30 hours on a bus, a Mcpollo and an ugly encounter with immigration

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It had only been a day since we left New York (delays weren’t voluntary this time, sadly) but it already felt like we had been on the road a fair while. Our first stop was Panama City. Our first signs within the airport were good but a little disconcerting. We arrived at immigration expecting a barrage of questions and an interrogation worthy of Panama reputation as the stricter of the Central American countries. What actually happened was a reasonably cheery lady didn’t really bother to look at the form and took our photos and fingerprints before waving us through. It struck us that we were pretty much the only ‘gringo’ tourists on our flight or indeed any of the flights at that time. We weren’t quite sure about what that said for Panama tourism industry or the sensibility of our choice to venture there. Heading out into the taxi rank we were both a little apprehensive about what we have let ourselves in for, images of a scary violent city briefly making us question what we were doing.



Once outside however, I must confess it was a little different. A man standing behind a taxi stand asked us if we needed a taxi and where we were going before leading us to the lines of waiting cabs. Now at this point we are both willing to admit that we were an easy prey for the ‘gringo’ hunting helper who quickly requested a tip for helping us walk the 10m out from the door but his translation to the driver and our lack of sleep helped us justify the cost to get us to our hostel quicker. Quicker is definitely a word I would use to describe the Panamanian cabbies. We weren’t sure what speed he was going but the swerving, dodging and weaving between cars and trucks probably made it feel faster than it really was. As we found out with our cabbie the next day, even marked police cars aren’t immune from being heckled out of the way by excessive use of a horn.



When we arrived in the city centre it was a strange mix of familiarity and foreign. The tall modern skyscrapers and a holiday inn making you feel like you could be in any other city. It wasn’t until we hit Casco Viejo that we started to see some real personality, crumbling old colonial building in many different pastel shades standing next to traditional tin roof houses. The bars and family run roadside restaurants buzzing with activity that made the modern centre look quiet in comparison. We arrived at our hostel and paid the very friendly taxi driver (I suppose he should be given the amount we paid). Lunas castle was exactly as described, an old colonial castle complete with huge wooden staircases and balconies looking out onto the water. It was also a party hostel with a lot of your typical ‘gap yah’ types. As many will know, that’s not quite us so we did the highly sociable thing and headed straight for bed…



The next morning, after a botched attempt at making our own pancakes on a hob without a pan, we resolved to be good backpackers and walk (Alison and Yeti). However, it soon became apparent that this wasn’t going to work as a friendly local guy told us that it was an hour or two to walk and we had a bus to catch. With our friendly local guy we hailed a cab and bartered down the price to 3 dollars. We thought the old guy was in it for a tip but he was actually just being genuinely helpful. There was a Canadian girl already in the back (the first of many Canadians we found, they are literally everywhere!) and she was just back from having 3 weeks in Costa Rica and told us that she had been forced to buy a new suitcase to transport the hammocks she had bought. After about 20 minutes of the taxi driver driving in circles and asking for directions we stumbled upon her hotel purely by chance, taxi driver of course taking full credit for his navigation. After heckling a police car and quick stop off at the petrol station, he took us straight to the bus station and wished us a good journey to Costa Rica.



We booked our tickets with surprising ease as everyone here uses pointing and calculators to communicate with stupid gringos and decided to get the bulk of our travelling done in one journey to Managua rather than stopping in San Jose. This meant around 30 hours on a bus. The unfortunate thing was that the only bus at that time happened to be Ejecutiva rather than tourist so we had to pay a bit extra for the first leg to San Jose. We reasoned that the extra comfort might be nice for our first induction into looooong bus journeys. After filling in customs forms and showing passports we were safely onboard. Then began our strange journey. The bus itself was a standard coach with an attempt at comfy seats and a tiny little blanket and pillow. The good thing was that it had video screens in the seats in front. These showed only Spanish films and cut out halfway through, much to our disappointment as Batman was just getting to the good bit. Zoe complained that the bus smelt like her Grandma’s greenhouse and when it rained we found out why. Water poured down the inside of the glass and then dribbled down the wall next to the seat, meaning we had to be careful where we place our heads, hands and feet. Every announcement was in Spanish and with our combined skills we probably managed to work out passport a couple of times and any number he said so we were pretty clueless whenever they stopped. At one point the bus stopped and no one seemed to be getting off or on, a shame as we were next to a McDonalds, before the bus rumbled on and the boy at the front appeared with a huge box and started to hand out something that turned out to be McPollos. For free. This, sadly, was probably the highlight of the whole journey. We passed endless quarries and logging camps interspersed with the odd luxury hotel in the middle of nowhere but nothing particularly interesting other than a few volcanoes in the distance.



When we arrived at our first border however, things started to get more interesting. Paso Canoas was not the nicest place. Armed soldiers avoided the homeless beggars asking for money and the stray dogs looking for food whilst people waited in queues at serious looking windows. We followed the majority Central American passengers from our bus and befriended the only other gringo, a Canadian girl. First was a room where we laid our bags on the floor to be sniffed by an army sniffer dog for drugs and then they were put on a table for a quick squeeze by an old guy. No x-rays here! But, as it turned out, this is probably as thorough as Central American borders get…



We walked out of this room and were directed by our driver to walk until we saw a flashing light so we headed into the dark stretch of no man’s land between the border. Between borders a kind of dodgy mini town had popped up and there was lots of activity which thankfully did include a police station. Eventually we reached the Costa Rican entry point and met back up with our Canadian friend. We stood for a while in the queue and then handed over the necessary documents, at which point the Canadian girl was directed to a room in the back whilst we went to a holding area. A little later and she returned in tears explaining that she wasn’t being granted entry as she didn’t have a yellow fever vaccination and had previously come from South America which was a risk zone. We both felt awful at this point as she was a young girl travelling on her own to meet her friend and now had to wait in limbo town until she could find a doctor to give her the vaccination. There was nothing we could do but wish her luck as she picked up her backs and walked back through no man’s land.



