Iguana Soup: Nicaragua

It's hard to believe it's been 3 months since we arrived here in Costa Rica. As "tourists" we have to leave the country every 90 days to renew our tourist visas.
Friday morning we rented a car as the Galloper is in the shop and made the 3 hour drive to Peñas Blancas. Peñas Blancas is the border town between Costa Rica and Nicaragua. We parked the car at the boarder and started the boarder crossing process.
We entered the air conditioned building on the CR side and filled out the exit papers and got our passports stamped. Then we started the 10-15 minute walk to the Nicaraguan building. The walk is strange it's kind like a no mans land. It is dirty with big rigs crossing, people hounding you to change your money from Colones to Cordobas, and there are usually many tax drivers trying to get you to use them to get to your destination. There are a couple more spots where your passports are re checked then you reach the next building. The building on the Nicaragua side is outdoors and kinda grimy. You once again fill out passport papers and wait in line. Here you make a mandatory donation of $1 per person which no one seems to know what it's for plus a $12 entrance fee. then you are free to enter the country.
There were a few taxi drivers telling us they couldn't get us to our destination but the kids did not understand why. There were many people sitting around and waiting. We found a guy who spoke good english and he explained that there was some sort of strike going on and they were not allowing vehicles to pass but we should be able to walk through and get a taxi on the other side. So we started to walk. Within a few minutes a taxi driver offered us a ride and said his car was on the other side of the strike. We came to the group of people blocking the rode with old tires one of which was burning. They were very calm and we walked through them and no one even gave us a second look. After our mile plus walk we finally got to the taxi and headed int San Juan Del Sur.
We went to a hotel Ana Mar which is run by our friends Leandro and Laura. We spent the evening with them at the hotel and finished the night off with some gelato before heading to there home outside of town. They have a small 1 bedroom place about 10 minutes out of town. They had the living room set up like a dorm with a pull out couch and a big bed on the floor for the kids.
The next morning Leandro left early as he had a fishing trip booked by clients in his boat the Bob Marlin. We took a 20 minute walk to a nice little beach then got a beach taxi back to the hotel.
After having lunch and swimming we met Leandro at the dock and went out on there boat. They wanted to take us to a nice private beach. On the way to and from the beach we trolled and caught 8 tuna

. Trucks waiting at the boarder
The kids reeled them in and had a ball. While at the beach we had sashimi from the just caught tuna. Sashimi is fresh raw fish sliced very thin with soy sauce. It was actually very good (so Dane and I thought)
Back in San Juan we went out for dinner and had another nice evening. Sunday morning we grabbed our backpacks and went back to the hotel and then left for the boarder. This boarder crossing was very simple with no strike. Of coarse the Nicaraguan's charged us a $2 per person exit tax but things went smoothly.
We got back to the car and made the 3 hour drive back to town.
We all enjoyed the weekend. Leandro and Laura are great hosts and without them the trip wouldn't have been the same. If you find yourself in San Juan and need a place to stay or want to get out on the water look them up.