My trip to the border crossing

Our first three months in Costa Rica have gone by so quickly.  Since we are on tourist visas, we have to leave Costa Rica and re enter every three months to renew our visas.  We decided to go into Nicaragua to renew them.  

Before we went to the border, we stayed at a house called Casa Blanca (meaning White House) with our cousins.  The house was right on the beach and only a few hours from the border.  When I had to say goodbye to the house, it was only a few hours until I was already missing it.  We stopped at the hotel that we were going to stay at to ask questions about crossing the border, but the clerk seemed to know next to nothing about it except that there are a lot of fun beaches just over the Nicaraguan border, so we had to move on.  When we were near the border we knew it, because so many trucks were waiting to cross over.  They all had lights on because it was dark, so it was really hard to see where we were going.  They only had one person working at the truck office, so things were going VERY slowly for the big trucks because there are a lot of things they need to check.  At first, we didn’t know how we were going to get through all those trucks, but there was a police guider car that helped us get through.  

Our first stop was to pay a Costa Rica exit tax and to receive a exit ticket, and then we drove about one block until we saw a protected parking lot.  It was fenced in and had a guard, so it was protected enough.  Then we went out and walked about a block across the border and through a Nicaraguan checkpoint.  It wasn’t that different on the Nicaraguan side, except that there was a HUGE blockade of police officers and soldiers with big guns.  My dad thinks that since there lots of Cuban refugees there, and they aren’t allowed in Costa Rica, they’re trying to prevent a riot among the refugees for not being allowed to get in.  We went through the immigration office without any troubles and paid the entrance fee.  After that we saw a little restaurant, called a soda.  We stopped there and drank some pop and ate some yummy Gallo

Our family eating Gallo Pinto

Pinto.  Gallo Pinto is the national dish of Costa Rica and consists of rice, beans, Lizano sauce and sometimes meat, but has many different varieties.  When we were done, we walked right back across the border to the Costa Rica immigration office.  We filled in some forms and they scanned our baggage and then we were successfully in Costa Rica.  Lastly, dad went and got the car. 

When we were driving home, we saw a 3 MILE line of trucks.  It was crazy!  We finally got to our hotel.  It was a fun but crazy evening!

-Kyle Wilson