Cruzando la Frontera: Nicaragua

Writings like this one were very common in the streets. 

As soon as class let out on Wednesday I was off to the bus station with Aubrey, Allison, and Ben (a fellow Colonial!) After a long, traffic filled ride, we arrived in Liberia to spend the night before crossing the border in the morning. I couldn’t sleep at all just thinking about Nicaragua. Was it going to be safe? What would be waiting for me on the other side of the border? I had no idea what to expect.

  We were up by 4am to catch a bus to the border town of Peñas Blancas. Leaving Costa Rica was very easy, and during a short 4-minute walk to the Nicaraguan side the anxiety built up. It was chaotic, as expected. Immediately men were on top of us, offering taxis and buses, and I’m really not sure what else because I was so overwhelmed my brain went into shut down mode. We started walking along this fenced path, and realized it was a dead end. It was a moment of deathly panic. Why did we get sent down this dead end path? To make matters worse about 5 men were following us. As we get to the end and I’m contemplating how fast I can drop my backpacks and jump the fence, we look to the left and realize we are expected to walk through a hole in the fence. I got into Nicaragua by walking through a hole in a fence. After that things didn’t get better fast. We were overwhelmed by people and uncertain of what we needed to do. When we finally found the bus to Rivas it was a huge relief. I told myself if the whole trip were like the last hour I would be back in Costa Rica by nightfall. I was happily surprised when the bus started off and we got our first glimpse of the Concepcion and Maderas volcanoes.

Volcan Concepción

  The ride was beautiful, with large windmills lining the road, horse drawn carts everywhere, and spectacular rolling scenery. The next hour was an exhilarating ride on a ferry to Isla Ometepe, our first destination. I had my camera in hand taking pictures of the two volcanoes that sat in the middle of a giant lake, forming a small island. There a totally new adventure began. An American tour guide told us about this great hostel in the middle of everything. It ended up being a bee-infested place, about a 40-minute walk down a dirt road. Once we arrived we were basically stuck for the night because everything else was so far away and the sun was setting. We had our hearts set on the horseback riding they had advertised- except the horses were preoccupied farming! The kayaks they told us about? There were only two, and they needed an intense sterilization. Ben opted for a bike (that had no brakes.) The girls decided to walk to the petro glyphs. As we walked along the dirt road, we saw houses with no walls, and people literally living on dirt floors with animals.

  That night things didn’t get much better. We shared a cold shower with several large spiders, and as we sat in the room laughing about our adventures and saying everything was going to be ok, the power went out. Needless to say we were up at 5 am to catch the first ferry off the island. Once we got to San Juan del Sur everything was much better! We had a great private room with bathroom, lovely beach town with great places to eat and awesome people. Although things were rocky at first, it was overall my favorite part of study abroad thus far!

A parade of school students down the San Juan streets.

Sunsetting off the Nicaraguan Pacific coast

 When I first heard students were going I had said no way. All we hear about is crime, poverty, corruption, and overall insecurity. Was I willing to risk my safety just to say I had been to Nicaragua? Looking back, my decision to go was the right one. Not only did I see a country filled with natural beauty, but I got to know kind people, and besides my first few moments at the border I never felt unsafe. Yes, things were very different. All over the streets were signs saying “Long Live the Sandinistas!” and hearing from a local taxi driver we understood the deep impact years of war and struggle have made on the Nicaraguan people. It is not something easily forgotten. That combined with a corrupt government of the FSLN party that blatantly only aids its own supporters are why poverty and inequality exists.  The poverty was also upsetting, especially for someone like myself that has not traveled very far from Miami. Yet Nicaragua is beautiful and rich with natural resources. It is beginning to develop with International projects such as the windmills we saw, and like all countries it must continue working out the problems with governance. Not an east task after a civil war that led to many deaths and human rights violations. I advise anyone thinking of going to first do their research, avoid certain areas such as Managua, which the locals told us was more dangerous, and pack A LOT of bug repellent.  I wrote Nicaragua off at first, but after having visited my opinion has been drastically altered. As cliché as it sounds, this weekend was really a life changing experience. I was forced to push myself physically and emotionally, and I traveled light years outside of my comfort zone. But in the end I walked away in one piece, with beautiful pictures, and some hilarious stories.