Unexpecting the Expected

A majority of our day was spent at the Nicaragua and Costa Rica boarder in Peña Blanca. We all expected this boarder to be the most organized and easiest since Costa Rica is a very popular tourist destination. BUT it was not. We got to the board around 11:00 AM coming from San Juan del Sur so a kinda busy time in the morning. After a little confusion we figured out the van needed to be 1st checked for drugs by the Nicaraguan boarder patrol (which we all didn’t understand since we are leaving their country and why would they care…but of course we didn’t have any drugs so whatever) and 2nd each one of us had to do the normal immigration stuff: get a stamp out of the country. Ryan and Erik went to get the van searched, which took an hour, while the rest of us went to immigration, 20 minutes. First round of waiting. After Ryan and Erik got their stamps out of Nicaragua we were on to the Costa Rica boarder. This should be easier, faster, more organized. Ummm. Unfortunately we got there just as a tour bus arrived but luckily we got in front of most of them. Waiting in line again. Another 30 minutes…all stamped…cool we’re done. Not! Just when we thought we were on our way out of the board and on to Costa Rica there was one more stop. A patrol guy asked us for our permit to drive the car in Costa Rica like Nicaragua. Mind you Ryan asked the guy at immigration into Costa Rica if he needed a permit and that guy said “No“. U-turn back to the boarder. A little more confusion and we found the sort-of office (people working out of a tour bus) where we get the car permit. Just as we got there 1:00 PM (siesta time) the computer system “went down”. Yeah right. They said they were going to wait an hour plus before trying them again or doing the paperwork manually. Yeah siesta time. Waiting, waiting, waiting…. Needless to say we didn’t get out of the boarder till 3:00 PM, five hours later.

It was 180 km from the boarder to La Fortuna our next destination. Not even a quarter of the way there it started to rain. Then about half way it started to down pour. By this time it was dark and we could barely see the pot holes in the road. BOOM! We hit a pothole that almost ate the right front tire and the wind shield wipers stopped working. Immediately we pulled over; Ryan fixed the wiper (this means he hit the dashboard and stirring wheel till they switched back on) and off we went again. Finally after much effort at trying hard to get to La Fortuna tonight we all decided, just outside of Arenal, it would be better to stop at the next hotel to spend the night. The hotel we stopped at ended up being a great little hotel / restaurant run by a local farm family. Right behind the restaurant was the family’s house, barn and land. The couple was really hospitable. We talked with the father while his wife fixed us up some local dinner. He told us all about the area, Costa Rica and promised to let us milk his cows in the morning. Which we did.

Debb and Ryan and a half full bucket

Debb Milking Away

Close us Utters

The cows all lined up ready to be milked

written by

ryan & debbrial on November 4, 2009 from Arenal, Costa Rica

from the travel blog: Us Discovering the Latin Americas

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