Thursday, Jan. 17, 2013—Los Chiles , Costa Rica ,
to San Carlos , Nicaragua
I went to bed early last night because the
light in the room attracted bugs. There
was an open slit about 2 inches (5 cm) high above the air conditioner. I didn’t notice it until I realized that bugs
were everywhere. Fortunately, I turned
off the room light and turned on the outer porch light and they all went back
out the slit and didn’t bother me for the rest of the evening. Sleeping wasn’t easy, though. The air conditioner was loud and cold. It blew directly onto my bed. I had only a sheet to cover with plus my
strategic placement of 3 extra pillows.
However, I had to turn the a/c off and back on several times during the
night; it would get too warm off and then too cold on..
I was up early since I went to bed around
20:30. I used the time to do some quick
research on the Internet, although the speed was rather slow. Knowing that immigration would open at 8:30
and not wanting to miss the first boat, I left the hotel (1 km/0.6 mile outside
of town) around 8:45. Getting to the
docks took a bit longer than walking to town, since I had to also walk across
town. Anyway, I was there at immigration
around 9:15 and went through quickly. A
nice surprise was that they didn’t charge me the expected $28 exit fee (which
Wes did have to pay at the airport when he left and which my guidebook had said
I would have to pay here). I was the 8th
person to buy a ticket for the boat around 9:30.
I really hadn’t eaten anything but 300 g
(10 oz.) of corn chips all day yesterday.
My hotel didn’t include breakfast, and I had waited until noon for my
bus to leave. When it arrived at 15:00,
I headed out into the country to the hotel which did not have a nearby
restaurant. So I subsisted on eating
half the chips on the bus and the other half in the room in the evening. Near the boat dock was a small place, so I
ordered breakfast of rice, beans, chicken in sauce, tortilla and tamarindo
juice. It was delicious. The chicken had been cooked on a charcoal
grill.
I had hoped the boat would leave between
10:00 and 11:00. Two sources had said
there would be a departure either at 10:30 or 11:00. I read, and time
passed. At noon, I returned to the restaurant
and had two more glasses of juice—one of tamarindo and the other of pineapple,
since I was quite thirsty and had extra Costa Rican Colones to get rid of due
to not having to pay an exit fee.
Finally, at 12:30 they loaded our luggage
and everyone was expecting to leave. But
then they discovered that people buying tickets for two different boat
companies had loaded their luggage on our boat.
They had to search for their luggage and remove it. Then we were still waiting because some
people were still trying to get processed at the immigration office. It wasn’t until 13:30 that the boat took
off.
Almost immediately, because our boat was
trying to get off before the other so that we would get to immigration in San Carlos
The trip was fantastic. It took an hour along a beautiful river. Everyone was taking photos and watching for
exotic wildlife. We saw various water
birds, lots of blue kingfishers, yellow birds, etc. We saw turtles sunning on fallen tree
trunks. We saw a snake coiling in the
water. We saw primitive homes with
thatched roofs. And the whole way, there
was a jungle of trees pressing against each other along the riverside.
I had planned to take a river trip for two
hours from here to El Castillo. Already
on this trip, I was realizing tht I probably wouldn’t see more than I had
today. Plus I would have had to
backtrack. But a major problem developed
that convinced me that I needed to change my plans.
I went to the only ATM here that accepts
MasterCard which is not as common here as VISA and which is the USAA debit card
I have for getting cash when traveling now.
The machine didn’t give me money and said it was due to my bank not
approving the transaction. I tried again
hoping I had maybe put the wrong card in the machine, but it happened
again. I immediately realized this is a
problem, since I had just entered a new country and had no currency other than
some dollars for an emergency. I also
realized that my dollars would help only so long, so I would need to move to
where I could use the Internet to contact USAA (and to bigger towns where I
could use a credit card to pay for my hotel bills to spread out the use of my
dollars until I could get the debit card to work in an ATM).
Fortunately, it was still (barely) banking
hours, so I headed to a bank lobby of another bank nearby. (The ATM that takes MasterCard was a stand-alone
ATM.) I exchanged $100 and the rest of
my Costa Rican money which amounted to about $24. Then I went to check on a boat to get me
across the lake to a place with more connections to the world. It leaves at 6:00 tomorrow morning. Then I found a hotel (supposedly the second
best in town) where I was able to get a room for only $10 using more dollars
from my stash).
I will go back out of the hotel now and
double check the time of the boat tomorrow.
I will also look for a place to eat, although I am not very hungry out
of concern for the failure to get money out of the ATM. I would love to do some research on the
Internet to help me know where to stay tomorrow when I arrive at Altagracia on
the island of Ometepe
I finished reading The End by Salvatore Scibone. It was a bit of a disappointment to
me. Although the stories of the
characters were interesting, there were philosophical aspects I found boring
and tedious. I gave it 3 stars out of 4
because the story parts were well written.
I’m glad it was only nominated for the National Book Award and didn’t
win it.
Note: I found a cyber cafe. Will try to contact USAA from here.
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