The Border Eats Its Young

Entering Nicaragua was everything I was told it would be—and then some. A six-hour descent into heat, red tape, and a reminder that doing everything "right" doesn't always mean a damn thing.

I arrived early, prepared. Every document printed, sorted, stamped: passport, registration, title, permits from every country I'd passed. I stepped into the line at Nicaraguan immigration—no vendors here, just silence and waiting—and stood for nearly 90 minutes in a slow unmoving wait line. When I reached the front, I handed over my Argentine passport, confident.

The officer flipped through, saw the Honduras exit stamp, and then asked: "Where's your Guatemalan entry stamp?"

Wait, Mexico into Guatemala, wasn’t that like three countries back? Now I remember it, it’s on my U.S. passport.

Crossing the Guatemala–El Salvador border, a fixer told me to switch to my Argentine passport to avoid dealing with a Yellow Fever exemption requirement. Turns out, I didn't need it. But I listened because, well, these guys are supposed to "fix" things.

What I didn't know—and no one bothered to tell me—is that Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua are all linked through the CA-4 visa agreement. One visa, one clock, one paper trail. Which raises yet another question: if they all share a visa, why the hell do we need all this damn red tape and paperwork every single time we cross a border? I digress.

The Nicaraguan officer looked at me like I'd tried to sneak into a dinner party wearing a clown suit. "Now we have a problem," he said, then vanished.

When he returned, the instructions were clear: go back to Honduras and have them stamp your other passport.

So I suited up—again. The Klim Badlands gear already felt like it had fused to my skin. Back across the kilometer-long neutral zone. The sun blazed. My boots squished in sweat.

Honduras immigration was its own fever dream—vendors shouting, stray dogs weaving through sunburned travelers sprawled on the concrete like wilted flowers. I beelined for the same agent who had stamped me out earlier. She remembered me, listened, and shut me down with a quiet, bureaucratic finality: "No puedo."

I pleaded. Explained. Pointed to the stamp literally five inches from her hand. No computers involved. No real system to corrupt. Just ink and paper. A grain of sand in the beach of goodwill.

I pushed. She called a supervisor. He arrived, listened, frowned like I'd ruined his day, and said, "Espere aquí."

Minutes passed. Then fifteen. Then twenty-nine. He returned—with reinforcements. Four more supervisors, more whispers, all gathered around my passport like it held state secrets. I stood on the other side of the glass, might as well stood on the other side of the Grand Canyon, waiting, wilting. Watching them debate like jurors at a child's cookie jar trial. Guilty or not.

Then came the gut punch.

"This isn't our problem," one of them said. "The mistake happened at the El Salvador border. Go back there and re-enter the country with your other passport."

El Amatillo, El Salvador. A full day's ride behind me. Nine hours, if nothing went wrong. Two days lost. Two days of food, gas, lodging—and any chance of reaching San José by International Women's Day, the day I'd been planning around since the start.

Inside, I snapped. Outside, I swallowed hard and spoke calmly, urgently. I explained the mission—Ride for Equality, Hera Rising, what it would mean to miss that day. I talked about what this would cost—not just money, but momentum, time, purpose.

Photo: Emilio Flores

I pointed to the exit. "I've already left Honduras. Once I cross that door you'll never see me again. Just stamp the passport and, puff, I'm gone. As if I was never here."

Another huddle. A silent debate—the loudest kind. Then—without a word—they handed the passport to the original agent. She stamped it, reluctantly. Passed it through the glass. Just like that. Almost an hour of tension undone by 1.5 seconds of ink.

Back I went. Nicaragua again.

And now, of course, the line was twice as long. I was keenly aware of light escaping the day, and I could see it slipping through my fingers. So I did the only thing that made sense—I walked to the front of the line and pled my case.

The young woman at the front looked skeptical, ready to shoot me down, until the man behind her chimed in. "Sí, me acuerdo de él. Estaba aquí antes con el casco y la chaqueta, allí en el suelo." He gestured back to where I had shed kilos of armored jacket, helmet and gloves as I moved through the line like molasses moves out of a jar. She nodded. A wave of her hand.

The agent who gave me the original lecture was still there. He remembered me. Gave me another quick scolding about "doing things right" next time, then processed me like it was the easiest thing in the world—which, of course, it was!

