Finally, on the move

We’ve left. It’s true. We spent two beautiful days in San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua before saying goodbye to the country until the next time. It was a great country that treated us amazingly well. Really, I don’t think we could have asked for more from it. Two visitors, a small job, becoming more familiar with Granada in a way that simply passing through would not afford us, simply fantastic. I would highly recommend the country to anyone.

We left San Juan del Sur for the border, which wasn’t a very difficult process. Quick bus ride to the Pan-American highway, then a collective taxi (6 people total) to the border. Easy border crossing, then we needed to find our way from the border to San Jose, which we thought was about 3 hours. Well, it’s about 300km, which translates to about 5 hours. We managed to meet a couple of women travellers who were also going that way, so we grouped together and flagged down a passing semi. Yes. A full on 18 wheeler going from San Pedro Sula to San Jose, Costa Rica. We all four of us piled in, the three girls in the back, me in shotgun, cruising down the Pan-American highway 12 feet higher than I’m used to. Truly awesome. Just watching the road getting sucked under us made me feel like I was in some crazy spanish version of Over the Top (with Sylvestor Stallone, yes, that one). It was a long 5 hours listening to insanely bad spanish love songs at full volume, but it was definitely a memorable 5 hours. The girls got dropped off on the side of the highway by the airport, we drove through the industrial section of San Jose and got dropped off where we could get a ride into town.

It turned out to be more difficult than it needed to be. We walked down to grab a taxi, waited maybe 5-10 minutes, when a guy came up and started talking, saying we could share a cab into the city. We’re thinking, okay, that’s fine, he then proceeds to run up the streets where we just came from. He doesn’t stop, just kind of keeps going, we’re thinking, what’s going on? Sure, maybe he’s going to try to make sure we get a taxi up the road, but why run so far, when 2 taxis have passed us by? Doesn’t really make sense. So we felt really bad as we hopped on a bus and left him wherever it was he was going. In case you’re reading into this and thinking that he was setting up a con, then you’re thinking the same way I was.

So we made it to San Jose, checked in to the Hostel Pangea, which is a truly impressive hostel.  We were planning on riding motorcycles tomorrow, but the company has been really lax about keeping in contact with us, so we’re pushing that experience to the Andes somewhere.  Maybe where we have a bit more forewarning for the tour company.  Tomorrow at 11pm we board an 18 hour bus ride to Panama City.  Oh yeah. We’re so excited.  But it is nice to be moving again.