I departed from Guatemala on November 8th at 6:00am on a bus with my entire squad. This month is an all squad month, meaning all 20 of us are working with the same ministry and living together. We were told it would take around 18 hours to make it to Nicaragua where we would stay in a small church to rest and then catch with 9:30am ferry to Ometepe island. About 2 hours into our trip we hit stand still traffic which we would later on find out was a pretty big wreck. It ended up taking 3 hours for the lanes to be cleared for us to be able to get back out on the road. However, God did some pretty cool stuff in my squad within that 3 hours and we ended up having a small bible study on the side of the road along with a worship session led by one of my teammates. Back out on the road we headed for El Salvador. The El Salvador boarder wasn’t too bad, we waited for about an hour after getting our passports checked because one of the girls on my team had a passport that wasn’t marked with the number of days she was allowed to stay in Guatemala (they just forgot to put a 90 on her stamp when we entered the country). We’re off again. Headed into El Salvador, 4 hours behind schedule, but still very excited to get to Nicaragua. Now I don’t think I have ever seen El Salvador on a map, but I am pretty sure I got to see the ENTIRE country from my window. 7 hours after crossing the El Salvador boarder our bus drivers pull off on the side of the road. I should mention that by this point its 8:30pm and very dark outside. Our drivers turn around and start speaking to us in Spanish, I should also mention the men that drove us to Nicaragua speak no English. By Gods grace one of my squad mates speaks pretty good Spanish and could translate that he was telling us how it was too dangerous to cross the Honduras boarder at night and we would have to stay at a hotel until morning. So there my team was, unloading our stuff into our rooms at a random roadside hotel somewhere in El Salvador. But you know what? I got to sleep in an air conditioned room with a bed that night and not a cramped, hot bus. Was it 5 star? No. Was it a blessing? Yes.
We departed from our hotel at 6:00am the next morning. We reached the Honduras boarder within the hour, which to my surprise went pretty smoothly as far as boarder crossings go. It took a few hours to drive through Honduras, but it was beautiful and a pretty uneventful country. However, the Nicaraguan boarder was a different story. We had to get out of the van and go into the immigration building to have our passports checked for a stamping showing we legally entered Honduras so they would allow us to exit. Then we got back on the bus and headed to this little “office” on the side of the road where this man gathered all of our passports again. He started off by trying to just take our passports individually and check them, but with there being 20 of us he just gathered them all and counted us and walked off with them. Then a new man hopped on our bus (passports in hand) and told us to drive forward. He seemed weary of us… we came to this Y in the road where he had us pull over and made our drivers exit the vehicle. He and another man than began questioning our drivers separately. It turns out one of the girls on our bus forgot to pass her passport forward so they only had 19 of them instead of 20. Once we figured out whose passport they needed the man still seemed weary of us entering the country so were were told to go to the customs building. Where we had to remove all of our large bags from the top of the bus to send through an X-ray machine. I thought after that we would be able to leave. Nope. We sat at the customs building for over 3 hours. Eventually the immigration officers decided we were okay to enter the country and stamped our passports and let us leave.
Woohoo! We made it into Nicaragua. Were almost there right?! Wrong. It took another 6 hours to get from the boarder to the church in San Jorge. I fell asleep for a few hours towards the end of our journey and apparently had missed a lot while I was sleeping. Once we got to San Jorge it was around 10:00pm and our bus was being followed by two motorcycles. They were trying to get our drivers to pull over and making every turn we made. At one point our driver had come to a stop and one of the men on the bikes asked if we were going to the church we were supposed to stay at. It was kinda sketch so our driver lied because he didn’t know these men and they had become pretty protective of us over the past few days. It turned out that these men were part of the church and were trying to help navigate us. Around 10:30pm we pulled onto the grounds of the church in San Jorge! Finally, we could get off our bus and stretch our legs. After 40 hours of travel we had almost made it to Ometepe! That night at the church was such a blessing from the Lord! I got to take a shower, pet a dog, eat an amazing meal, and had one of the best nights rest I’ve ever experienced. That church was like a wind tunnel, if I could sleep there again I would! The next morning we got up around 6:00am, I was able to have some quiet time with the Lord and just reflect on the last few days of travel and have an amazing breakfast. Central American eggs are the BOMB y’all!
Around 8:00am we loaded up our packs in the back of a truck and walked to the ferry for our 9:30am departure. I have never ridden a ferry before, but it was glorious! The ride was about an hour long. Lake Nicaragua is so vast it looked like an ocean and it feeds into the Pacific so it has bull sharks! Which most people wouldn’t be happy about, but I was pumped when I found out because a fun fact about me is that I am fascinated by sharks. This was the perfect opportunity for me to talk to some of my squad mates for an hour about all the shark facts I know and answer any of their shark related questions.
*No mom I am not swimming in the lake because it is also inhabited by crocodiles and parasites.
So after 24 hours of bus travel, 16 hours of delays (including our hotel stay), a night spent in a church in San Jorge, a 1 hour ferry ride and a 30 minute bus ride….. We made it to CICRIN Orphanage on Ometepe Island!! Travel Day(s) was tough and not at all what I was expecting, but this is right where God wants me to be. So it was worth it.
Much Love,
Marah
