Buses are killing me

Trip Start Sep 13, 2006
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140
178
Trip End May 08, 2008


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Flag of Nicaragua  ,
Wednesday, February 13, 2008

These Buses are going to kill me, i hate them, we missed breakfast at the hotel as we were leaving too early in the morning. We headed straight for Santa Anna where Jiane left for Guatemala and after a look about Santa Anna.. i.e the market... it was onto another bus for San Salvador, from there it was a taxi across town to another bus station and onto a bus for Santa Rosa.. this was already taking hours and neither of us had eaten anything. Straight from santa rosa to La Frontera .. i.e the border with Honduras and the fun started... it was just after 4pm and we had been on the road since 8am. The border officials are notoriously corrupt and scam you. I already had all the right documents and stamps and the fuckers were still trying to scam me. i politley told them they were wrong but they pissed off with my passport and werent letting me go anywhere until i paid this fake 3 dollar charge. You dont get a receipt for this charge and they dont stamp your passport either so there is no record of you entering or leaving the country.. not only that but to insult you, when you pay this 3 dollar charge they put the money in their pocket and give you change from their pockt too.. fuckers.
This isnt the type of border you want to get stuck over night and the last bus leaves at 5pm and its almost that.. So after paying and physically having to take my passport off the pissant of a border official we get to the bus which tells us they are full and wont take us.. More problems with them ensured as you get surrounded by touts... de luna
de luna
 have never met so many ignorant rude fucks in one area.. Anyway i spotted this private bus passing so we hailed it down .. they let us on and we bought tickets to Managua the capitol of Nicaragua.. we were trying to get to Leon but were just happy to get the hell out of Honduras at this stage and Managua was near enough to Leon anyway. Eventually arrived into Managua at 11.30 that night after over 15 hours of travelling.. Of course Managua is no picnic either and where the hotels are is very dodgy so we took a taxi to a hotel 8 blocks away cos i really doubt you would have made it walking..lol..

Straight to bed despite no food all day.. too tired.. anyway next morning we got breakfast and went and raided the local ATM machine as myself and Harti hadnt a bean between us. First thing that struck me about Nicaragua was how hot and dry it was, southern El Salvador was definitly hotter than the rest of the country but you could really feel the heat in Nicaragua.
From there we explored some of the city and hit Loma De Tiscapa which is very historicala nd gives a vantage point over the city.. Despite the odd dodgy area Managua is nice, really green city and overlooks Lago de Nicaragua and Volcan Mototombo.. Ohh Nicaragua is famous for volcano´s.. there are so many of them and so many picture perfect cone shaped too.
Once we were done with the capitol it was on to a local bus for the university to catch a shuttle to leon about 90km to the north... easy.
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