit of traffic and road works and we arrived in San Jose at 5:15pm.

10. It was still light so we walked to our hostel. The city is easy to get around with numbered streets and avenues which are signed.



Where We Stayed

Hostal Pangea - $14 each for a dorm bed. There is a restaurant/bar with a nice view of the City and a pool. When we arrived there was no water for a few hours which meant that the toilets got pretty nasty. There is no kitchen and the only place you can eat your own food/have your own drinks is sitting on the edge of a sun lounger by the pool. Internet was not great. San Jose is quite a cold city (compared to Granada where we came from) and I found the room was too cold at night. We stayed here as it was near the bus stations to the North of town which we were heading to the next day but I wouldn't stay there again.



Where We Ate

Costa Rica is expensive but there are plenty of supermarkets around.



Where We Went Next

We went to Puerto Viejo the next day.

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