Taxi?!

Leaving El Salvador was hard in many ways. First of all I didn't want to leave. Secondly it was a mad dash for the border to get the last bus from the Honduran side towards Nicaragua. We failed. So we experienced what all backpackers dread – a night in a border town. No street lights, many lorry drivers and a strange Honduran man who claimed to be a millionaire, yet was eating street food with us.

Needless to say, we survived and caught the first bus out the next day and made it to Nicaragua, possibly the worst border crossing yet. Before the collectivo had even stopped the cycle taxis had removed our bags from the roof and stashed them in their rickshaws. So in between trying to pay the collectivo driver and work out where immigration is we also had to keep removing our bags from the clutches of Hondurans and Nicaraguans with dollar signs in their eyes. Of course in the end it all got too much and we gave up. Asking how much they'd charge they refused to name a price and instead claimed it was tip only. We remained wary, but went along anyway. Getting through both sides of immigration (and being charged entry into Nicaragua, despite this not being a valid charge due to the CA4 agreement, so maybe I should say “paying a bribe”) our drivers then demanded a tip of $20 US each. Just to give an idea, normally bus journeys are approximately $1 US per hour. Of course we refused and offered a dollar each for their services of 20 minutes (most of which was waiting for us at immigration). They demanded all the money we could give, and then took a little more, leaving us short for the only bus. The bus driver refused to take any currency other than cordobas (which is unusual for Central America), or to take payment at the other end when we could exchange more currency. He made a fuss very loudly and in the end the guy in front of me on the bus tapped my arm and thrust a handful of change into my hand – the 2 cordobas (approximately 5p) that we were short. So my faith in humanity was restored, and I revised my opinion of hating Nicaraguans as much as Hondurans to hating Nicaraguan taxi drivers. This opinion turned out to be accurate. As long as you avoided taxi drivers (who would tell you there is no bus, even if you can see it...), Nicaraguans were lovely people.

In Nicaragua we went volcano boarding down a very active volcano, explored the delights of slightly dilapidated Granada, hitched and rode on bus roof-tops on Isla de Ometepe in Lake Nicaragua, and tried to see sea turtles (twice) in San Juan del Sur. The river was too flooded to reach the beach both times. Instead we entertained ourselves by body-boarding and playing a lot of cards before finally plucking up the courage to leave the cheap sanctuary of Nicaragua and head to costly Costa Rica...