Weekend in Nicaragua, Part 1
Today half of us left class early to head up to Nicaragua. We're making this trip to renew our tourist visas, as we can only legally stay in the country for 90 days on our current one. So we're leaving Costa Rica for 72 hours and then returning on Monday Night.
It takes about 6 hours to get to the border of Costa Rica and Nicaragua, and 2 more to get to our hotel in Grenada. I'm glad that I have a book with me. I'm also happy that 3 summers of Arcadia Music Department tours have prepared me for long bus rides (even though 8 hours wasn't too bad).
When we got to the Costa Rica border, we got off the bus, got our exit stamps in our passports, took a quick bathroom break, and got back on board. It was hard not to notice the 50 or so people that were camping around the building, though, and we asked our director what was going on. It turns out that these people are Cuban, and they had already made their way through the Costa Rican jungle on their way to the United States. Because of the tense relationship between Nicaragua and Cuba right now, the Nica government was not allowing them to pass through to Honduras or El Salvador.
Our directors and some SOLmates got back out of the bus and talked to them briefly. It turns out that they had been camping out at the border for 4 months already, and were gathering money from other travellers to get plane tickets up to Mexico (which were $800 each). Once they got to the US border, they had some kind of VIP pass to get US citizenship papers.
We wanted to help them in any way that we could, so in that moment, we gathered any food and money that we could give to them. We told them that since we would be back in a few days, was there anything that they wanted? The man that was their spokesperson, Hennie, told us that all they really needed was water. That simple statement broke my heart. They had made small tents out of materials that strangers had given them, were sleeping on the ground for 4 months, and all they wanted was something as simple as water.
With a promise to come back and bring supplies for them, we gathered everyone back on the bus and headed into Nicaragua.