Glimpse, July 2005
Don't Travel by Night
Two Peace Corps Volunteers Cross the Nicaraguan Border by Night
Don’t Travel by Night
My best friend Patrick and I brandished our walking sticks and cheered when we reached the 13,000-foot summit of Mount Chirripó, the highest in Costa Rica. That morning the clouds had parted for us, allowing our view to stretch from the Atlantic to the Pacific. We peered down on the small country, its mountains rolling across the landscape like waves. Wisps of clouds hovered low, casting a patchwork of shadows on the lush tropical forests and fields.
The distance concealed the bustle of human activity, and I felt a deep peacefulness. Patrick and I agreed there on that mountain that in two weeks’ time we would meet up again and travel together for Easter Holy Week.
We reunited as planned in Liberia, a large city near the Nicaraguan border. I had just arrived from the capital city, San José, where I worked at the National Zoo, and Patrick traveled up from Paquera, a small coastal town on the Nicoya Peninsula. We were going to spend the Easter Holy week in Granada, Nicaragua, the oldest colonial city in Central America.
We could have taken the luxury bus lines that transited between San José and Managua, Nicaragua’s capital. But those buses cost $15 each way. Instead, we opted for the $3 bus, which would take us to the Costa Rican border. There, we would have to find another bus on the Nicaraguan side to continue our trip.
In Liberia, unfortunately, our local bus suffered engine trouble, and we left two hours late. It chugged up to Costa Rican customs at 6 p.m., leaving us two hours before the Nicaraguan side closed. We got off the bus to wait in line outside the freshly painted building, overlooking a smooth asphalt road.
When we left customs, about four hundred yards separated us from Nicaragua. We passed a “Welcome to Costa Rica” sign facing the other direction; ahead, an old chain-link fence covered with dried vines emerged from the trees on both sides of the road. I had expected a “Welcome to Nicaragua” sign, but there was none. The setting sun cast long tree-shaped shadows over the road. We were the only foreigners, and we stuck out. Patrick’s six-foot-four frame overshadowed everyone we passed; we both wore glasses and heavy hiking packs, and glowed white as milk. The people around us, in contrast, wore drab clothing and carried burlap bags or plastic backpacks made in China. Their skin, infused with a hearty dose of Mayan blood, blended with the dusk.
We stopped five yards before the fence where the smooth pavement changed to cracked gray cement. “This must be the real border,” I surmised.
Night was beginning to fall, the first star specks appearing between scattered clouds.
“Why aren’t there any police around here?” Patrick asked.
Two headlights turned the curve in the road winding out of the woods, as a rickety flatbed truck with wooden sideboards pulled up at the fence. A group of Nicaraguans climbed aboard.
The truck started back down the road. When we asked where it was going, someone told us that customs was two miles away. A bus was coming, someone else said, but he didn’t know exactly when.
Patrick and I reasoned that if we had recently climbed Chirripó, we could manage two miles. It felt good to be hiking again, even though the terrain was horizontal and hot, rather than vertical and cold.
Ten minutes later, we arrived at a station with lots of people and several streetlights, including the truck that had just come from the border. Here soldiers, not police, were inspecting trucks and passports. “Is this customs?” I asked.
Patrick said, “There is just a small guard post. Can’t be.” The guards worked out of a tool shed pieced together with recycled planks and a large service window cut out of the front. A couple of clipboards and an old radio sat on the counter. I checked my watch. 6:50 p.m.
A soldier sauntered over and said, “Americanos?”
“Sí,” we confirmed.
“Pasaportes,” he ordered in a thick Nicaraguan accent. While he thumbed through our passports, he asked in Spanish, “Why are you walking?”
I figured he wouldn’t appreciate our search for adventure, so I said, “We’re saving money.” Patrick nodded.
He handed us our passports and pointed down the road. “It’s very dark out tonight,” he said.
As we hiked farther down the curving road, our eyes adjusted to the darkness. The silhouettes of trees along the road stood motionless against the sky.
After perhaps 30 minutes, a light appeared from behind. High beams flashed forward, illuminating scraggly trees and low-cropped pastures on both sides of the road. A taxi stopped and the driver asked if we wanted a ride to customs. Five cordobas it would cost. We asked him how far it was, and he retorted, “A long walk from here.”
I knew he was exaggerating; that’s what taxi drivers do. Patrick and I discussed the option and decided against it. We’d already come this far, we figured.
The taxi driver, impatient with gringo babble, threw up his hands and set off down the road. I pressed my watch’s Indiglo light. 7:10 p.m. We had to hustle.
We plodded on for a while. I hoped that customs didn’t close early. In Central America, things very often didn’t work as they were supposed to.
“Did you hear that?” Patrick asked.
“What?” I didn’t hear anything.
A muted whistle hissed from behind us.
“That!”
I glanced over my shoulder, straining ears and eyes. A voice shouted.
We scanned the surroundings.
Footsteps scraped little rocks against the pavement. Then a human form sketched itself out of the night. A burst of adrenaline fired through me as a man in military fatigues walked out of the muggy murk. He had a machine gun slung over his shoulder.
