Lines long like a day without bread

Driving through the Costa Rica border

After few days at the beach, we eventually made it to Costa Rica. We left in the morning of Jan. 2nd, and it took us two hours to reach the border between Nicaragua and Costa Rica. Here, our worst border crossing was awaiting us. It took us more than five hours to go through.

The first line, Nicaragua side

Two hours to exit Nicaragua and do the exit papers for the vehicles (US$ 4 for everything), and three-and-an-half hour to do immigration and vehicle paperwork on the Costa Rica side.

This really was our worst border crossing. Before the trip, I read a lot about difficult crossing, and hours of waiting time. Because we only used very little crossing until now, it never took us more than an hour-and-an-half to do this necessary step for each country. The trouble here was a massive reflux of visitors coming back home after the holidays.
This time, it was more difficult. We reached on the Costa Rica side around 2 p.m., and the sun was high and strong. Lines were outside, and there was no shade. Multiple photocopies of everything were – as always – needed. We met a family of French people who are doing the trip Canada-Chile by road (blog here, in French). Like us, they will have to go around the Darien Gap, and we may meet later on in Panama.

Second line, Costa Rica immigration

Less than US$20 later, and as once again the sun was about to disappear, we were back on the road. I was now driving toward Tamarindo, on the Pacific side, where we were scheduled to meet with Steve and Jocelyn.
Steve invited us few days back, when he eared about our mechanical problems. Back in 2000, they did the trip with a land Cruiser between California and Costa Rica, where they finally decided to start a new life. You can check out their website here.
We arrived in town around 9 p.m., and quickly found the house, where we would be able to take advantage of luxuries we didn’t see in a while, including hot showers (last seen in Mexico) and a swimming pool (last seen while squatting the Best Western in Managua)

On our way to the beach with Steve and Jocelyn

In any case since we arrived Steve provided us great help with the car, and diagnosed some transmission problems that should be corrected before the end of the week. I cleaned up a little bit our truck, had some good food and nice nights of sleep.
The plan after that will be to go to the Arenal Volcano, come back on the Pacific side, and go south to Panama, where we should be next week.

Tamarindo Beach