Day 14 in Punta El Coco, Nicaragua
8:00 am-
We got up and got our things together, big travel day ahead of us. We went to the little restaurant outside of our cabin and had our complementary breakfast. It consisted of gallo pinto (rice and beans), eggs, ham, toast, and orange juice. The kids didn't care for the gallo pinto, but they tried it anyways. Chloe started with a fever today, it looks like she might be getting what Brandt has. Even though she didn't feel good she still was a trooper.
9:30 am-
We drove back to town and looked for a bank, we heard Nicaragua won't accept $100 bills. Luckily we found a bank that would help us. Most banks around there didn't open until 11 and if they were open they were packed with people. We went to return the rental car and found out we went to the wrong one. So we had to go back to the airport area to drop off the car. From there we took a shuttle to the airport to catch a taxi. Everyone kept telling us it was easier o take a taxi to the border than taking a bus. So we went with the taxi, it was a small bus that had about 10 seats on it. Me and the little kids took a nap, it was almost a 2 hour ride.
2:15 pm-
We arrived at the border, there is too exiting areas. First u have to pay an exiting tax and fill out a form. Then we went up further to the other office. We had people telling us that since we had kids we could skip the line but then others freaking out because we were passing them. It was a very stressful 45 minutes. Finally we made it to the front and got our passport exit stamp. We then headed to the border. We had a lady practically force us to use her buggy. She had a bike/cart for luggage and children. She tried to charge us $10 for a 8 minute walk, Ben told her no. We then had to pass through a guard station and show them our passports. They were very friendly towards the kids and us. We then walked to the immigration office and we had this guy helping us. We didn't ask for help but he insisted. He said he could get us to skip the line and then proceeded to tell us it was $10 extra per passport after he gave our passports to the person. Unfortunately I was watching and the way we went was not faster in fact it was longer. I watched a couple that was behind us get through all of the line and still pass us by 5-8 minutes, with no extra charge. It seemed like we were spending a lot of money really fast. We learned our lesson on people forcing to help you, they are all a bunch of scam artist. They were even charging for the bathroom. We got out of there as fast as possible. We went to a rental car company right up the road and rented a car. We realized it would be cheaper for us to rent a car than to find taxis and pay a lot the whole time we were there.
3:30 pm-
We finally were in our own car driving on the road with the stress all behind us. we had an hour and ten minute drive to our new home. God to us on a road we could not get the car to go on with our getting stuck, so we had to turn around and find a different path. We passed through San Juan Del Sur and stopped at a grocery supermarket. We got back on our path to our home. It was on a dirt road for like 30 minutes.
6:00 pm-
Finally we found the driveway to our house, for a couple of minutes we weren't sure we would make it up the hill with the car, but with Ben's amazing driving skills (his words not mine) we made it. Ben started the grill while I prepared the food. The kids were glad we had burgers for dinner. After dinner the kids played with some puzzles here at the house, checked out all of the weird bugs, found a couple of huge frogs, and played chase in this huge house. We had a very relaxed night with a few beers and after a stressful day.
Tomorrow we plan to go to the beach and check out what's around here. I can't wait for coffee on the patio over looking the ocean.
