BACKPACKING STORY

THE WOMAN NOBODY FOLLOWED AT THE NICARAGUAN BORDER

Thirty backpackers reached the Nicaraguan border. One woman questioned the fee. None of us followed her.

HONDURAS → NICARAGUA · 6 MIN READ · LUCÍA MARTÍN

This happened on a bus from Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras, to Managua, the capital of Nicaragua. There were about 30 backpackers on board and, oddly, most of us were women. Nobody was talking to anybody, and there was no common language. The Dutch spoke Dutch, the French spoke French, and I, being from Spain, had nobody to talk to. Next to me sat a Polish girl whose Spanish and English were just enough to order a burrito and a bed in a dorm.

Officially, this was going to be the most boring bus in Latin America. Eight hours of nothing, apart from a few volcanoes which rose out of the flat, barren land. The bus was more comfortable and safer than the local ones, if more expensive, but at that moment I wished I’d taken a local bus, where there’s never a shortage of culture shock and adrenaline.

Behind me sat an Irishman and an Israeli girl. They’d ended up side by side, and I could hear their introductions. She was 25 and had travelled to Central America with her boyfriend after finishing her military service, but two months in he’d broken up with her. The bastard had cheated on her with another Israeli girl they met along the way. She got dumped in San Cristóbal de las Casas, on Valentine’s Day. “Happy Valentine’s Day!” she kept saying, bitterly.

The Irishman was an accountant between jobs, with two months to get from Mexico to Costa Rica before starting at a new office in Cork. His biggest complaint was that he hadn’t found as many Irish pubs as he’d hoped. His most exciting adventure so far was being hit on by a guy in Playa del Carmen, and he wasn’t even gay.

As I said, I was bored, so although I pretended to read The Alchemist on my Kindle, I was listening to them the whole time. She was heartbroken and, to add to her misery, her wallet had been stolen on a bus in Mexico, she’d been in a van accident in Belize, and according to her every hostel in Guatemala had bedbugs. The Irishman just listened, nodded and offered her a Pringle every five minutes.

FIFTY DOLLARS?

After several hours we finally reached the Nicaraguan border. The bus stopped in a big open space full of lorries, with a few benches in the shade of some trees. The co-driver asked us for $50 and our passports. He would take care of all the paperwork, we had an hour’s break, and we could use the toilets and buy souvenirs, snacks and drinks from the street vendors.

The silent bus suddenly came alive, everyone rummaging through their daypacks for passports.

“Fifty dollars?” she asked out loud.

I turned around for the first time and, after four hours of listening to her, I finally put a face to the voice. She had an ordinary face, a sharp nose, frizzy hair tied back in a messy bun and small, restless eyes. The Irishman was freckled and bald, with very intense beautiful blue eyes.

“Yes, miss, fifty dollars and your passport.”

“The Lonely Planet says it’s only $30. Why do we have to pay 50?”

The co-driver had clearly done this before. He said he’d handle everything, that this way there would be no problems, and that meanwhile we could rest in the shade.

“But why do you have to do it? Can’t we go through immigration ourselves?”

“Yes, miss,” he said, forcing a smile, “but if there’s a queue, or a delay, or any problem with the paperwork, the bus won’t wait for you. We leave in exactly one hour.”

She looked at him with suspicion. “What could go wrong? There’s nobody here but us.”

Tired of her questions, he told her to go ahead if she wanted, but insisted the bus wouldn’t wait. While this was going on, several backpackers who couldn’t be bothered with the fuss had already handed over their passports and fifty dollars and got off. I hadn’t, because that conversation was the most interesting thing of the whole trip.

Annoyed that nobody else cared enough to back her up, she turned to the Irishman, who already had the $50 in his hand along with his passport.

“Come with me.”

He hesitated, stuffed the rest of his Pringles into his bag and got off with her. Like everyone else, I wasn’t sure whether she was right. Besides, I didn’t like her much, so I didn’t want to tag along or have anything to do with her. So like everybody else, I handed over my passport and the fee, then found some shade on one of the benches.

She marched off across the car park with big strides, the Irishman half a metre behind. Call me awful, but I wanted it all to go wrong for her, so I wouldn’t have to listen to her gloating if she turned out to be right.

FIVE MINUTES LATER

Imagine my surprise when, five minutes later, she and the Irishman came out of the immigration office, smiling and talking loudly. Her passport had been stamped before the co-driver had even got there, they’d charged her only $30, and the whole thing had been hassle-free.

I felt like the stupidest backpacker in the world.

Everyone else must have felt the same, because they all looked at her and nobody said a word. Nobody asked her anything. Nobody wanted to give her the pleasure of saying I told you so.

But she was enjoying every second of it, talking louder than ever, happier than ever. This was her moment.

“With the $20 you’ve saved, you can drink ten Guinness,” she told the Irishman, as they sat on a couple of rocks.

Back on the bus, the next few hours were more of the same, except she was no longer complaining about how miserable Central America was but boasting about what a smart, seasoned traveller she was. Blah, blah, blah. I couldn’t even pretend to read anymore, so I leaned my head against the window and tried to sleep to shut her out. I think I managed the last three hours.

When we got to Managua I shared a taxi with two Portuguese backpackers I’d met during the break. Over dinner we didn’t talk about Honduras, Nicaragua or even backpacking. We talked about the annoying girl nobody followed, not even to save $20. But to be honest, I think we were nursing our pride.

I still am.