The Other Costa Rica Border Crossing

This is a story about crossing to Costa Rica at Los Chiles via the Rio San Juan river versus the usual Penas Blancas border crossing.

Quick tips:

Don’t take anything larger than backpack on the boat as it will slow down your disembarking
If you’re going to attempt the one day turnaround, be at customs/immigration in San Carlos 90 minutes ahead of scheduled departure time of 10:30.
When headed for CR or returning to Nicaragua, try not to be in the first 10-15 names on the passenger list as everyone uses a “first on last off” process for boarding and disembarking—those on first are directed to sit in the back of the boat which means you’re last to get off.
Plan on 90 minutes for the river trip—count yourself lucky if you get a “fast-er” boat
Don’t assume that there will be a boat leaving from Los Chiles at the “scheduled” time. The schedule counts only if there are sufficient passengers to make the trip. If not, you will be on the “next” boat.
Get $30 worth of Colones prior to departing Nicaragua as it will make entry into CR and purchase of your return boat ticket easier/faster
Be prepared for a substantial wait when reentering Nicaragua—especially if you are seated in the back of the boat on the return trip.

Our plan was to leave Granada fairly early, enjoy a leisurely drive to San Carlos, spend the night, have breakfast, get to the port well in advance of the scheduled departure time of 10:30 (the Lonely Planet guide book says to get there 30 minutes early), enjoy the scenic boat ride to Los Chiles, have lunch and a couple of cold beers, catch the 1:30 boat back to San Carlos, etc. etc. etc.. Oh, and we had overextended our visas by 9 days.

The drive to San Carlos is a bit long but not difficult. Juigalpa has an incredibly interesting cemetery perched on the side of a mountain, there is a community dedicated to selling plastic and metal barrels, another devoted to honey sales with dozens of roadside stands. The last 1/3 of the drive is quite pretty—rolling hills, cattle, horses and cowboying figure large in this part of Nicaragua.

San Carlos is a relatively small community. The economy appears built on fishing, tourism and serving people traveling between CR and Nicaragua—most of whom are either Nica or CRican. There are hotels ranging in price from $10 per person per night (we’re not quite that brave) to $75/nite. We opted for the Hotel Cabinas Leyka (overpriced at $47) but clean and secured parking ($4/day) for our car. Lionel, the owner/proprietor, is helpful and speaks a bit of English which is still a help to us.

We had been looking forward to a meal of “river shrimp”—which are supposed to be big and tasty—but they were out of season. Two dinners in San Carlos were at best only average despite good reviews in Lonely Planet. There are likely great places to eat but it was either off season or just bad timing on our part.

Everything went as planned. The process is less organized on the Nicaragua side than it is on the CR side—that being said, agents and “facilitators” were friendly and helpful and it was interesting to “people watch”. You go through both customs and immigration in one facility at the port. There are too few agents for the numbers of passengers but they move folks through relatively quickly. The man who processed us through pointed out that we had overstayed our visas—but stamped us through and didn’t charge us what we had heard was a penalty of $2/person/day—which was unexpected but appreciated.

Getting to the port an hour ahead of the scheduled time turned out to be 3 minutes too little. When the boat is full, it’s full. The man ahead of us got a ticket—we didn’t. There are only 2 alternatives; either wait 3 hours until the next barco collectivo departs or hire a barco privado ($300 dollars U.S.).

Our attitude (which is easier when you’re retired) is that this is all an adventure so we grabbed a table at one of the nearby stands and settled in for the wait. We were determined to get on the next boat so we decided not to stray far from our post. We were “fast tracked” through the process the second time as we’d already been stamped through immigration and were first on the boarding list—which turned out not to be a great idea. Here’s why.

Passengers are loaded (boat in Nicaragua and CR) in the order that they purchased their tickets and their names appear on the boarding list. Passengers who board first are directed to sit in the back of the boat—which means they are the last to disembark. The process of disembarking is further delayed if you have luggage that has to be stowed (we had one small suitcase). When you arrive in CR, customs processes passengers in the order of names as they appear on the list. We were still on the boat when that process started and if you “miss” hearing your name, you go to the end of the list which meant we were the last two people processed through customs.

