I know it\u2019s been a long time\u2026again. Sorry, life has been
\nchallenging this past year, but it looks like things are finally under control.<\/p>\n
Where was I the last time I wrote? Oh, yes. My unending
\nbattle with the forces of evil, um, I mean the government, in Nicaragua when I
\nmoved there with my family last fall\/winter.<\/p>\n
Well, if you\u2019ve been reading my blog until now, you know You would think getting out would be easier than getting in. So, I contacted a customs broker and asked what I needed to You see, since I imported my things and one car using law Why, you ask? Well, because the law states that if you However, I was NOT selling my car. I was moving back to the I wasn\u2019t going to wait around for them to do any Folks, I know for a fact that getting said permit does not Before I go on, let me stress the enormity of what had just Faced with three very unattractive options, I chose the I rented an apartment \u201csight unseen\u201d in Boise, ID (my As we drove up the Central American isthmus, I felt like we were We got pulled over twice, once in Honduras (for not having All this, plus the worry of driving through potentially The roads were terrible until we reached the more civilized We finally got to the Mexico\/Arizona border late on March After several months of headaches trying to make my Internet Long story short, we struggled, my husband working freelance So folks, we had a lot to be thankful for this Thanksgiving, I\u2019ll leave you for now with a question: what are the reasons <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I know it\u2019s been a long time\u2026again. Sorry, life has been challenging this past year, but it looks like things are finally under control. Where was I the last time I wrote? Oh, yes. My unending battle with the forces … Continue reading
\nthat by January, my international entrepreneurial spirit had been thoroughly
\nsquashed. I was, however, determined to make my Internet job-finding business
\nwork even if not from Nicaragua. With this in mind, my husband and I decided to
\nmove back to the USA. Yes, back to the
\nUSA<\/em>. After all the heartache (and cash-hemorrhaging) of getting our stuff
\nthrough Nicaraguan customs.<\/p>\n
\nAfter all, they WERE doing everything possible to discourage us from making any
\nmoney for or in the country, right? Oh, but that wasn\u2019t the point. It never is.
\nThey had identified a golden goose and they were going to squeeze every bit out
\nof it that they could get, even if it meant breaking the law (when has that
\neven been an issue?)<\/p>\n
\ndo to ship my things and my vehicles back to the USA. (Note that we had to
\nleave many, many of our personal belongings behind in Nicaragua to save money,
\nwhich was fast running out.) The answer I got was a shocking and deliberate
\nmisinterpretation of a customs law that is supposed to help Nicaragua citizens.<\/p>\n
\n535, which allows a Nicaraguan citizen who has lived abroad to import their
\nhousehold goods and one vehicle free of duties, customs was now claiming that I
\nhad to pay the duties on the car. The price tag? At least $25,000.<\/p>\n
\nimport your car under this exemption, then you can\u2019t sell it or change its
\nownership for three years. That, I can understand, since they don\u2019t want people
\nmaking a business out of importing their cars duty free and then selling them
\nfor profit. Though how anyone would \u201cmove\u201d back to Nicaragua from abroad enough
\ntimes to actually make any money from this, is beyond me.<\/p>\n
\nUSA and taking my car with me because, well, it\u2019s mine. For personal use, you
\nknow? But in the gross and deliberate misinterpretation of the law, the
\nauthorities insisted, Minority Report style, that if I took it out then I might
\nsell it, and they couldn\u2019t have that. So I\u2019d have to pay duties. Which were 50%
\nof the value. At least $25,000 by their estimate, but they were going to
\n\u201cassess it.\u201d (You may not know it but in Nicaragua, the government adds on a
\ntax of between 50-75% of the cost of the car.
\nSo if you want to buy a car that would cost $10,000 in the United
\nStates, expect to pay $15-20,000 for the same model in Nicaragua.)<\/p>\n
\n\u201cassessments.\u201d I asked my customs broker if I had any other options. I should
\nhave known the answer by now. For the low, low price of $1500, I could get a
\npermit to drive it out of the country.<\/p>\n
\ncost $1500. I\u2019ve driven cars out of Nicaragua before for vacations in Costa
\nRica and trips to Honduras and El Salvador. But, seeing as how everyone seemed
\nto be in league, and honestly I was just exhausted, I said ok.<\/p>\n
\nhappened. I was desperate to get out of a country that was not just business-unfriendly,
\nbut predatory. I had taken my entire life, my possessions, and my family (with
\nsmall children) there, and found it impossible to do what I had set out to do.
