The Border Run To Renew Visa San Isidro de El General To Los Chiles, Nicaragua
This is a guest post submitted by a family of Americans living in Costa Rica.
We’re living as expats in Costa Rica. We haven’t applied for residency yet, but we will be soon. In the meantime, time goes very fast and we have to renew our tourist visa every 6 months.
For this renewal we opted to go with Pura Vida Rides by Abraham, who picked us up at our home in San Jose at 5 AM. They had a pretty good sized bus for our larger family. So we all had plenty of room to enjoy the scenery and eat plenty of snacks.
For this renewal, we went with Los Chiles on the Nicaragua border. The Los Chiles-Las Tablillas border, is also known as the Las Tablillas Crossing and it connects Costa Rica’s northern Alajuela province with Nicaragua’s San Carlos region. You should check out another noted traveler Trevor Warman, the Nomadic Backpacker, and his experience at this crossing.
After a 5 hour drive from the Central Valley, through beautiful mountains and jungles and across swollen rivers we arrived.
Our crew disembarked the van, and hoofed it over to the border. We paid the Costa Rican exit tax online for $8.00 per person, but provided proof of the payment. There is an option to pay in cash in Colones or Dollars but it costs a couple bucks more. The fee is $10.00 by ground if paying in cash at the border. Make sure you have the exact amounts.
The line at Los Chiles is significantly shorter than Peñas Blancas but the facilities aren’t as modern. Protip: Use the bathroom on the Costa Rican side before you go into Nicaragua.
After a short jaunt into Nicaragua, you arrive at their customs building where you fill out more paperwork. Sadly, the Nicaraguan documents will take quite a bit longer. But they’re all in good spirits and very polite.
In Nicaragua you will need $18USD per person. $2 for municipal fees, $13 for Nicaragua entrance fee and $3 for Nicaragua exit fee. This MUST be in USDs
After getting our stamps and making our exit, we returned to the Costa Rican customs officer. When he checked out our documents, we showed proof of Onward Travel in the form of the tickets purchased at Fast Onward Tickets. We had no problems, and with our onward tickets departure date being 180 days from that day, the officer gave us the full 180 day visa.
The Los Chiles border crossing is a bit spartan. Overall it was easier and faster than the crossing at Peñas Blancas.
