Cycling The Globe

A Cycle Touring Expedition Around The World

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Day 1693, La Cruz – Isla Ometepe: Into Nicaragua!

Posted by Thomas Andersen Posted on Jun - 08 - 2015

Distance: 61.1 km
Ride time: 3:09:23
Average: 19.4 km/h
Max speed: 47.5 km/h
Total: 35542 km

With only 20 km to the border with Nicaragua it was time to say goodbye to Costa Rica. What a pleasant country. Now I was looking forward to see what this next Central American country had to offer.

The border crossing was easy enough apart from a very steep 8$ exit fee from Costa Rica and and even more steep 12$ entry fee for Nicaragua. It all seemed official enough with receipts and everything, so I don’t think it was just the border guards making a little side money. That was my whole daily budget spent right there at the border…

A few years ago Nicaragua was in the middle of a bad civil war, but lately the situation has improved a lot. The tourists are once again pouring in, many probably taking advantage of the fact that Nicaragua is a very inexpensive country compared to Panama and Costa Rica.

I was cycling along the beautiful Lake Nicaragua towards the port city of Rivas where I would be taking the ferry to Ometepe Island. On the ferry I met three wonderful girls from Granada in Spain. This is one of my favourite cities in the world, so we were instant friends 🙂

What I had heard about Ometepe Island was that of a very low key island with nice nature and lots of nice little places to relax. That sounded just like the kind of place I was looking for.

Categories: Costa Rica, Nicaragua
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4 Responses so far.

  1. Paul K9PG says:

    Great pic with the ladies!

  2. Useful to know about the exit/entry fee!

    The island looks wonderfully low key. And any day has to be a good one where you get to make a crossing by boat. 🙂

  3. Paul K9PG says:

    nice sunglasses too!

  4. Haha, yes Paul. Proudly wearing my Illinios sunglasses. They are great!