A Very Ragfield Adventure

With my visa getting ready to expire, I needed to leave the country for 72 hours and then re-enter. So Rob and I left for Costa Rica in the morning on June 30th. When we got to the border we waited in a confusing, blob-like line to get our “exit stamps” for Nicaragua; then we had to walk to the Costa Rican side to get our “entry stamps.” Outside the Costa Rican immigration office, we were greeted by a very, very, very, very long line. We’d left in the morning about 9am, and by this point it was around 3pm. We had enough snacks to keep us going, but a bathroom would have been nice. Since public restrooms do not appear to exist in Central America, there was nothing to do but wait in the hot sun. We realized that trying to make a border crossing on a Saturday afternoon in June is probably not wise.

Finally we got the necessary stamps on our passports and among the chaos, we managed to find a bus going to Liberia and somehow figured out how to buy tickets for it. We aren’t sure why, but the whole process was infinitely more complicated than the last time we did it. At any rate, we finally made it to Liberia around 5pm. It was definitely weird to be in Costa Rica after so many months in Nicaragua. First of all, where we get off the bus in Liberia there is a Burger King and a Papa John’s. Its like Little USA. Rob and I decided that we were actually hungry enough to eat at Papa Johns, and after that, we got a room at the same hospedaje where we stayed the last time we were there. A friendly iguana (photo at right) greeted us.

The next day (July 1), we took a little trip to a beach called Playa Panamá. It was really quite lovely; not touristy at all, just lots of local families out having a relaxing day.


We headed back to Liberia for the night and the next morning (July 2) we left for the next phase of our journey: Volcán Arenal. Arenal is supposedly the “most active” volcano in Central America and is also one of the most popular tourist destinations in Costa Rica. It required several long trips to get there: a bus from Liberia to Cañas, another bus from Cañas to Tilarán; an hour an a half lay-over in Tilaran and then a final 3-1/2 hour bus ride to a town called La Fortuna. Constant bus-rides and Dramamine over the past couple of days had me feeling quite vomitous, but I managed to make it.

Picture of Lake Arenal from the bus window

La Fortuna is the place to stay if you are planning to visit Arenal. Seriously, I think this town is the Pigeon Forge or Dolly-Wood of Central America. Take a beautiful natural treasure and then build up a town around it that is full of over-priced tour operators, tacky souvenir shops, bad restaurants, and a million different hotels. We decided to stay at a modest place called “Cabinas Sissy” and tried to figure out what to do from there. The whole place is a huge money pit: Arenal National Park is actually 17 kilometers away, and there’s no local transportation (ie, bus) to get there. You either take a $15 each-way taxi ride, or you go as part of a “tour.” There dozens of tour operators each offering a multitude of different tour options, including canoe tours, kayak tours, white-water rafting tours, hiking tours, bungee jumping, wildlife watching, nighttime lava tours, etc. The options were overwhelming. Rob and I couldn’t find a single “tour” that was less than $35 per person (plus park entry fees), and none of them seemed worth it. What we ended up deciding to do was make up our own “tour,” and thus began the Ragfield Adventure.

Central park in La Fortuna

On Monday morning (July 3), we rented bikes at a place called “Bike Arenal.” The bike shop was actually pretty cool. They had good quality mountain bikes, and the rental fee included a helmet, bike gloves, repair kit, lock, and bottle of water. Oh, and a not-to-scale cartoon map of the region. With all this gear in check, Rob and I set off to bike around the volcano, or at least as close as we could get.

The breakfast of Champions: Rob found some Zucaritas (Frosted Flakes) at the Mini Super Cristian (the grocery store in La Fortuna)


Rob, stocking up on supplies for our ride at the Mini Super Cristian


The guy in the bike shop had described the road to Arenal as “suave”—which I suppose would have been true if you are a veteran rider of hills and are not scared of skinny roads with a lot of traffic. I lost count of how many close calls I had with giant Mack trucks zooming past me and blowing diesel in my face.

We had decided that instead of actually entering the park and doing touristy hikes, we’d just ride around for the views. Unfortunately, it was a bit rainy, and after all of our effort, we were rewarded with a lovely view of… clouds. To be honest, I was feeling pretty crummy. Riding on the hilly road was one thing, but riding among so much traffic was quite another. The farther we went, the more I dreaded the ride back.




We also did a bit of riding around Lake Arenal—its an artificial lake made when they dammed the Arenal River. By this time, the clouds cleared away and at long last, we could see Volcán Arenal looming huge above us. It was impressive enough to clear away my dismal mood as well, and I actually started to feel glad that we had undertaken this adventure.

Helmet head Ragfields

After stopping to admire the volcano for a while, we headed back to the town of Fortuna. There were a few really tough sections and a lot of fast trucks, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d dreaded. It reminded me a lot of that time Rob and I took a bike trip to the Smoky Mountains—only this time I do not have health insurance and barely speak the language. But still, whizzing down those big hills was a lot of fun.

When we got back to town, we returned the bikes and somehow miraculously found a restaurant with some decent food (ie, minimally greasy) to eat (I didn’t think it was possible, but it seems that Costa Ricans use even more corn oil in their cooking than Nicaraguans). Because we’d biked over 50 kilometers, we treated ourselves to ice cream as well.

With just one night left, our trip was quickly coming to an end. The helpful proprietor of “Cabinas Sissy” had told us that we could take a 6:30am bus from La Fortuna to a nearby town called Tanque, and from there, we could catch a bus that would take us directly to the Nicraguan border at Peñas Blancas.