All this being said, the boat ride on the Rio Frio is worth the effort. It’s quite pretty and there are interesting homes, the surrounding forest/jungle is quite beautiful, and we saw monkeys and alligators (not together). Another word to the wise though—there is no way of knowing whether your boat will be a fast boat, slow boat, or really slow boat—so the river trip can take anywhere from 40 minutes to 90 minutes. If you’re trying to do the boat trip—lunch with 2 beers—boat trip exit and reentry, plan accordingly.

The entry into CR at Los Chiles is a 3 step process. Customs is in a large covered area adjacent to the disembarking point. They were routinely checking folks’ luggage but they waved us through without even looking—which suggests we have the appearance of posing absolutely no threat to anyone—which was a bit emasculating. From there you walk around the corner 2 short blocks to Immigration. On the way, there was a gentleman sitting in front of a large, nearly completed new building at a card table who collects the +/- $1.50/person entry fee (it’s handier to have Colones here as it’s difficult for him to make change in U.S. or Nica currency. I have barely figured out the current 25.6/1 exchange for Nicaragua. The rate in CR is about 560/1—which I’m pretty sure requires algebra).

Immigration was a breeze—in part, because everyone else had cleared through 30 minutes ahead of us—but in part because their Costa Rican counterparts are a bit more organized than our Nica immigration/customs folks. Again, everyone was pleasant and facilitative. By the time we were through the process, it was too late to catch the last boat back to San Carlos. So we figured we’d go with the flow and settled in for cold beer and a night at Hotel Wilson—which is directly across the street from Immigration.

You check into the hotel at the bar (another major convenience from my point of view). The two dishes “recommended” for dinner were the chicken nuggets and chicken quesadilla—both of which turned out to be tasty. The room was small, but clean and had A/C. A real plus as it was quite warm in Los Chiles. The room was $23,000 colones—which I think is about $40 U.S.—or maybe it’s $4 or $400. I won’t know for sure until I get my Visa bill.

We were told that the first boat back to San Carlos left at 9:30. And we wanted to get an early start as we had plans to stay at a river lodge on the way home and had already “lost” a day due to the prior delay. So we got up, had breakfast (included in the room price), and were at immigration when they opened the doors at 8am. We walked back across the street to buy our boat tickets (the woman selling the tickets—little slips of blue paper—has a table across from immigration next to the bar/restaurant at Hotel Wilson)—and were again first on the list as we didn’t want a replay of the missed boat experience of the previous day.

We trundled back to the dock, past the man who collects your $1.50/person exit fee, and were perched and ready by 8:20—only to find out that, as there were insufficient passengers, the 9:30 boat had been cancelled and everyone was being scheduled for the next (1:30pm) boat. I suspect the woman who sold us the tickets knew this in advance so it’s worth your time to confirm the departure time prior to heading to the dock.

The boat trip back was really uneventful as it was a large and very slow boat. We were again first on which meant we were last off in San Carlos. Customs and immigration on the return was not particularly organized and it is essentially a first come first serve ordeal. So it’s better to be first off the boat when disembarking. It took about an hour to clear back into Nicaragua. Again, folks were friendly and facilitative—just not enough of them.

We had heard that Nicaragua was clamping down on the quick turnaround Visa compliance approach but the agent didn’t say a word and processed us through despite being out of country only 1 day and night. Not sure what would have happened if he had refused—more beer for us probably.

Ended up spending another night in San Carlos as it was too late for us to start the trip back. Spent the night at Hotel Gran Lago just for a change. Alejandra is the host and is incredibly pleasant and helpful. The hotel is pleasant enough and OK at $42 but there are likely cheaper alternatives if you’re on a budget. We were advised that it is fine to park on the street—but our car is 7’ wide, the street is about 13’ wide—so we opted to park in the port authority parking area and spend the 40 cordobas/$1.50 and walk the 7-8 blocks back to the hotel.

The return trip was uneventful. There is even a small Sinsa in Juigalpa which helped me to get my building materials/hardware store fix.

If there are questions about any of this, shoot us a note.

Joseph O’Haver [email protected]