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- Jun 1, 2015, 5:00pm
- ☀️ 31 °C
- Altitude: 92 m
- NicaraguaLeón12°26’5” N 86°52’44” W
The Chicken Bus
June 1, 2015 in Nicaragua ⋅ ☀️ 31 °C
Across the border into Nicaragua now but its not over yet. Here is when it really gets interesting. Just past "customs" there are people everywhere screaming "Managua Managua Rivas Rivas Managua!!" and all sorts of other things. Buses are parked all over the place- they look cool! Old American school buses painted in bright colours and flame motifs with music blaring out of them. These are the chicken buses we had heard about! Kris navigates through all the people that approach us and heads straight for the bus that says "Managua". 5 mins later the bus is full of locals plus us gringos and we are off- Hurray!
The entire journey is a cultural experience starting with the locals tossing all sorts of things on top of the chicken bus including a bicycle and giant bunches of bananas. We stop at the bus station/ market place Rivas and about 10 street vendors board the bus selling everything from fried chicken tortillas to quesitas (a tortilla filled with cheese, liquid and onions) to we don't know what. Some sort of salesmans joins the bus ride enroute to give a big presentation about parasites and the magic pills he is selling to get rid of these. More money changers. More and more people pile in. At one point we pass a COMPLETELY BURNT OUT BUS on the side of the road and no one bats an eyelid. The bus driver is of course driving like a rally driver the entire way.
The rest of the journey to Leon goes like this: chicken bus to Masaya, interlocal (a small-ish) van to ICA bus station in Managua, another interlocal to Leon, then a bicycle cart to our hostel. No seats on bus 2 so we are left standing, trying not to fall over and knock everyone out with our backpacks while the driver takes on corners at full speed while texting his mates. A bit of Backstreet Boys and Celine Dion is playing in the background to set the mood. The poor bicycle cart driver is pushing all 3 of us plus our bags in his cart, we could probably walk faster than him. Trav is getting crushed under Suki :-)
9 hours travel all up from Costa Rica and the entire trip only cost us $10usd each. What a day!Read more