Sissy’s information was correct, but the trip was not nearly as smooth as we would have hoped. We did in fact board a bus to Peñas Blancas from Tanque; after a brief layover in a town called Upala, we were on our way again. Despite my ever present motion sickness, everything seemed to be going well until the bus came to a dead stop on the side of the road. The driver made some sort of announcement; I didn’t really understand everything he said, but the gist of it was that there was a problem with the bus and he was going to try to fix it. We waited and waited as the driver and several passengers went under the bus to repair it. Also, it began pouring down rain. After some time, the driver emerged again, all covered in grease, and announced that he did not have the proper tool to fix the problem, and that he had called for another bus to come pick us up, but that it would not arrive for 45 minutes or so. At this point, I was beyond-nervously glancing at my watch. It was nearing 1:00pm and we still weren’t even at the border. In order to make it all the way back to Mérida, we needed to be through the border by 2:30, so that we could be in San Jorge to catch the 3:30 ferry, so that we could catch the 4:30 bus back home.


After trying to fix the bus for about an hour and a half, the driver started it again and proceeded to drive. It wasn’t just that I have trouble understanding Spanish; I kept asking the people around us what was going on and they were just as bewildered. Somehow, we made it to the town of La Cruz (only about 25 minutes from the border); there, the driver announced that we could either wait for the bus to be repaired, or catch the next bus to the border—which didn’t come for 55 minutes. It was 1:30. Rob and I ran off the bus and found a taxi willing to take us to the border for about $8. The driver assured us that on a Wednesday afternoon, the border crossing should be a breeze.

For the Costa Rican side, it was. We were through by 2pm. We then ran something like 1/2 mile through the pouring rain to get to the Nicaraguan side. Once there, we saw a huge amorphous line—more of a blob really—of hundreds of people. “This can’t be the line to enter Nicaragua, can it?” we asked ourselves. Oh but it was. The electricity was out on the Nicaraguan side, so everything was at a standstill. No one could get their papers processed until the power came back on and the computers were up and running. In an instant, we knew we wouldn’t get home that night.

In the midst of this sickening realization, we heard a familiar voice: “Hey guys, what are you doing here?” It was Alvaro, the field station manager. Apparently he had come to Costa Rica to pick up some things and was on his way back home. He had made it through the line before the power went out. “Too bad you have to wait in this line; otherwise I could give you a ride,” he said. I felt like shaking my fist in the air.

After 45 minutes or so, the power came back on. The amorphous blob of a line now started to split into two, one being a line to ENTER the country and the other being a line to EXIT the country. Somehow in the confusion, Rob and I got pushed over into the Exiting Nicaragua side—not where we wanted to be. “We’ve got to insinuate ourselves back into the entry line,” I said through gritted teeth. At this point, we didn’t really care who we ticked off, and we wormed our way back into the correct line. Eventually we made it up to the front, where a very grumpy government worker laboriously took our documents and processed our paperwork. It was 3:15. The ferry we needed was leaving in 15 minutes, we were still 45 minutes away from it.

At that point there was no reason to hurry anymore. We got on a bus bound for Rivas and eventually got there around 4:15. Then we had to take a short taxi ride to the dock at San Jorge. We thought that there might be a chance of catching Alvaro with his truck at the dock, in which case we could ride with him and still make it home. But Alvaro was nowhere to be found. We wouldn’t be able to get all the way back to Merida unless we took an expensive taxi ride, but at least we could get to the island, stay in Moyogalpa overnight, and hop on a cheap bus in the morning.

There was a little boat leaving at 5pm, and then the last boat of the day—one of those big, smooth-riding Ferry Ometepes—was taking off at 5:40. Rob took one look at the violently churning lake and proclaimed that he was waiting for the big boat. So we waited around for the big boat (which thankfully had a bathroom, albeit gross) and began our journey across Lake Nicaragua. It was actually quite nice and peaceful. We got to watch the sunset, and the temperature cooled down enough that I put on long sleeves.


We got a $6 room at “Hotel Central” in Moyogalpa (actually quite a fun little place) and ordered dinner for 23 cordovas (just a little bit over a dollar). I had no idea what it was going to be—it was called “Indio Viejo Vegetariano”—but it had the word “vegetarian” in it, which is something you don’t often see in Nicaragua. When the dinner arrived, it looked kind of gross, but was actually really good. It was some kind of corn mush with vegetables in it (green peppers, onions, and tomatoes), all covered in black beans.

We were exhausted and full, but we drug ourselves over to a place called “Yogi’s Bar” (owned by a gringo) for some self-advertised “fabulous brownies.” After we could consume no more brownies we went back to Hotel Central and fell asleep.

Thursday morning (July 5), we caught an 8:30 bus back to Merida and finally arrived at 11:30. It took us 24 hours to go the last 45 kilometers, and the whole trip back was 29 hours from our start in La Fortuna. As we got off the bus and walked towards the hacienda, little Eduardo met up with us and cried out, “Hola Melissa!” He asked me if I needed help carrying my things. What a sweetie.

I spent the rest of the day unpacking, washing clothes, and getting ready to go back out to the forest tomorrow. Just as I was about to go to sleep, Rob noticed a scorpion on one of our curtains, so we had to get rid of that. Seriously people, August 12th can’t come too soon.

Thanks for reading!