Having spent a day lazing by the pool in Managua, I soon started to feel like I needed a change of scenery, especially given that the welcome sun had given way to the normal rain and tropical storm by mid afternoon. The following day I decided it was time to see the Ocean again, the first time since leaving the shores of the Arctic, months ago.
I headed down the Pan American highway, running parallel to the Pacific coast, in reasonably hot weather. Getting out of Managua was a bit hit and miss but once on the open road it was nice to have the cooling breeze in my face. There wasn't a great deal of traffic and I made good progress. It wasn't long before I started to see roadside advertisements for hotels at a place called San Juan Del Sur, a resort on the coast, which according to my map had a decent enough road out to the beach.
I turned down to San Juan and arrived in the middle of the afternoon, found a hotel and a few minutes later I was up to my knees in the Pacific Ocean. Of course that was the cue for the sun to vanish, but I wandered off up the beach to see where it led.
For someone that spends an awful lot of time on, in and under the sea, it took me a good ten minutes to realise something was missing. The roaring and crashing of the surf was there, pretty much the only noise. The faint smell and taste of salt and the onshore breeze all felt familiar. But there were no gulls - no birds at all in fact, apart from one lonely looking Pelican that did a wave hopping flyby.
I wandered back and by 5.30pm it was dark. Huge black clouds obscured the western horizon and lighting started to backlight them against the black of the sky. I found a restaurant on the beach and sat no more than 20 metres from the pounding surf under a thatched roof, watching the storm and eating, marvelling that there was no thunder or rain, just the light show.
The next day was a Sunday, and rather than head the 20Km to the Costa Rican border I stayed an extra day in San Juan Del Sur. It was nice to sit in a rocking chair and read a bit. The rest of the day was like the movie Groundhog Day, the only difference being that there was a brief pink and orange sunset, and the storm that second evening had unearthly violet and orange lightnings.
On Monday morning I got up a little earlier with the intention of making sure I was through the border before lunchtime this time. I got there at 10.30am, which I thought would be plenty of time, and immediately I showed up there were people running down the road towards me. I kind of settled on the first to arrive, as he'd obviously polished his lines and knew what people wanted to hear. He looked about 12 and called himself Charlie, and was probably not my best choice of fixer so far. He said "one person only" (not true), "language no problem" (about 4 words of English), and "help all paperwork" (again not true). After paying US$1 for some dubious looking slip of paper from an official booth that seemed just to allow me to proceed to the border, I then had to pay US$2 for an exit stamp in my passport.
Then Charlie introduced his brother who would guard the bike and gave my passport and paperwork to another tramitador (one with an official vest) for the remaining exit documents from customs. Hmm, so not one person then. I bet they all want paying too. After hanging around for twenty minutes or so in a queue, I got the exit stamp for the bike. That was when I found out that Charlie and family were only the Nicaraguan side of things. I was shown to another guy for help with Costa Rican formalities. A bit cheesed off, I gave Charlie some cash and left them to sort it out amongst themselves. My new Costa Rican fixer however was in a different league.
He cycled off to the border a few hundred metres away and I followed him through several inches of thick mud, being churned up by the hundreds of lorries queuing to cross. There was a long line for immigration, dozens and dozens of tourists and Central Americans alike. My tramitador said I could jump the queue for a tip as he had a friend in immigration, but I didn't think it was fair and was not in a hurry, so I waited my turn. Then I paid US$16 for obligatory insurance. It wasn't too long before we were out, and on our way to the first Customs post. Unfortunately a bus had just arrived and so we waited again. Then it was on to have my bike permiso stamped, again after a very long queue in the oppressive humidity. People in t-shirts were suffering, in my bike gear the sweat was just pouring off me.
Once I got into the customs office it was nice and cool, but the guy filling in my form details seemed about as clued up as I would be, trying to fill in a Spanish customs form ;) He kept looking down his nose at the computer screen, in a way that indicated he wasn't really certain he was pressing the right buttons. Once out I was free to go, so I paid my fixer and quite astonishingly, he wanted to see me to the border rather than just clear off. This turned out to be fortuitous.
I hadn't checked that the form was filled in correctly - two and a half hours of sweltering and I just wanted to get as far away from there as I could - so when I got to the border guard he spotted a one character typo in the form, and wouldn't let me into Costa Rica. My fixer, bless him, rode all the way back to the office and got me a new form, got it completed and brought it back, while I stood in the shade at the side of the road, sweating with the border guard. He got me to sign it and then rode off without asking for anything, his parting advice was to try Imperial Beer.
So finally, three hours later I was in Costa Rica. I stopped as soon as I could to drink something, as I was starting to feel a bit light headed, then down came the afternoon rain so I found an hotel and called it a day.
Later on, as I strolled back from some shops a mile or so up the road, cuppa in one hand and groceries in the other, I noticed how few people smiled at me, unusually. Added to that I bumped into an American cattle rancher who (having noticed I was sat next to my bike and hadn't taken my eyes off it) told me that robbery was very common here in the wet season. She said that the locals kill cows and steal the meat to sell. I'm not overly fond of Costa Rica thus far. Maybe it is just me, but the people here seem much more accustomed to the White Man than the other Central American countries.
This place IS a zoo though, or at least a tropical aviary. There are beautiful birds everywhere, and broken coconuts under tall palms. I'm hoping to get over to see an active volcano today, if it ever stops raining.
More soon.
Frase.
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