Stage 15: Choluteca to Somotillo (Nicaragua)
The Final Border Crossing
Today was my final border crossing for this trip. And it was also the most arduous. I got an early start from Choluteca, before the extreme heat started to settle in. It was only about 30 miles to the border, although a headwind and several hills kept my pace around 15mph. I had to stop after an hour for some cold drinks - my water was already hot and the sun is intensifying as I head south, just as May, my couchsurfer, had predicted.
The scene at the border - horses, food carts, tuc-tucs and semis.
I started by wandering around several administrative buildings. Each building had windows and very long lines going up to the windows. I asked several people which lines were for which direction but only received tentative answers. I got in one of the lines with a mix of people - some who were coming into Honduras and some who were leaving. There were probably about 50-75 people ahead of me in line, so I parked my bike where I could see it and stood in line. The line was partially in the sun and there were the typical merchants selling fruit and cold drinks to everyone standing in line. I was, notably, the only white person in this area.
It took me about 2 hours to get in front of an administrator. Although once I was there, I did not have any issues, my passport was stamped and I exited Honduras, or at least I tried.
As I rode my bike through the border zone, I was stopped by some military-looking people. They were posted at a building that looked like a lighthouse, with some steps leading into the building. The military officers were lounging in plastic chairs in front of the lighthouse. This seemed like an incongruous setting for an administrative office, but they stopped me to ask for my vaccination status as well as give me a customs form. It was at this point that they informed me the requirement of a negative Covid test, which I had neglected to get back in Choluteca. They told me the border zone did not have any tests and that I would have to return to Choluteca to get a test, an impossibility given the heat of the day and the distance I would need to ride. I simply gestured to my bike and thought about what I should do. One of the guards begins typing something into his phone and shows it to me "We will give you a health pass if you assist the nurse financially." Well that was refreshingly direct. He instructed me how to go about administering this "assistance" and I procured my health pass - a strip of paper with a small, faint stamp on it.
I proceeded to the next administrative stop, Nicaraguan customs. Although this building was empty, it took me some time to get noticed by a customs agent and get called to one of the windows. The woman did not seem very enthusiastic as she took my passport and health pass. She considered it for several minutes, leaving her window a few times and coming back with my passport. She then asked me if I had filled out an entry form online. I had not, so I tried to pull it up on my phone - it turns out the official government website's server was down. In this case, she required two photocopies of my passport. I didn't know where to get photocopies, so she just told me to ride off and ask some people further up the road for a photocopier. I rode to several spots until I actually got to the other side of the border and some shops there offered photocopying services. I brought the photocopies back to her, and she informed me that she now only needed one, and disappeared with the copy.
I was then called back to a room behind the customs windows and another agent began taking down my information. There were many questions about my intentions and places that I planned to stay while in Nicaragua. I indicated that since I was on a bike, I could not be certain of my itinerary - precisely due to days like today, where it became increasingly evident to me that I would not be able to reach my planned destination. One of the questions he asked was how much money I was carrying with me. I was confused by this question and said I barely carried any money. On top of that, after "assisting" the covid test nurse, I only about $10 or so in a variety of currencies, and none in dollars. Although I assured the border agent that I had no money, he still wrote "$300" on my customs form. Afterwards, he sent me back to the original window, where the border agent had disappeared again. I waited a while longer until she came back and started our transaction once again. She typed my information painstakingly slow into a database and finally asked me for $13.
"I don't have it" I said.
"But it says here you have $300."
"Yes, but that's just what he wrote. Can I pay with a credit card?"
"US Dollars, cash only."
Well here is where my safety precaution of only carrying small amounts of cash really came to bite me in the ass. She sent me away, back to Honduras to find a cash machine. I started asking around in the border town. I found an ATM on google, just a short distance away. But some people informed me that the ATM was no longer in service because it had been robbed a few days prior. If I wanted to withdraw any cash, I would have to go back to Choluteca. There were many people at the border offering cash exchanges and could give me dollars in exchange for Honduras Lempiras. If I took a bus, it would probably take me 3 hours round trip, and I was worried the border might close by then, especially if there were any problems with the buses. One money exchanger offered to take me back to Choluteca in his car, it would be faster and we would have fewer problems. I accepted. I stashed my bike in a locked room at someone's house/shop at the border. He drove me to a cash machine in Choluteca and back to the border, an errand that took almost 2 hours due to the road conditions, police stops and waiting at the ATM. Finally, armed with the necessary $13, I once again waited for the border agent, went through the entire process of entering my information into the system again, paid the fee, got some small tickets and was sent to the next destination (yes, I wasn't even finished at this point).
I had to go to the next building to fill out my declaration form and present my luggage. I was hoping they wouldn't search my bags, and they didn't. I simply had to declare my bike as a vehicle and they gave me an exit ticket and stamped by customs formed. I asked if they would stamp my passport, but they informed me that Nicaragua only stamps passports at the airport, much like El Salvador. They told me to keep my little tickets and present them at the airport. I had one final stop, another lighthouse with a military officer lounging in a plastic chair. He stopped me, looked over my passport and took my stamped customs declaration and I was officially in Nicaragua. The whole from start to finish took almost 5 hours.
Although the heat of the day had mostly abated, I was not going to make it to my intended destination, a spot about 20 miles from the border. I still had a few things that I needed to figure out upon my arrival - I needed a SIM card for my phone, I needed to figure out where to stay, and I needed some Nicaraguan currency - the cordoba. I asked around for an ATM, and nobody could tell me about the whereabouts of such a thing. So I rode off, I figured I would see something at some point.
I arrived in Somotillo, a small town less than 10 miles from the border. I asked around for an ATM, but there was no such thing in this town. It was getting late and I figured that I needed to find somewhere to stay, as well as something to eat and I would stop here for the night.
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