Nicaragua to Costa Rica border crossing
This was a needlessly frustrating border crossing because of gaming going on between the border “helpers” and the police.

In order to leave Nicaragua you need to first cancel you motorcycle permit, then cancel your own immigration permit.

To cancel the moto permit we had to complete a scavenger hunt.  The mission was to receive the signature of a customs official and a police officer.

Usually this kind of thing is very easy as those kinds of people are all over the place.  We were constantly offered help, especially by this english speaking guy who’s name I forgot.  We’ll call him TVGuy.  He’s TVGuy because he learned english exclusively from watching TV– no proper classes or travel.

Anyway, TVGuy met us at the first building when entering the border zone saying, “I help you free!”.  He kept saying this and I kept saying that we didn’t need any help.  He persisted as did I.

We drove slowly to the Immigration buildings to the left where our friend was there waiting for us.  He handed us a sheet of paper that needed the two signatures of police and customs to correctly export our bikes out of Nicaragua.

So I started the hunt to find signatures.  The first once ways easy, there was a uniformed customs guy standing right next to us when we parked.  He looked at the bikes for .3 seconds and signed.  Customs guy, Check.

Once TVGuy saw us get that signature he walked quickly away.

I was struck by him walking away from us and not towards us like usual.  One by one, he started talking to the police and mount pointing towards us.  Mouth pointing is what people do in Central America instead of using hands or fingers to point.  Try it with me.  Pucker your lips and scrunch your mouth and eyebrows in the direction you want to indicate.  It is REALLY funny the first few times you see people’s faces move like this.

Now the game was in play.  Every time we walked towards a cop, he strolled the other direction.

I eventually caught up to one cop and he looked at me like he had never seen one of these papers before.  Interesting.

I looked again for more police and did not see any, where when we first got there, I saw 3 or 4.

Funn enough, TVGuy came up to me and asked if I needed help.  Needing to go to Costa Rica and not wishing to spend the rest of my life sitting in a border zone, I accepted it.  I knew something was up, but had no choice.

Curiously he was able to find a police officer within 10 seconds and we were off to the customs building to get our permit canceled.  We were done in 10 minutes.

Here’s the step by step:
1.  Pay toll to enter border zone if you’re gringo
2.  Park at building to the left
3.  Get sheet of paper that shows your bike was inspected by a customs and police officer
4.  Get said sheet signed
5.  Ignore the huge line of people at the migration and go directly to the Aduana office
5.  Show them your old permit, passport, and signed piece of paper

I don’t remember if we had to pay any fees to leave. My guess is yes in addition to the “helper” fee of “only 5 dollar for 3 bikes, good deal”.  Yeah, great deal.  Thanks TVGuy.

If Nicaragua felt like a border crossing from the 70s, CR was fully mordern and uninteresting.

Documents:
Title
Drivers license
Passport
Canceled permit from Nicaragua

Fees:
Mandatory insurance for around $8-10US
Fumigation for $5?

Steps:
1.  Get bike fumagated
1.  Immigration inside the building to the left.  Second or third door on the left once inside, past the bank
2.  Buy insurance at the sketchy looking first door on left.  It should be $10 or so
3.  Go to little shack on the right across from the Migration building and get the permit

Yeah, that border was way too easy.  It was an indication of what to come.