Visa run to Costa Rica

As I'm moving a lot slower than originally planned I was about to extend my 90 day visa for the CA4 countries. Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua have an agreement that establishes free movement between the 4 countries. But this also means there is only one visa for the 4 countries. As I entered Guatemala on January 9th I had to leave to Costa Rica before April 9th.
Luckily this worked out perfectly with the planned trip to Costa Rica to buy surfboards for the camp. Originally it would have been only me and Luis going but the night before we left Anna-Lena joined our team as she was excited about a little adventure and was keen to see another country besides Nicaragua. We left early in the morning and took a taxi to the border in Peñas Blancas. The border crossing was easy for Anna-Lena and me. They even accepted my fake plane ticket as proof I was leaving Costa Rica. Unfortunately Anna-Lena didn't have anything and they made her buy a $25 bus ticket for a bus from San Juan to a destination outside Costa Rica which couldn't really be identified on the ticket. I wonder if you could actually use these tickets to get on a bus or if they are really just sold for the immigration?
Luis had a pretty hard time at the border leaving Nicaragua. His passport looks pretty smashed and as he has been doing visa-runs between the 2 countries for a while now they asked a lot of questions. But in the end they let him pass. We rented a car and continued our journey on to Jacó. Once in Costa Rica the vegetation changed right away. Which is weird. Nature doesn't care about borders, right? But everything was a lot greener. Also the streets were better and once we made it to Liberia (the first proper city behind the border) we were hit by the american influence in form of all the typical fast food chains. We actually did stop here for "breakfast" at Burgerking. It's been a while since I have eaten there even before I went on my trip but somehow it fit the situation.
After about 5 hours of driving we arrived in Jacó. Definitely not a place I would recommend to anybody except for buying cheap surfboards. The guy from the surf shop told us he makes most of his money with lessons for one-time-customers. Usually bachelor-parties who are already drunk and won't stay in the water for longer than half an hour.
Food and accommodation is expensive. Once the sun is down hookers wander the streets. And all in all it's not even a nice town or beach.
But the hostel we stayed was a nice little green oasis in this overloaded party place and we had great sushi at a nice restaurant.
We picked up the boards the next morning and started our drive back towards Nicaragua. As it was the first Saturday of Semana Santa (the week before easter when lots of people are of work and go traveling) the streets leading towards the Peninsula de Nicoya were a lot more crowded but we still managed to get to the border within a decent time. The border crossing was a little adventure. We were only allowed two boards per person. But we had 8 boards for only 3 people. We thought we would just find someone helping us bringing the boards over but somehow it wasn't that easy to find someone willing to carry two boards across the border for us. We ended up paying one of the guys who carry your luggage $20 for taking all the boards around the building which was the actual border and customs checkpoint. Everybody could see we didn't put the boards through customs but no one cared.
But the hardest part was again to get Luis across the border. They really don't like his fucked up passport.
But once they let him go it was just another taxi ride back to San Juan and from here a 4x4 to get back up to the camp with our brand-new boards.Read more