Expat Community > Nicaragua

stevenmonrad
Joined 2015
Posts: 9

Drove to Nicaragua from California arrived 8/8/2015

9 years ago

Left 7/27/2015.
We went fromCalifornia to McAllen TX, then Queretaro, Villahermosa
and
down to Mexico 307 across Chiapas state and mistakenly took the border crossing from 307
which will get you into Playa Grande area via rocky roads full of semi's
but
has no control or function to get permits so had to backtrack on 307 to La Trinitaria, went further up to Comitan which has a nice tourist center,
then down across border at Ciudad Cuauhtémoc, Chiapas / La Mesilla which is a crazy place but friendly officials.
The rest of the way was all CA 1, stayed in Huehuetenango and close to the El Salvador border and then did a 20 hour sprint through the rest of the borders and Managua.. Honduras/Nicaragua is open 24/7 contrary to local information. It's very funky but officals OK..
We had a cargo van full of lots of stuff for Nicaragua (Guasacate), a bicycle and a dog.
The dog USDA certificates were requested at most places, especially Nicaragua, where they had a jolly Caribbean style vet on duty at 1 AM, rocking to reggae and whacking at a wrecked old socialist typewriter. Had all our papers for everything and everybody and a dozen color copies of everything. Did it all on an expired driver's license (in case someone took it) and only one aduana, entering Nicaragua, caught it and asked for the newer one. Our only problem was the Sanborn Insurance dated expiration was month first, instead of day first as in Latin America, so a traffic cop in small town Mexican highlands decided it was expired. We got lost, drove almost every night after dark, used a good Mexico GPS (Sygic) and a barely usable Central America GPS from Kaart Data which saved our bacon a lot once we got figured out how to get hints from it. It actually doesn't give directions but has an arrow which tells you when you are wrong or right from the search route you asked it for. Needs a magnifying glass. Just used a disconnected Android HTCwith cheap Google Play Store apps, same available for iOS, no cell or internet connection. Any cell phones get sat reception without any subscription, connection or fees. We had not insurance after Mexico, then Nicaragua, as predicted had us buy it at the border in the same office, for $12 USD, which they insisted on including ins for my very expensive Surly bicycle? All borders either free or very, very cheap. No hints of bribes. The new white very large Ford panel van attracted no interest from any military or police anywhere except for the Mex traffic cop we almost drove over.. Other than the uncontrolled exit from Mexico, which cost us 2 days, the worst part was finding hotels off the tollways in east Mexico state. Hard to see anything, hard to get off, ended up doing a lot of late night driving. Chiapas looked good, and Guatemala for checking out on another slower trip.

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