Day 10 - Our first reasonably sized travel day and the first time we were crossing a border. So on the bus we went.

Arrived at the border and first had to check out of Costa Rica and pay an exit fee and then walk 1km to the Nicaraguan border and pay an entry fee. As we walked across there were a large amount of armed forces protecting the border and Fernado informed us that just the week before roughly 2000 Cubans came in force to get through the border and they got through just because of the sheer number of them and there wasn't enough armed forces on to stop it at the time. So now because of that they have a larger number of armed forces protecting the border.

The whole border crossing process was long and really it had no system to it. In saying that Fernado had told us to get use to it as that's how it is in Nicaragua, and he was right, everything is hard, and slow, or runs massively behind, or just doesn't happen.

As we were all waiting for our bags to go through the scanner the locals were just pushing in and cutting the line, putting through bags and bags of goods that they were going to sell that they had just bought from Panama. It was an interesting process lets just leave it at that.

After finally getting through the border we jumped on another bus which took us to the ferry that was going to take us to the island of Ometepe.

We got to Ometepe just before sunset however on the bus ride to our accommodation we all decided to play a prank on Jason. Jason is the only person who took a suitcase and it's actually quite a big one, so it's been a bit of a running joke - luckily Jason takes it really well so it's funny. All of our bags were thrown on the top of the bus and so Jason was worried it would fall off on the way. So we stopped at the ATM and while Jason was not looking we grabbed his bag and hid it. We then got a few people on the street involved as well and played it that it had fallen off somewhere down the street. His reaction was hilarious, and couldn't have gone better. We were all laughing and as Jason started to walk back down the street to find it - he soon clicked on that we were playing him!! Gold!!

Ometepe island is were we had our home stays. Which meant we all got split up and were staying in all different houses with the locals. It was an interesting experience seeing how they lived, meeting and playing with the kids and having meals with them. Won't deny it was hard at times as they have limited English so lots of miming and the voice just gets louder as you stay it over and over lol - it's true!

That night we had to decide on what activity we were doing so all of the group except me decided to climb the concepcion volcano. I would have done it but due to it being so steep I decided to not climb it just because of my knees. I didn't really want to injure myself and still have 3 weeks of my holiday left. So I decided to have a day on my own.