Nicaragua to Panama

On this trip the travel days have proven to be the most complex that we've ever undertaken.  This leg from Nicaragua to Panama definitely took the cake in the complexity department.  On paper it seemed pretty easy.  Part 1 - take a taxi one hour to Nicaragua boarder, Part 2 - cross Costa Rican Boarder hire taxi to drive to Liberia, Part 3 - Wake up early the next day and board Nature Air flight from Liberia to Tamarindo>San Jose and then finally Bocas Del Toro. 

It's the unforeseen events that kill you.  So the travel day starts by our taxi driver not showing up at all last Thursday.  Fortunately, it was arranged through our dear friends Leah and Greg who had come by early that morning with their children Sierra and Rio to say goodbye.  Greg being the incredibly awesome guy he is offered to drive us to drive us to the boarder in the red dragon, his well worn Mitsubishi pickup truck that stopped logging miles when the odometer broke at 234K.  The second hiccup was being stopped at check point by a local yokel right before Rivas a small town at the midway point we usually do our weekly shopping at.  The officer was clearly looking for bribe after doing an inspection on the vehicle and finding a couple of tail lights out, but Greg didn't bite.  After 30 minutes a ticket and confiscated license, we were on our way.  Greg was pretty heated and rightly so as this is clearly reverse profiling that happens all the time in Tola if you're traveling with surfboards visible in the car. 

After a brief lunch stop and a drive by past Lake Nicaragua with the two massive volcanic peaks of Ometepe sticking out of it, we arrived at the border.  It's about what you'd expect too.  A disastrous two lane road clogged mainly with semi trucks and busses.  We zipped by all these vehicles in the wrong lane to stop at a make shift fence that looked like something straight out of the second world war.  We were immediately bombarded by locals looking to help cart our 181 LBS of luggage and 65 LBS surfboard bag the mile distance between the border check points.  The guy we ended up with was pushy but effective shaving about an hour off our crossing by greasing the baggage check officials for $10 to let us pass go directly to the stamping portion of our exit.  We had to pay some overage which took some extra minutes, but within an hour we were trading our Sherpa for another since the ones we hired in Nica can't continue on past the midway point in the mile boarder purgatory.

 

Moving Bags & Rickshaw Ride at the Boarder:

Loaded up on the other side with a new cart we worked our way through the now spitting light rain amid the several money vendors offering to change US Dollars, Nica Cordoba's or Costa Rican Colones at a 20% fee.  We actually scored a great 4X4 Nissan taxi that sped us away onward to Liberia.  We were treated to sweeping vistas of the Santa Rosa national park that has several amazing volcanic peaks.  After our first police check point and a gas stop across the boarder there was a loud slapping noise that clearly signaled a blow out on the front passenger side where I happen to be sitting.

With the help of a friend who happen to be passing by our driver changed the tire with Indy like pit crew precision on the side of a sketch two lane highway with no shoulder and many speeding busses and trucks in the middle of nowhere.  We killed the 30 minutes by entertaining the boys, laughing about the day's events so far and snapping photos.  it was about to get a hell of a lot less funny though.

 

Blown Tire and Lowering the Spare:



Arriving at the Liberia Hilton at 430P which resides directly across from the airport, we unloaded and sent our driver on his way as we checked in.  After we completed the check in process, I looked at Melissa and said "you know what, I forgot my new water bottle in the taxi you just brought back from LA this week"  to which she replied "at least it wasn't the computer bag with our passports and all our electronics".  As her statement took a split second to register in my head, I quickly realized she assumed I grabbed this bag out of the back seat where she was sitting in with the kids while I was in front.  I had assumed she had grabbed it as she took the boys out of the back of the car.  I really could feel my head exploding knowing that our passports were in a taxi heading back towards Nicaragua.

Fortunately, Melissa remembered the taxi company and I was trying to remember the license plate of the taxi since I got out and was stretching at the gas stop.  The hotel staff realizing the urgency started making calls which ultimately ended up being the state police to alert the border checks that they needed to turn our taxi driver around to deliver the bag so we could make the 6A flight the next morning.  The police all knew our taxi driver as was evident when we rolled through both check points and they yucked it up letting us pass with our checking our papers.  The police verified his name and plate number before I even remembered snapping multiple snapshots of the back of the car during the flat that showed the plate as well #96.  A little lucky karma colliding with the crazy circumstances to at least get a bead on our driver since we had nothing else to go on.

As we sat down to dinner at 6P we were semi confident we'd get the bag back, but the big question was would it be in time for our flight.  Not a big deal on a major airline, but on a small local carrier flying 12 seat planes that only run to your destination twice a week it's a pretty damn big deal.  By the time we were wrapping up our hotel staff showed up with our bag while our driver was out front everything intact.  He had made it back to the final check point before being alerted and turned around to give us our bag.  I thanked him and gave him the same $90 rate it took to get us from the boarder for the return of our bag.

With the weight lifted from our shoulders, we got a good night rest before heading out to the airport bright and early.  Our flight was on a small 12 seat plane that had Melissa and the kids sitting directly behind the pilots and the instrument panel.  We were also treated to sweeping vistas of the ocean and volcanic peaks on the Liberia>Tamarindo>San Jose leg.  After a 4 hour layover we boarded another 12 seater which took off heading for Bocas Del Toro.  Jordan and Slater were extremely tired at this point and Jordan started to restlessly drift off beside me looking out the window.  He groggily opened his eyes about 20 minutes into the flight proclaiming that he didn't feel well.  Quickly, I opened a air sick back in the nick of time right before the redecoration of row #3 started.

Airport Breakfast, Front Row View, Beatiful Views and Small Plane - Big Fun!: 

 

Shortly after we arrived in Bocas to begin the search of our luggage and customs paperwork.  We then headed to our hotel for our first nights stay exhausted and happy.  The following day we went to our "Luxury Condo" to find it not so luxurious.  We're making it work, but have decided to spend the remaining 4 week on our trip to Bocas at an upgraded location and eat the month's rent because we are very disillusioned with the set up we thought we were getting.  Bocas looks like it will be one of the best adventures of the trip with lots of surfing, restaurants, carnival starting 3/1 and plenty of kid friendly activates like Red Frog and Star Fish beach.  More posts in the coming weeks on all four of the aforementioned. 

Making Rain in the Playa Tortuga Pool on the First Night: