Journey to Nicaragua day 1

The journey to Nicaragua started after a night of partying and celebrating. After a night of no sleep I “woke up” at 5:30 am to catch a 630 bus. Exhausted and

First bus

Dead on the Ferry

Ferry

Bus to the Border

Dead on Border Bus

depleted I rolled out of bed not quite remembering the night before. Accompanied by three (Kristin, Josh, Emelia) friends we set out to the bus stop at 6:07.  While waiting, we saw the usual monkey and her baby walking along the telephone wire. The journey consisted of multiple segments:

the first, taking a bus to Cobano.  We boarded the bus around 630 and set out on the journey ahead. The bus ride, while only 20 minutes seemed to drag on for eternity. The back of the bus, while spacious, is not the best place to be hungover riding along a uneven, unpaved road. Once in Cobano we had about a 20 minute wait to catch another bus; the bus took us to the ferry and from the ferry to this place called Barracas. The bus ride cost about 16 US. I should mention that when in Cobano we stopped at the fruit market where I bought two bananas for the price of 75 colones or about 15 US cents; the only thing that’s really cheap around the Montezuma area. Barracas is nothing, a bus stop no different than any other bus stop, however there is this guy named Erik who works for this company trans nica. We boarded the bus at 11:15 and  paid 15 dollars to take a coach bus to the border of Nicaragua. The bus was 10x nicer than the other busses we were on; it had air conditioning, nice seats with no holes and Tvs. A will smith movie was playing but I had no idea which one. The blind side was also played. We finally arrived at the Nicaragua border around 3ish. It was time for customs!!yay. We disembarked from the bus, wet into the customs building, filled out the general customs form and then proceeded to walk across the border amongst throngs of 18 wheelers. After being harassed by Nicaraguan locals about where we were going and if we needed a taxi, we arrived at arrived at the Nicaraguan customs to get our entry stamp. There was a 12 dollar fee plus some random 1 dollar fee that seems completely unnecessary. Finally we settled on a 40 dollar cab ride to Granada. Little did we know it was a two hour taxi ride. Stuck in the middle of a ghetto Nicaraguan car is n

Ghetto Taxi

ot the best way to spend a two hour trip. We made it to the central city of Granada by 600ish!  Couldn’t really see much of the town since it was dark, but the city has a beautiful central plaza in front of the church. The hostel is beautiful and has two open courtyards. Also a free breakfast that included pancakes!!