Peñas Blancas
The only way to travel by land from Costa Rica to Nicaragua is through Peñas Blancas. Needless to say, this border post is extremely busy and, to first timers, chaotic. If you travel by bus, Tica Bus or TransNica, you can follow the passengers and do what they do. Traveling by foot is also pretty straightforward although it involves walking a kilometer among cars and trucks. By car, the crossing involves more paperwork, permits, and fees that have to be obtained in a certain order, something best left for the corredores (runners), people who literally run and get the paperwork done for you in exchange for a tip of about $10. The mode of border crossing we chose was the simplest of all: We hired a tour guide in Flamingo to take us in his tour van to Nicaragua and back. He took care of everything. But, even though this guide crosses almost weekly and knows the drill, he too hired corredores. In the Nicaraguan side, the corredor, nicknamed Cara de Gallo and not a day older than twenty, took all our passports, the guide’s driver’s license and car documents. We didn’t see him for over an hour while he navigated through the Nicaraguan bureaucracy, one with its own informal economy and political power plays. Our Costa Rican guide suggested we pass the time in the three duty-free shops. We welcomed the air-conditioned interiors of these shops but weren’t impressed by the prices. A good bottle of Guatemalan rum was still over $50 and a small M&Ms package, $1. What did impress us was that this Cara de Gallo fellow returned with our documents, intact, and then waited at a café outside the border to help us again on our return later that day.
Thursday, April 2, 2009