Paying Brides at the Boarder

Now for Ryan’s last couple days…..His haven’t been as easy and relaxing as mine but all the same an experience.
Like I said before we are on a two week break from summer school so Pauline, the La Esperanza director, decided to take this opportunity to use Ryan’s skills and asked him to build a storage shed at one of the volunteer houses. Monday morning he started his search around town for building materials. Since there is no Home Depote in Central America, of course, he had ended up going to an actually lumber mill…fresh wood cut there on the spot, hot off the press. Then to the ferreteria (tool shop) for nails and bolts and stuff. Fortunately La Esperanza has saws, hammers, tape measures, etc. for him to use. After collecting all the materials he just had enough time to start the shed before our Spanish lessons. To be continued…..

Tuesday is where all the excitement comes in. Ryan had to go to the Nicaragua-Costa Rica boarder to renew our permit and car insurance to drive in Nicaragua. When we cross the last time we asked for a three month permit but they said they only give out 1 month at a time to regulate foreigners or imported cars staying too long. So here goes his adventure! Before he got to the boarder he came across a line of truckers parked waiting to get into the boarder. The boarder was extremely busy because of Christmas; mostly people trying to get home to their families from Costa Rica back to Nicaragua. Anyways then when he got to the boarder they told him he had to leave Nicaragua for three days then could re-enter (normal to renew a tourist visa). But of course he did not and could not do this. Instead he found a local Nicaraguan guy who spoke English to help him around this. It went like this…pay a bribe, stamp out of Nicaragua, stamp into Costa Rica, pay a bribe, stamp into Costa Rica, pay a bribe, stamp into Nicaragua, pay a bribe, get the car insurance, pay a bribe, get the driving permit, pay a bribe and lastly get the car searched by the police. Finally 6-7 hours later Ryan paid the local guy who helped him all day long, totally worth it, and ended up spending over $100.00.

All this and his day was not over yet. To gain some of the bride money back he met some backpackers at the boarder who wanted a ride to Rivas, a town an hour from the boarder on the way to Granada. Then in Rivas found some other backpackers who paid for a ride to San Juan del Sur. Though he definitely didn’t make the $100 back he made some. After all this back and forth Ryan finally came home exhausted but accomplished.

Wednesday Ryan worked on the shed some more. Built the frame and got it ready for outside paneling. Next weeks material search. Spanish lessons and finally some much need vacation relaxing.

written by  ryan & debbrial on December 23, 2009 from Granada, Nicaragua
from the travel blog: Us Discovering the Latin Americas
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