El Salvador accepts the Reynolds. Believe it.

Good day people , it is Brad here and I am typing the blog today.

Do you know what ten years is. Some call it a decade. Today I woke with a sense of pride and fulfilment after living through 3 decades of life. Everyone in St.Lucia , Guatemala must have known it was my special birthday because at 5 am the trucks were roaring by and never shy with the honking. Guatemalans get up early and the buses are ornatley decorated and packed with eager workers. We left the hotel in wet boots and high spirits going to the gas station down the road and upon entering said station the gas attendant was laughing at Blane and pointing at his tank bag. It seems he had an illegal immigrant , namely a big frog sitting on his bike enjoying the ride! We still cannot figure out how it got on there for the short ride.

Guatemalas rodes became better than Canadas after St.Lucia. This country is a diamond in the rough and I could not imagine a world so green. We will dig deeper into Guatemala upon our return but as for now we seem to be obsessed with getting to Panama. That to me is a good mind set as the distances seem to be getting shorter and taking longer. Case in point was today at the El Salvador border. A couple hours and 35 dollars later we were welcomed in. It took longer to check out of Guatemala than to get into El Salvador.

The border crossing was your typical lot of shady characters , a couple of stunned Americans who were swarmed at the border by rat children and of course the day wouldn{t have been complete without a slick talking dude getting us through the border , lots of guys with machine guns )Heckler and Kosch MP5) and a token dwarf midget who was very persistent and was really [touchy[ with the bikes. We gave him food but I really think his aim was free shiny stuff from the bikes! He could really work some weird angles with his 22 inch height and added a new dimension to the security awareness. Too bad he didn{t know English because he would have gotten a free ride in one of my panniers as a translater.

El Salvador seems to be a little more of the mountain variety with really , really great roads. Seems the guy with the shotgun at the gas station wasn{t just a Guatemalan fad , it seems a little more pronounced here and the smiles are just as hard to come by but I have a feeling that the tough veneer is just a front for a hard won smile. The women are buff and highly turned out. The guys have mean mugs and do a lot of shoulder shrugs!

We of course ran into the daily downpour at about 130 pm which I would classify as [torrential[. We just stop for a second and rain proof then keep on keeping on. With no drainage on my boot the water collects up to my ankles and my feet get a free swim. I think my dad gets the same treatment. I am considering drilling 2 holes in each boot for some drain effect.

Today people were holding out chickens and armadilloey creatures for us to buy. People here seem cautious and hide their stares more. This tells me that the law of the jungle just may apply a little more here. American dollars are the only currency and the drivers have been the most well behaved so far. The bikes are holding strong and my riding ability has at least doubled since I left. The bike is now merely an extension of my body. Maybe one day I will climb a mountain and tell that to a wise grasshopper.

As for my birthday I have spent the last three in the forests of Alberta doing oil work in camps and barely a whisper about it. Not bad to be in Guatemala and El Salvador today to be sure. We have run into nothing but nice people good scenery and great times. If I could pull off another 30 years I could not imagine what it would be like. If I thought the same in thirty years as I do now I would have wasted three decades!!!!

Good night all and God Bless if you{ve got one. If not then live like their is no tomorrow Nicauragua here we come!

Brad and crew.

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