The long travel day from El Salvador to Nicaragua had begun and although I knew it would be a long day, I was definitely not prepared for how long and what would ensue.
I was picked up by my bus at 10am on the side of the road by El Tunco and the road to Leon had begun. 10 hours later and several bus changes we had reached the Nicaraguan border. I had known from previous travellers that the immigration process to get into Nicaragua is notoriously difficult and long, and this day proved no different. We first had to take off all our bags and put them through airport security like scanners – a first for me at a land border crossing. Assuming they were checking for cameras and drones. Drones are completely banned in Nicaragua and there are very strict rules as to what cameras are allowed in too. Any camera deemed to be a ‘professional’ camera is also not allowed. One bloke on our bus had to give our bus driver $50 US to bribe the immigration man to get his camera in and not put it through the scanners. This took maybe an hour all up.
Next, the yellow fever check. Apparently, the lady at the counter missed the memo about recent South American trips being the only prerequisites for vaccination. A quarter of our group were left jab-less, prompting our resourceful bus driver to offer a creative solution: “$20 in your passport and hand it to the lady.” Who knew immunisation could be so negotiable?
Of course, one could make their case and argue they didn’t need their jab if they hadn’t been to South America but at 10pm at night at a quiet isolated border crossing with corrupt Nicaraguans officials, there would only be 1 winner.
Now onto another line. We had to answer 3 relatively simple questions from the immigration officer.
- Our phone number
2. Where we were staying in Nicaragua
3. Our occupation
What seemed like 3 basic questions would soon be the cause of even more delays at the border crossing, namely a couple of the responses to the third question. I was smooth sailing and my answers to the questions seemed to get the nod of approval. I’ve never had my passport examined quite to the extent it was on this night though. Every stamp was examined and every single page was slowly turned, even the dozens of empty pages at the back of the passport were checked. It was bizarre.
There were 2 girls on the bus that didn’t pass the test of the 3 questions and were brought into a private room for additional questions. These additional questions lasted 3 hours… The rest of the bus patiently waited on the bus for these other 2 girls. I tried to find out the gossip (Mum would be proud of me) and why these girls were pulled for additional screening. There were various theories circulating around the bus but the most accepted answer was that one of the girls said her occupation was a journalist and the other an ‘influencer’. I mean I’m no genius, but surely when you’re entering the North Korea of Central America, a notorious border crossing that is well talked about amongst backpacker circles, you wouldn’t say your occupation is an ‘influencer’.
At 12:30am the girls emerged, one in tears and the other on the verge of it. Their accounts of having their bags emptied, enduring rounds of questioning, and even unlocking their phones for inspection painted a troubling picture of border bureaucracy gone rogue. Scary stuff. I arrived at my hostel in Leon at 1am and went straight to bed.
Welcome to Nicaragua.
Leon: Leon is a student city in Western Nicaragua which has been made famous on the Gringo backpacking trail for one reason: Volcano boarding. Volcano boarding has its origins in the early 2000s when an Australian backpacker discovered the thrill of descending the Cerro Negro volcano on a makeshift wooden board. There are now tours every day offered from various companies, the most famous being from the ‘Bigfoot Hostel’ which I opted for. We ventured to Cerro Negro on a party bus at 1pm and arrived at the volcano after around 45 minutes.
The hike to the top was relatively easy, albeit a little awkward with the board and we reached the summit just before the hour. It was then time to put our prison jumpsuits on and to receive some very, very brief safety instructions. The ride down was fun, possibly not as thrilling as I imagined but still good. The guys had a radar gun to see who was the quickest and slowest which was good fun. We then watched a great sunset and headed back on the bus to a local family that put on dinner and beers for all of us. The bus turned into a party atmosphere on the way back which continued back at the hostel afterwards..
The next morning I was off to Granada but made sure to walk around the city of Leon and get a little bit of culture in! It was very hot and the walk was cut prematurely to seek refuge in a nearby airconditioned cafe. I think I saw the main sights though.
Granada: The shuttle to Granada only took about 2 hours and I arrived to another (extremely hot) Nicaraguan city keen to explore the towns rich history and architectural beauty: thats right, I was off to the infamous Granada tree house party! The tree house party in Granada is a right of passage for backpackers in Central America. It is arguably the party of parties in the region, and is every Friday night located in a secluded jungle of Nicaragua about 30 minutes away from Granada. Tickets go out on the website Sunday morning at 10am for the following Friday party at by 11am they are sold out. Several shuttles left every hour from 3pm and our group opted for the 4pm shuttle, in time to see sunset at the treehouse. The venue was unlike anything I had seen before with different stages connected by bridges and up trees. The techno music wasn’t particularly to my taste but once I’d drunk enough beers the music became more bearable. We stayed long enough to see sunrise and took the 6am shuttle home. Culture!
The next day was about as unproductive as you could imagine, lazing by the hostel pool. In the night we went to see a mentalist mind reading show we had heard about from some other travellers. It was $10 and was literally in this Danish guys house in his living room that he had kind of made into a show. I would consider myself a huge sceptic when it comes to these things but I was genuinely left amazed after the show. It started off quite simply by the audience rolling a dice and him guessing what number it landed on every time and got progressively more amazing. At one stage he brought me and Finn up. A long story short he sort of hypnotised me with this weird triangle tattoo he had in the palm of his hand and got me to close my eyes. He then held my palm and did other weird mentalist stuff. Finn was standing about 15m away and whilst my eyes were closed he tapped Finn 3 times on his back, the lower back to the left (I couldn’t see this as had my eyes shut but got told after). He then asked me to open my eyes and asked if I felt anything and where. I assumed he had just tapped my lower back 3 times while my eyes were closed but apparently he was nowhere near me the whole time and where I pointed and felt the taps was the exact same spot he had tapped Finn from the other side of the room. Spooky stuff.
The next day, feeling recovered from the party, we went on a bit of a walking tour of Granada and watched the football in a local pub.
Hilarious! Had me laughing out loud in places!🤣