Half the hostel did the 6am walk down to the bus stop. We said goodbye to the girls and Justin (they were getting a minivan shuttle) but saw them again on the ferry a couple of hours later! I was absolutely knackered after 2 big nights out and about 4 hours sleep in the last 48! I could barely keep my eyes open on the bus.
We actually got to the border fairly quickly and despite it looking like a random, disorganized mess it was reasonably painless getting through as the bus staff took our passports and did most of it for us. I managed to completely stuff up changing my Costa Rican money into Nicaraguan though. Mostly due to lack of sleep but also being rushed by the bus staff and not really planning ahead and checking exchange rates, etc I lost about 25% of my money in the exchange and not because I was getting ripped off, I ripped myself off!
It seems like a dream now because I was so out of it but we’d done a couple of quick calcs with the rate Jack had quickly looked up the night before (but turned out to be wrong). Another traveller told us the different rate (from their Lonely Planet) but that turned out to be way out of date too! Anyway, the calculation the money changing guy did didn’t make any sense and I made him do what I thought was right, turned out later that what he was going to give me was more and would have cost me about 5% in the exchange! I’ve travelled all over the world and been ripped off a couple of times for $5 here and there but never this bad. Oh well, it was a $100 lesson and I’m sure the guy will tell this story for years about the sleepy, blonde traveller who insisted on being given less money!
So, about an hour after donating a wedge of cash to a Nicaraguan family we were dropped off on the Pan American Highway and found ourselves a taxi to get to San Juan del Sur. We were with 3 girls from the hostel in Santa Teresa and managed to all squeeze into one tiny little sedan (with surfboards on the roof) for about 3 bucks each!
