A ticket straight into the policeman's pocket

Samara, Costa Rica

We have now reached Costa Rica after a crazy drive of three days through Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. We drove on average 450 kilometres per day. It does not look like much, but because of bad roads ,(sometimes, not always though), endless trucks, careless driving, check points and border crossings, this is equivalent of at least twice the same distance in Europe. I was pleasantly surprised by Honduras, although we just drove through without doing any sightseeing. It is a very green and hilly country, it is supposed to be the most violent country in Americas (with Venezuela) but we did not experience any of this. Nicaragua was far less pleasant. Some policemen and customs officials are absolutely obnoxious. We stayed less than 24 hours in this country and were very relieved to leave it. I was called twice a “Puta Gringa”, the first time by a customs official at the border post (was it supposed to be a welcome greeting?) and the second time by a policeman at a checkpoint. Then I was robbed of the equivalent of USD 120 by another policeman at another checkpoint. He took my driving licence and the vehicle papers and claimed that I was not keeping enough distance with the vehicle ahead of me and that I had crossed a white line on the side of the road meant to protect pedestrians from traffic. All this complete nonsense of course. I was stupid enough to give him my genuine licence and not the copy because I thought at first sight that it was just another check point. There are check points in every town in Nicaragua and we were stopped at almost all of them. He then went into a convoluted explanation saying that if I did not pay right away he would send my driving licence to Managua and I could retrieve it in 20 days, because I had done two of the most important offences on traffic rules in Nicaragua and on and on. It was getting late, we had another hundred kilometres to go to reach our destination, I was tired and slow minded so I paid. I did not get any receipt so it went directly in his pocket. I made his day because this is probably equivalent to a month salary for him, even more. Nicaragua is the second poorest country in the Americas (Haiti being first). There is a 19th century flavour in this country: carts pulled by horses everywhere on the roads, bike rickshaws, wretched houses. Well, if this is the way government representatives welcome their very few visitors it is not going to improve soon. I will certainly avoid to visit again.