Being a "baby boomer," I have a lot of memories as a kid of the late 1950s and the early 60s.  Hearing music (Elvis, Everly Brothers, Beatles, etc.), watching old movies (Bridge on the River Kwai, Ben Hur, Wild Bunch), and  seeing photos of travel (hot rods, muscle cars, jalopies) creates a mental image of life in a simpler time.

One of my fondest memories was riding a Greyhound bus from my hometown of Shawnee, Oklahoma to the bus station in my grandparents’ hometown of Holdenville, OK.  It was only 45 miles, and had only one stop (I was warned with punishment just short of a ‘killing’ if I got off), and took only about an hour and a half, including the stop.  My parents made sure I had about five bucks to spend for Cokes and BB’s when I got to the grandparents’ house, a sack lunch (I’m sure the sandwich had Miracle Whip, 'cause at that time we didn’t worry about sack lunches going bad), and a Boy Scout backpack full of a ten–year-old's prized possessions.  With the stern warning, I didn’t get off the bus.  Great fun, great memories since the buses at that time were just beginning to be air conditioned and have larger seats.

So it was with some nostalgia that my wife Denise and I sat in the waiting room at the bus stop in Managua, Nicaragua, and saw a local girl, about 12 years old, sitting with her parents.  Denise had booked us reservations at a resort in Costa Rica, about 150 miles south of Gran Pacifica, where we live.

To make use of a credit for a vacation exchange, we had to pick somewhere close and easy to access for a vacation at a beach resort, even though we live at a beach resort all the time.  True, it was nice to get away from work and be able to walk up to the all-inclusive resort's bar and order “blue Hawaii’s,” but I did not want to drive there, and last-minute air flights were cost-prohibitive.

So, we found ourselves watching the young lady board the bus by herself just in front of us, find her assigned seat, and start waving goodbye to her family. The waving continued all the time the bus backed up and started away…and since the direction had reversed, the 12-year-old had to lean across the people on the other side of the bus to continue her waving.

Then we all settled back for a short introduction to the bus and bus etiquette, courtesy of the TV monitors located down both sides above the seats.  Two Nicaragua actors, in pretty bad makeup, were commenting on what a great ride this was to be, where the bathrooms were, and how not to disturb the other passengers.

After the “pre-flight” announcements, the TV screens went blank, and the  movies that had been promised never appeared.  Just as well….a nice nap and a new Kindle for Christmas loaded with a couple of Tom Clancy novels were in my immediate future.

So, a couple of hours later, with only one stop, we approached the border between Costa Rica and Nicaragua.  The nice young man with the bus company came through the bus, asking for our passports and about $3.60 in cordoba for a tourist fee.  The bus stopped, and all of us disembarked and started looking for a place to grab a snack and a bathroom.

The old buildings at the borders are make-shift right now, because the government of Nicaragua is building what looks like a new customs facility with, I hope,  new bathrooms.  Not that there was much problem with the old ones, other than the fact there were limited seats and ladies at the entrances charging 3 cordoba (about 13 cents) if you want any toilet paper.

We all went back onto the bus one at a time as our names were called and passports handed back to us, all properly stamped by the customs officials of Nicaragua.

We rode through an entry archway, where something from sprayers came down the top and sides of the bus, then evaporated almost immediately.  I have to assume that the spray was to kill any seeds or invasive insects that were smart enough to stow away on the bus, instead of riding the winds south.

Then the bus stopped on the Costa Rican side, where we again disembarked, collected our luggage, and went into the customs building for an inspection and get our passports stamped again.

With only an hours’ ride to Liberia in the north of Costa Rica, Denise and I bid a fond farewell to the 12-year old girl (actually, she was asleep when we got off), and were greeted by a cab at the ESSO station that doubles as the bus station drop-off point.  The ride to the resort was uneventful, though cost us the same as the bus ticket all the way from Managua and back, about $45 per person.

After a nice week’s vacation we reversed the trip, heading north and going through the same procedure on the return jaunt.  Well, almost the same.  The video announcement with the two old actors in bad makeup did not appear because the DVD player did not work at all.  But that’s OK.  By that time we’d learned to use the facilities on the bus, not at the border.  And we brought our own toilet paper.