And just like that, I was in.

Still hot. Still humid. Still daylight. I jumped back on The Pearl and gunned it South toward Los Brasiles Surfing Turtle Lodge—a place I had circled on the map, a soft landing after a hard day.

The lodge—was still hours away. A pin on a map I'd never reach.

Nicaragua, it turns out, had other plans.

As I prepared to leave the immigration building, a family approached me. They’d witnessed my bureaucratic ordeal from inside, seen the pleading, the waiting, the eventual relief. We walked out together, and they immediately noticed the "Rodando por la Igualdad" decals on The Pearl.

"Where have you been? Where are you going?" they asked, curiosity piqued by the loaded bike and the rider who'd just fought his way through a border snare.

I explained my route—the plan to cut through Nicaragua hugging the coast, deliberately avoiding major cities on my way to Costa Rica. Expression shifted, that look people get when they hear someone's about to make a mistake.

The woman spoke, "Don’t miss Managua," she insisted. "Or Granada."

This wasn't the standard tourist recommendation. There was something in her voice—conviction, pride, the certainty of someone who knows their home deserves more than a passing glance. She offered contacts, just in case I decided to head that way. I thanked them, tucked the information away, certain I wouldn't need it. The plan was the coast—as fast as I could get there.

But first came the road.

From Guasaule to Chinandega, Route 3 revealed the true character of northwestern Nicaragua in a way no guidebook could capture. No postcard-worthy vistas here - just an honest road cutting through dry, open country. What dominated the first miles weren't natural features, but human ones - an endless line of idling trucks stretching back toward Honduras, drivers waiting their turn to navigate the same bureaucratic maze I'd just escaped. It looked like an enormous cargo train frozen in time, each cab a compartment filled with wasted hours and delayed lives. The economics of borders, measured in diesel fumes, patience, and sweat.

Beyond this man-made black hole of time, the landscape had a sparse beauty to it - brushy terrain stretching toward the horizon, broken occasionally by clusters of trees and modest settlements. In the distance, the volcanic formations of the Reserva Natural Complejo Volcánico Cristóbal Casita stood not like the dramatic cones you might expect, but worn shapes that spoke of ancient eruptions and centuries of erosion. There's something truthful about terrain like this - it doesn't try to impress you; it simply exists, indifferent to your passage.

I skirted the reservas where Chonco, Casitas, and later Volcan del Hoyo stood silhouetted against the fading day, their perfect volcanic shapes reminding you that in this part of the world beauty and danger often wear the same face.

Volcan El Hoyo, Leon, Nicaragua - Photo by Tim Foster on Unsplash

The light hit them just so—the kind of golden hour that makes even atheists consider divine intervention. For a moment, the border nightmare faded. This was why I rode. Not for stamps in passports or lines on maps, but for moments like this—when the world stops being a place you travel through and becomes something that travels through you.

One thing became immediately apparent on Nicaraguan roads—no one passes here. No one. Except me. Cars, trucks, even other motorcycles all maintained pristine distances, followed speed limits with religious devotion. Every vehicle stayed in line like well-trained soldiers. I, however, couldn't help myself. The sun was fading, the road called, and The Pearl answered.

Darkness crept in. The kind of darkness that doesn't politely ask permission—it simply arrives, all at once, complete. Route 14 to Las Peñitas still stretched ahead, and the coast remained tantalizingly beyond reach.

Rule number three of motorcycle travel: don't ride at night. Especially not in unfamiliar territory. But rules, like border processes, sometimes bend to necessity.

The Pearl's headlight carved a tunnel through the night. Every pothole became a potential disaster. Every truck passing too close, a potential widow-maker. As the hours ticked by, I began to admit defeat.

Borders, bureaucracy, and the simple tyranny of distance and darkness had conspired to redirect this day's story. But there was still tomorrow. And perhaps in that tomorrow, my newfound friends’ suggestion of Managua and Granada might begin to seem less like a detour and more like the path I was meant to find all along.

Los Brasiles Surfing Turtle Lodge—was still hours away—a pin on a map I'd never reach.

And, as you know by now, Nicaragua had other plans. But, that’s another blog post.