Beachin it in Nicaragua

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I was due for another dreaded border crossing after just one day off so I decided to minimize the distance I would have to travel on this day. My target would be San Juan del Sur in Nicaragua which was only about 150 kilometers away.

The border between Costa Rica and Nicaragua is, perhaps, the worst in terms of how busy it is and how many official and unofficial scams are being run. The Costa Rican customs is notoriously slow in processing their paperwork so there you wait. On the Nicaraguan side they collect official fees for entering and leaving the country which essentially amounts to a fee for stamping your passport and filling out a receipt for the fee collected. There is also a $1 fee to be paid to the local municipality which might be and probably is a scam plus one or more vehicle inspections that may or may not be necessary. They often attempt to collect an exorbitant fee to expedite the process by making veiled threats that you will have to wait hours or days for an inspection but this I don't pay unless the fee is low enough that it's not worth debating. I have found that it may be negotiable and that it often disappears if I resign myself (and them) to waiting. Nevertheless, I think they beat me out of $10 this time around because the presented me to an official-looking tourist office that presented me with an official-looking receipt after I paid them for "use of the roads". The funny thing is that I don't remember paying said fee the first time I entered Nicaragua at another border crossing and I didn't notice that anybody else in the sequence of hoops to be jumped through ever asked to see said receipt. I therefore suspect that said receipt was all that I got for my $10. I hope there's a special place in hell for border scammers -- a no-man's land between two hells that's hotter than both of them combined.

The drive to San Juan del Sur was pleasant and I had plenty of time to stop and take pictures as I traveled this pretty section of the Interamericana this time around. There were some great views of the volcano islands in Lake Ometepe. The road up and over the unmarked continental divide to San Juan del Sur was short, sweet, and fun. I didn't see much in San Juan that was to my liking so I resolved to drive a short ways up the coast to Playa Madera where there was alleged to be a place to camp. I expected a paved road and there was one in the beginning but it quickly turned to dirt. I was alarmed when I had to go up a grade that was so steep that I barely made it and then I balked when I encountered an equally steep grade going down the other side. I waited ten minutes before somebody came by to assure me that I was on the right track and that my car could make it back up the hill. The answer I got was "yes" on the first and "probably" on the second which was good enough for me because I just wanted to get camping. This ended up being a really cool camping spot. It's a relatively short stretch of isolated beach perhaps 200 or 300 meters wide sandwiched between two scenic headlands. There were just two small restaurants and a backpackers place with very basic accommodation for a few surfers in the limited amount of available real estate. It was a great place to camp, watch the sunset, and use my ipod to surf the internet. I still can't believe that there was wifi in this place. Isolation is a relative thing in this day and age.

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