On the Road Again...

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Back in Panama we had the same old problems finding somewhere to stay. Why hadn’t we thought to reserve somewhere after last time? We had a sleepless night in a stuffy hostel room and spent the next day wondering around the shopping streets of the city ducking into shops every few metres to relish the air conditioning. It was very hot and we had gotten used to luxury. Where was our swimming pool? I bought a dress* and James a vest top. We returned to the hostel and played scrabble with a slightly loopy Nicaraguan man before heading off to the bus station.

We confirmed our ‘Panaline’ bus ticket to Costa Rica and bought a ‘Tica Bus’ ticket from Costa Rica to Nicaragua. We would arrive in Nicaragua just in time. We then had a lot of time to spare so went to the cinema in the bus station and watched a terrible film about aliens invading the earth, but at least it was in English. We then ate a terrible pizza and borded our bus to Costa Rica.

Note to all potential travellers in Panama: never ride a Panaline bus.

This was perhaps the most uncomfortable bus we had ever ridden, and that includes chicken busses. Cramped up in the front seat of the bus we had absolutely no leg room, just a huge screen right up by our knees dividing us from the drivers’ seat. To add insult to injury (quite literally it felt) the driver had blaring house renditions of The Real McCoy’s ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ playing all night long which severely clashed with the sounds of the films that were playing rendering it impossible to watch the films, sleep or do anything other than worry about our injuring knees. The border crossing was of course, typically early and long. As usual, we were queuing hours before the office opened.

In Costa Rica we found a relatively cheap hotel, equipped with TV and watched the first Bourne Ultimatum and half of the second. Before forcing ourselves to turn it off and go to sleep. We knew we had a long day ahead of us.

At what we thought was 3.30am, the alarm goes off. We get up, heave our huge bags onto our backs and hit the notoriously dodgy streets of San Jose in search of a taxi to the bus terminal. It was not until we were nearly there that I thought to voice my sleepy ponderings of why the taxi’s clock said 2.45. Oops, we forgot to change the time on the alarm.

And so, an exhausting and cold time was spent waiting for our 5am bus to Nicaragua. Thankfully, on the bus, we managed to sleep a little until 10am when we hit the border. Hours were spent on the familiar border of Peñas Blancas before we got back on the bus and alighted soon after in Rivas. From there we caught a bus to the ferry port of San Jorge and from there a lancha (boat) to Ometepe. Luckily a connecting bus was waiting for us and we embarked on a further two hour bus ride to Santa Cruz. On the bus James pointed out an aging hippy with wizardly features equipped with a long beard and correspondingly long ponytail. ‘I bet that’s Cristiano’ James guessed, and he was almost right.
In Santa Cruz we alighted the bus and hiked for at least half an hour to Zopilote. We arrived at the reception sweaty and thoroughly exhausted. We were rewarded with a beer and eventually a room. The room however, felt much less like a reward.

First impressions (an extract from my diary)
‘...a little put out by the apparent living conditions. It’s not that its dirty as such, it’s just a bit, well, outside. You can’t be clean here. I need to deal with my apparently strange desire to always be clean, and with my fear of the insects and stop being such a bloody girl! Who cares if the sheets smell or if there are spiders and ants crawling all over you as you sleep?! Anja, the girl who we’re taking over from was stung by a scorpion in bed one night. I need to toughen up fast.’

* Still not worn 4 months later

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