The soldier stood before us, short of stature, his uniform bearing no insignia. He waited a moment before telling us in Spanish, “You know you are not allowed to walk along this road at night.”
My mind raced.
“No one said we couldn’t,” I responded. What did he want? Why didn’t we take that taxi?
“I’m going to have to check your bags,” the policeman said.
We swung the backpacks off our drenched backs and dropped them to the earth. I pushed down my camera into a side pocket and zipped closed a secret compartment with money. Patrick engaged in a similar maneuver with his pack. The policeman dropped his hand into the main chamber of my pack, and after a cursory search through the upper layers, switched to Patrick’s. His hand slithered down inside. He paused. Then he lifted his arm straight out with an object in his hand: Patrick’s plastic toy ambulance. He revolved it once and then looked at Patrick.
Patrick explained, “Someone who lives in my town in Costa Rica has family in Managua. She gave me that toy ambulance and a police car to deliver when we got there.”
The soldier looked back down at the ambulance and without returning his eyes to either of us, said, “This could be contraband. It might have a bomb or drugs in it.” Then he looked at me. The gun rolled with his shoulder but remained perched skyward.
“Since you’re in violation of several laws, I’m going to have to bring you back to the unit for interrogation. Sometimes that can last as long as five days, encerrados.”
Five days in jail? Nicauraguan jails were relics from the civil war between the Sandinista government and the U.S.-backed contra rebels. They were tools to make people talk, to punish them for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Fear scampered outward from the center of my heart.
“But we can avoid that,” the soldier continued, gazing off into the night, “perhaps, if you were to give me something ...” Finally I admitted that now I was in a situation in which only other people found themselves. Here I was, standing in a cow pasture, shrouded in night, staring into the opaque eyes of a machine-gun toting Nicaraguan soldier demanding a bribe.
A knot twisted my stomach. We had little money to lose … we had little of anything. Peace Corps did not train me for this. Life had not prepared me for this. So I asked, “How much?”
The soldier’s head rolled around on his shoulders like a roulette wheel: you decide. But before I could name my price, the wheel came to a stop: “100 dólares americanos.”
“What!” exclaimed Patrick in English. I flinched. A hundred dollars was half my entire travel budget, even more for Patrick. If we did pay up, what little leverage we had would then be lost.
The soldier’s sedate glance remained on us as he softly tossed the ambulance in his hand. I then offered, “Twenty dollars.” Patrick faced me. “No, Jon.” He turned back toward the soldier, stood up straight, and called forth his best, most authoritative Spanish: “We are volunteers of the United States Peace Corps which is an organization of the government of the United States that operates with the American Embassy in Costa Rica and Nicaragua and we have to contact the director in Managua when we arrive.”
Our adversary dropped his eyes on the ambulance and mumbled, “Five days, encerrados.” Did he not understand us? Was he stalling until customs closed? Had he already determined the outcome of this encounter?
“Well, let’s go then,” Patrick conceded.
He was calling what we hoped to be a bluff. So I added, “We should go to the police station at customs.”
“No, we go back to the border,” the soldier retorted.
At this point, we heard an engine from the direction of the border, and headlights streaked down the dark road. I started for it, yearning for another taxi. We wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. Patrick and I threw our hands into the air as the car rushed by. Then darkness swallowed it up. That was our last chance.
The soldier put the ambulance back in Patrick’s bag. He said he would have to continue checking my bag. When he uncovered my large aluminum camera tripod, he glanced at me and I winced. His gun slid forward on his arm, but he put it back.
Surely he realized the ambulance carried neither bomb nor drugs. If anything, the ambulance symbolized his intention to leave our bullet-ridden bodies in a drainage ditch alongside the road!
Patrick leaned toward the man. “You know,” he said, “there are two toys in there and the lady in Managua doesn’t even know I’m bringing them. You can have that one.”
The man’s head twitched in surprise. He glanced up at Patrick, studied him for a moment, and asked, “You are giving it to me?”
“Sí,” replied Patrick. The soldier then tucked the ambulance under his left arm. My pulse was racing. Sweat streamed out of my pores. My legs shook. This was the moment. He finally had to make a decision.
The soldier raised his arm, pointed to me — no — he pointed beyond me, down the road, saying, “Muchas gracias, señores, y buenas noches.” (“Thank you, gentlemen, and good night.”) His lips parted in the form of a smile. Yes, he informed us that customs was no more than a 15-minute walk from here. His gaze fell on the ambulance. “Qué lindo,” he said, rolling it between his palms. Stunned, I assured him we would have a good stay in his country. Patrick and I stood rooted to the ground as he turned away and dematerialized into the still night.
Then Patrick finally let out, “What was that?”
My rapid-fire pulse began to brake. I took a deep breath, relaxing the muscles in my neck and shoulders. “That was one hell of a bribe.”
Patrick shook his head, “A toy ambulance saved us from the Nicaraguan army.” We laughed.
We closed our bags and threw them onto our backs. I coaxed my leg to take the first step toward customs. 7:40 p.m.; we could still make it. As we reached the road, enjoying solid footing once again, I glanced over at my best friend. “What do you think?” I asked. “Maybe next time, we should splurge for the luxury bus.”
