Nicaragua to Costa Rica | Crossing Borders..

Sadly our time was now up in Nicaragua and we started our journey over to Costa Rica, which meant there was another border to cross!

Every traveller that is wanting to cross the border overland, the journey starts at the infamously hectic Rivas bus station.. Whether your last stop in Nicaragua is Isla de Ometepe or San Juan Del Sur, you will have to pass through here for your connecting buses to the border! That is unless you want to pay the big bucks for the Transnica or Ticabus buses who will conveniently organise everything for you and get you safely to Costa Rica without you even having to lift a finger..

So, how did we get to Costa Rica?

For us, we chose to cross the border by ourselves and it was very easy to do! Starting at Rivas bus station you will be told by every local guy lurking around that the bus to the border has been cancelled and they will conveniently offer you the option to hitch a lift with them in their 'collectivo' at a "cheap" price (in other words an absolute rip off).. DO NOT believe them, as persistent as they are, if you stand your ground and tell them no, and even if you haven't been there before, it always helps to say that you have and that you know how the buses work. That's exactly what I did, which actually lead to one of the guys smiling at me with acknowledgement that I knew exactly what they were trying to do, and he quickly told his friend, and they moved swiftly onto the next bunch of tourists. Coincidentally, before we knew it, the Chicken Bus to La Frontera arrived and we handed over our $1 USD for the journey and waved goodbye to Nicaragua and a respectful wave and a cheeky grin to the touts of Rivas bus station.

The journey to the border was like your every day Chicken Bus ride, packed in tight like glove with every man and their dog (literally!). Every Chicken bus journey proves to be the perfect place to people watch, with so many intriguing characters to try and work out! Oh and of course prepare to get the odd backside uncomfortably squeezed into your face, and get up close and personal with your bus neighbours.

Sooner than later we arrived at the border, here you will be stopped at quite a few checkpoints to check your passport and stamps/visas etc, before then being asked to pay a $1 USD fee (not official but still necessary) before then paying a $2 USD exit fee to the border official who will stamp you out of the country. We then need made the 5 minute walk to the Costa Rican border thinking that this had been a very smooth crossing so far.. Then the queue appeared..

Although at first this queue seemed rather short and appeared to be no longer than a 20 minute wait, this soon turned into a 2 hour wait! Turning a corner revealed an endless snaking queue of sweating, moaning border crosser's that didn't seem to moving any time soon! All we could do was stand and wait with the most intense heat bearing down on our backs..

Now, what I would say is that a major reason for our wait was that a number of Ticabus/Transnica buses arrived just before and while we weer waiting and although they had paid a substantial amount more than us, this also meant that they could jump the queue and leave us static in the heat! As you can imagine, this didn't go down to well with the rest of the queue but there wasn't much that could be done.. We eventually made it to the front with a huge sigh of relief (more so due to getting out of the heat!), and was faced with the stern-faced border official, who checked our passports and asked for our proof of onward travel..

Luckily for us, we had read about this earlier and had bought a cheap return ticket back into Nicaragua (that we never planned to use) for our proof of onward travel, but not everyone had this and as you can imagine there were lots of unhappy travellers being turned away! As the word spread like Chinese whispers back down the queue, you could see the confused/panicked look on everyone's faces.. However, very cleverly placed next to the border office is a bus ticket stand, with massively inflated prices! But with no other option, lots of tourists unwillingly purchase their onward travel tickets here before then facing the unwavering officials for a second time.. One thing that I would say is that, some border officials may only grant you the amount of days in the country that your onward travel gives you, so if you are faking your onward travel then just make sure that you give yourself enough time!

Once you are through, you will find a large graveled car park with a number of buses waiting to be filled, if you are heading straight to San Jose or Monteverde, your long journey will start here but we actually decided to split the journey up and have a stop over in Liberia. In hindsight, we wouldn't choose to do this again, I was you doing this very same journey, skip Liberia. There is nothing to see there!

As with most border crossings there are lots of opportunities to exchange your left over Nicaraguan Cordoba's for some Costa Rican Colon, just make sure that they do not rip you off. Always have a rough idea of how much you should be expecting in return. We use the XE currency exchange app to work out the exchange rates for each currency.

Journey Time: 5-7 Hours from Rivas to Liberia. (But with the queue it was more 7-9!)

Bus Company: Local Chicken Bus and then Grupo Tranbasa from the border to Liberia.

Price: $1 Chicken Bus + $4 USD Bus to Liberia.

Exit & Entry Fee: The exit fee is $2 plus an extra $1 at an earlier checkpoint, but there is no entry fee.

Visa: A visa is not required for most nationalities for stays of up to 90 days. However, the border officials may only grant you the number of days that your proof of onward travel allows you so be careful with that!

Border Efficiency: Other than the tediously long queue, this border is a very easy border crossing that can be done simply on your own. However, if the queue that we encountered is the norm, then it really isn't great! I would give yourself some time to allow for queues, just in case!