Honduras > Nicaragua: Los Manos

Feb 15
3 min read

Updated: 23 hours ago

Nov 2025 |

Honduras to Nicaragua, and vice versa is "renowned" as perhaps the worst border crossing in Central America. But, fortunately, it was relatively easy to get me and T7 across at Los Manos.

Why Los Manos?

Unlike many Pan-American riders, I wasn't racing through Honduras from El Salvador to Nicaragua on CA-1. I crossed at Los Manos because I rode in from Tegucigalpa, and it looked like the closest border.

Getting there

From Tegu, it's a nice 3-hour ride through pine forests, little traffic. The final section of road from La Paraiso was a bit strange -- a bit rough and progressively worse, mostly crumbled pavement due to heavy truck traffic. From about 5km out, the road was chock-a-block with parked semis.

At the frontier stamping out of Honduras was fast and easy, took about 10 minutes, I don't think I paid anything. There were some touts, but no hassles, overall just helpful. The only negative was the temperature: 15 C and drizzling.

Done with Honduras, I rode about 100m to the Nicaragua side, escorted by a stray dog (there's no no-man's land here). Things did get a bit more complicated on this side.

Inspection

An official waved me over to park, then took all my documents. I was instructed to remove and empty my bags, and then everything was thoroughly inspected. I was asked if I had a drone, a big no-no in Nicaragua, not permitted (drones need to be FedEx'd to Costa Rica, fyi). This inspection process took about 40 minutes. Naively, I thought this was immigration, but it turned out it was inspection only. I was then pointed to some nearby shipping containers converted into offices.

Immigration

At immigration, a slightly melodramatic officer took my docs. I sensed this may be a bit of a shakedown; not many gringos come this way. He started out by highlighting that my passport photo had some water damage (only the 2nd immigration official to do so in 1.5 years of heavy use). Next, he asked for the entry fee; I didn't understand exactly what he said, and being slightly intimidated by his seriousness, I just handed him all the money I had in my wallet, much more than required, assuming he would give back whatever was overage. But instead, he opened a drawer and placed the wad of cash there and then slammed it shut. I think I ended up paying double. Not much I could say or do about this little trick, so I moved on to the next shipping container.

Customs

Things dramatically slowed down here. A small group of truck drivers was standing outside a shipping container window. It wasn't a line, more of a blob of guys. I joined. After about 30 minutes, nothing had moved. There were now many guys behind me. It turned out the IT system was down, and processes were being done manually by one person. An hour later, I finally submitted my docs. Another hour, I got them back.

Insurance

With the inspection/immigration/customs processes done, I got back on my bike and began the ride into Nicaragua - or so I thought. About 100 meters down the road, a young lady waved me down and was explaining something in Spanish. I knew I needed insurance, so I assumed she must be selling it (it did cross my easily distracted mind that perhaps she was "selling" some other service, given her spicy appearance; gotta say: insurance was a bit anti-climactic). I gave her my docs, she came back 5 minutes later, I gave her a $100 bill, and she returned $88 in cash.

That was it. From there, it was a pleasant ride into a surprisingly clean and well-paved Nicaragua to my first stop at Esteli.

Documents used Honduras: