Guatemala to Nicaragua | Crossing Borders..

Guatemala is our favourite country so far and we spent a long time here, so it was really hard to say goodbye but the time had finally come to leave and continue our journey through Latin America!

Again, it was now decision time for us, do we travel into neighbouring Honduras & El Salvador? or do we go directly to Nicaragua? After much deliberation, we decided to skip through these countries as we were on a tight budget and we needed to reach our end goal of getting to Brazil! After hearing numerous horror stories (and watching way too many crime documentaries on gang wars) from both of these notorious countries about their crime ridden pasts and present, we decided that if there is anywhere to skip, to save some time and money, it would have to be these two!

However, if you are planning to visit, Honduras & El Salvador are home to some of the best scuba diving & surfing spots in the world! If you are a fan of either of these, then make sure that you do try to visit these countries, although tainted by horror stories and rightly so, there are still parts of these countries that just need to be explored, but just be careful!

So, how did we get to Nicaragua?

There are a few options really.. The first option and also the sensible option (and expensive option!) would be to fly from Guatemala City to Managua, Nicaragua. The second option would be to book a direct bus through a hostel/travel agent. The final option would be to travel on local transport or on the Chicken Buses from city to city until you reached your destination in Nicaragua. Looking at these options (and our bank balance) we chose to book a direct bus to Leon, Nicaragua. Although not the cheapest option, it was the most reasonable one for our trip, we just did not have the time to travel from city to city on the Chicken buses!

So, a 19 hour bus journey (with no headrest, may I add) was waiting for us, and this was not your ordinary journey..

You will read and hear lots of stories about this journey if you are planning to do it, and most of them are not great stories to hear.. So we set off pretty anxious to say the least! Getting picked up in the middle of the night in Antigua, with a driver that openly showed us his trusty baseball bat for protection, was always a good way to start off our journey! Albeit, in a way this was actually rather comforting after the stories that we had heard.. We then began the journey that would take us across three borders, and four countries!

Luckily, our journey was somewhat smooth, considering! Travelling through these countries was however, very eye opening, certain areas are extremely beautiful and the beaches of El Salvador are stunning! Although this being said, I was unlucky enough to witness the ugly side of the countries crime problems with my own eyes. After an early start, most of the bus was fast asleep, even if it was during the day, but there in broad daylight a few of us witnessed two police men standing over multiple motionless bodies on the floor, with their guns by their side. Sickened at the thought and stunned into silence, it really hit me that this was real life here, and that these things are a daily occurrence in this part of the world, even if it was just on the side of the road, in broad daylight!

Continuing the journey still hugely shocked at what I had witnessed, we crossed the border into Honduras. I have crossed a lot of borders over the years but this one was the eeriest yet.. Pitch black and caught in the middle of a thunderstorm we approached the border, we just couldn't help but think that we would inevitably run into some form of problem here, something just didn't feel right! To an extent, we were spot on, we crossed the border easily enough but minutes later our bus was stopped by the police, and we were all ordered to get off and have our bags checked. If anything was going to go wrong, it was going to be now! However, to our surprise, nothing did! Apart from tediously waiting around for a few hours for them to check through all of our bags, and for them to question one of the fellow backpackers in true interrogation style for what seemed like an eternity. We were then good to go, and the journey continued through Honduras onto Nicaragua after crossing just one last border!

Four countries, three border crossings and 19 hours later, we arrived in Leon, Nicaragua!

Journey Time: 19 hours (Supposed to be 16 hours).

Bus Company: Booked through Matiox Hostal in Antigua, the bus company did not have a name.

Price: $450 Quetzal / £44 / $58 USD

Exit & Entry Fee: No exit fees needed but the entry fee to Nicaragua is $12 USD.

Visa: You would have received the CA-4 visa when you entered into Guatemala, and this is used for the neighbouring countries of El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua for stays of up to 90 days.

Border Efficiency: Considering that we crossed three borders on this one journey, it was all pretty hectic! Guatemala to El Salvador, although in the middle of the night, this was easiest of the three. El Salvador to Honduras, this was more hectic, with very thorough searches from border control and police officers, long waits and some very questionable characters lurking around, this can be intimidating. Honduras to Nicaragua, again this can be very intimidating and yet again, there are some very dodgy characters around but there is a huge police presence as well, but this can be intimidating in itself, in this part of the world. What I would say is that, you need to expect there to be some long waits if you are crossing these borders!