\nMy life savings was going into a black hole, and now I was being extorted for
\neither $25,000+ dollars, or $1500 to get my own car out of the country. I had
\nthree choices: 1. Pay the $25,000 to ship it out. 2. Leave it there
\n(unacceptable.) or 3. Pay the $1500 and DRIVE it all the way to the
\nNorthwestern United States.<\/p>\n
\nleast horrible and paid the $1500 for the permit (which was probably obtained
\nillegally to boot). I couldn\u2019t leave fast enough. I\u2019m not even going to get
\ninto the exorbitant fees I had to pay to get my goods and my other car shipped
\nout.<\/p>\n
\nhusband\u2019s hometown and seemingly the best choice at the time in which to land)
\nand made sure that we could move in quickly. We set out at 6 am on March 10,
\n2011, on the most terrifying trip of my life. My faithful driver from Nicaragua
\ngenerously offered to drive us as far as Guatemala (since he can\u2019t get into
\nMexico) and then take a bus back to Managua. We gratefully accepted (and made
\nsure to provide him the cash to do that), strapped ourselves and our kids into
\nthe infamous car, and took off.<\/p>\n
\nescaping (and stealing our own car.) Never in my wildest dreams did I ever
\nthink that I would have to escape from a country that I used to love. If you\u2019ve
\nnever had to go through something like this, let me tell you that this is how
\nthe Israelites must have felt when they escaped Egypt followed by Pharaoh\u2019s
\narmy. I kept expecting to get pulled over and have someone demand $25,000 in
\ntaxes. Every time we crossed a border, I was freaking out. Never mind that as a
\ndual citizen I could freely travel Central America, Mexico, and enter the USA
\nwithout problems. My kids and husband, being only American citizens, simply had
\nto pay a \u201ctourist fee\u201d at every border. However, by that point it felt like any
\ngovernment official could do whatever he wanted to us, regardless of our
\nrights. I worried that at the US border, they would question why we had
\nNicaraguan plates. I had compiled every piece of documentation that I could dig
\nup to prove we had bought the car in the USA, paid sales tax on it, and that it
\nwas legally registered in California. I had piles of papers in the car, from
\nmultiple copies of every form of ID that we had, to vehicle registrations,
\ninsurance cards, titles, and customs forms. I wasn\u2019t taking any chances. I was
\nin fight or flight mode.<\/p>\n
\nfront and back plates; my car only has a space in the back for a license plate)
\nand once in Mexico, for \u201cspeeding.\u201d This is in addition to the numerous times
\nwe had to stop to have our \u201cpapers checked\u201d or our vehicle \u201cinspected.\u201d Note
\nthat in Honduras, we were only passing through about 40 miles of that country
\n(so pulling us over for \u201cplates\u201d was kind of silly), and in Mexico, as we
\ntalked to the cop, multiple vehicles raced by at 100+ MPH. Both times we were
\nthreatened with having our licenses confiscated and having to go pick them up
\nat some remote location at some later date. Both times we were asked for hefty
\n\u201cdonations\u201d in order to avoid this. The cop in Honduras even had a \u201cbribe broker\u201d,
\nsome random dude that came to \u201cintercede\u201d on our behalf and claimed that he was
\nworking the whole \u201csituation\u201d out in our favor.
\nOf course, with the three federales holding automatic weapons behind us,
\nwe already knew the score.\u00a0 Wow, what a
\nguy! We ended paying only $100 to the officer and everything else we had in
\nHonduran currency to the \u201cbroker.\u201d The Mexican cop seemed less shady (even
\nasked to shake my husband\u2019s hand), but he happily accepted a nice sum in pesos
\nand only lamented that he \u201ccouldn\u2019t provide us with a receipt.\u201d We thanked him
\nprofusely and drove off\u2026<\/p>\n
\ndangerous drug cartel\/gang territory with our two small children in the car,
\nAND trying to set up my Internet business and rent furniture for the apartment,
\nall from my iPad on the road. The data roaming charges were outrageous by the
\ntime we got into the USA.<\/p>\n
\nparts of Mexico, but in any other circumstance, the drive would have been nice,
\neven fun. I wish I could have enjoyed the beautiful scenery. We passed through
\nforests, mountains, valleys, quaint historical towns, and even stayed at a
\nresort on the beach at Mazatlan one night. I was too stressed out (and my
\nhusband was sick with fever on top of that) while we drove like bats out of
\nhell to get to the USA.<\/p>\n
\n14, and had absolutely no issues (thank God.) No, I mean really, thank God<\/strong>, who was with us through the
\nwhole ordeal and figuratively parted the Red Sea for us.
\nBy that time I was able to relax a little, and we even
\nstopped by to enjoy the Grand Canyon the next day on our way through Arizona.
\nFinally, on March 16, sick, stressed, and traumatized, we arrived in Boise
\nafter driving from tropics to desert to the Mountain West. The apartment and
\ntemporary furniture I had rented, sight unseen, was um, not the best, but it
\nwould do.<\/p>\n
\nbusiness work from the USA (job candidates in Central America were very
\nunreliable and would just disappear or not show up after they had committed to
\na job) we abandoned that venture and decided to find other work. In this
\neconomy, it was not going to be easy.<\/p>\n
\nprojects with his small consulting group, until he accepted his wonderful
\nposition in Houston, again thanks to the Lord, who literally dropped the
\nopportunity in his lap. We are still recovering, both financially and
\nemotionally, from what felt like the most traumatizing experience of our lives.
\nOur kids, thankfully, seem to have adjusted well despite having been
\ntransferred from Sacramento to Managua to Boise to Houston, and with all the
\ndifferent schools they\u2019ve had to attend.<\/p>\n
\nincluding the fact that we can work, live, and play in this country without
\nfear. Let\u2019s keep it that way, ok? As for Nicaragua, well, if you look at their
\nlast \u201celections\u201d you can see that the situation there is not getting any
\nbetter.<\/p>\n
\nthat countries like Nicaragua are so poor, corrupt, and dangerous, and are we
\nin danger of falling into the same trap here in the USA? My next blog post will
\naddress this very topic.<\/p>\n