After the events at the border we were both just thankful to be back on the bus and on our way. Again there was nothing eventful until we finally departed at San Jose Tica terminal to spend the four hour wait (which turned to five due to time difference) passing the time by watching the Costa Rican national youth athletics team excitedly wander around. There was only one who looked like a middle distance and Mike reckons he could have had him in a race. Although maybe not after twenty hours without sleep.



Now the strange thing is that when the ‘tourist’ class bus arrived, it looked in remarkably better state than the supposedly better class one we had just stepped off. Complete with TV screens in the middle rather than on the seats, but at least it meant being subjected to Fast and Furious, Lion King and Beethoven. In Spanish. Loudly. For the next 9 hours. Unfortunately the Lion King was cut short just before the action by our arrival at the next border. Now if Panama- Costa Rica could be described as a little sinister and scary during the night, the Costa Rica- Nicaragua border of Penas Blancas was just plain odd. Costa Rica was a pretty standard office, nothing unusual there. Then we hit Nicaragua. There was no office. We still aren’t sure whether there were even any officials. Just hundreds of hawkers selling all manner of goods. Sim cards, dodgy sunglasses, currency, food and even over the counter drugs. The really strange thing was that, whilst the now standard ‘bag pat from an old man’ style of security checks were completed, the hawkers continued to pester and the officials then joined in. Clearly wanting to subsidise their pay with a little gringo money.



Once we started back on the bus you could immediately see the change. Comparative to this, Costa Rica was indeed a rich country. There were shacks all along the side of the road and all manner of skeletal farm animals tethered to them. These were undoubtedly poor people. The odd town we did meet still had a sense of poverty even with the slightly better standard of housing. And other than the brief glimpses of Lago Nicaragua and the twin cones of Isla de Ometepe we didn’t encounter much else until we finally reached Granada.



We got off into a sweltering heat, especially when compared to the hypothermic air con of a TICA bus, and picked our bags up to be left with a German backpacker and two American tourists. The German had travelled from Argentina and had already been on the road ten months so we agreed that he could lead the way. A good idea as it turned out. He walked up to a couple of road workers and asked them in Spanish where to head. Turns out he couldn’t speak a word when he started so there’s hope for us!



We bid him farewell and went to our hostel to find they didn’t have a private room but we were too tired to care and gratefully accepted two beds in a room full of German girls. We decided to have a quick wander before an early night so headed out onto the streets of Granada.



Culture shock doesn’t even begin to explain what Granada was like to non-travelling sheltered gringo folk like ourselves. People shouting in Spanish, cars driving through pedestrians as if they weren’t there, stray dogs on every corner and street vendors selling everything from dubious looking cheeses and fruits to car tyres. But the main thing that hit us was the smell. A smell like damp, but one that made the inside of the greenhouse bus seem positively fresh in comparison. This was the ‘real’ Granada and being totally honest, after thirty hours on a bus, no sleep and little food, we weren’t entirely sure what we made of it when we headed back for some well-earned rest. This was, of course, after a quick stop to illegally change some money and stock up on provisions at a supermarket on the way.



The next day we awoke feeling a bit more refreshed and took time to survey our hostel, which was nice but not particularly lively apart from a couple of German girls, friendly staff and plenty of hammocks but not much else of note. We wandered back into Parque Central and we could finally stop and observe the Nicaraguan way of life. The park itself is quite scenic with a fountain and a bit of shrubbery but what makes it so much more interesting is the surrounding buildings. The clearly colonial buildings have many quirky columns and windows and are painting in the brightest colours you can imagine. The same could be said for the rest of the city where neighbours seem to competing to outshine each other with the colour of their walls. Back in the park we watched as hundreds of people slowly meandered their way through, no one in a rush to get anywhere and the many different hawkers and street vendors keen to pick out any gringos. Fake Oakleys? Three dollars. Watches? Five dollars. Bag of fruit juice in ice? Fifty Cordobas. As we had already experienced at the border, Nicaraguans are extremely entrepreneurial and can sell pretty much anything.



Straight down the road from Parque Central was the main route to Lake Nicaragua but as we got closer it soon became apparent that this was no pristine body of water ready for tourists to have a quick dip. The lake itself was filthy and strewn with rubbish along with the usual flotsam and jetsam you would expect. The surrounding houses were little more than shacks and just one look at the state of the animals told you that this was an area where feeding yourself was difficult enough and looking after your horses and cows, sadly, fell way down the list of priorities.



We had barely been walking down the front for five minutes before we were pounced on by ticket touts selling tours of the islands in the lake. Initially we were cautious and declined. We should have stuck to our guns but unfortunately managed to be swayed by a ‘cheap’ deal. Much to our better judgement we agreed to go an hour’s tour with a couple of Spanish girls and a family of Nicaraguans. The scenery away from the shore was much better with some swamps and the hundred odd islands themselves containing not just a wide variety of birdlife but also the homes of Central Americas rich and famous, from Costa Rica’s president to the Nicaraguan leader. Seems that your own island is quite a status symbol. And for $320,000. Why not? After a quick stop at an overpriced island restaurant with a swimming pool, we headed back. Handing our guide what we thought seemed a fee a little over the odds we couldn’t help but feel that, as the only non-Spanish speaking gringos, we’d been had a little. A lesson for the future there. Don’t listen to the clever, and often entirely unintelligible, sales patter of the locals.

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