Day 38. Another long day’s travelling. We were up before dawn to catch the first ferry from Ometepe back to the mainland. A beautiful ferry ride in the open air on a calm lake as the sun rose turned into an exercise in wafting and escaping swarms of fruitflies which stuck to our clothes and bags like dust. We assumed they were brought on board by the large truck carrying bananas (many trucks carry bananas in this part of the world) but the flies continued to follow us after we were ashore.
We caught a smart bus to the border with Costa Rica. The Nicaraguan border control was relatively straightforward (the bus staff handled it all for us) whereas the Costa Rican border control was a hot and sticky three-and-a-half hour wait outdoors. The queue moved at a snail’s pace and it was too late when we realised that people had been getting off buses and pushing in front of us. No matter, some of us took the opportunity to braid each other’s hair while others decided to take a nap as we queued.
Jodie provides "border braiding" services to Val
Justine naps vertically so as not to ruin her new braids
After an interesting random search of our bags (where we had to neatly line up our bags on a long bench for someone to smile at them but decide not open any) we re-boarded our bus and headed for the capital, San Jose.