borders, borders, borders.

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We have made it to San Juan Del Sur!!! to our surprise it wasn't what we pictured... the perfect break right next to the awesome Spanish school is non existent... instead, it is 8km trek to the beach which are rig won't make it up..(hill is to steep, a local told us he has seen taxis skidding up the hill as well as people pushing taxis up the hill.) and for the school, is a brisk walk from the hostel where staying at ( when i say staying i mean parked outside on a curb) It has been a few days since the last entry so I will begin at the beginning....

we woke up and began traveling towards the Guatemala border, we picked out a nice beach to stay at before the crossing in the morning. 50 km from the border we were pulled over by a couple of Mexicans who wanted us to return a permit because they said it was expired... we told them the permit was fine and was granted for 10 years (the mans name was edward or edwardo). they were very persistent, and we drove away from them. 25km from the border.. we were stopped once again by a large group of mexicans, and look who it was edwardo... telling us a bunch of random information and said he would bring us across for 6 bucks. it was nearing 2:00 pm and asked how long it would take he said 30 min to an hour. we all said why not and went with it... the first stop was the Mexican exit, turns out we didn't have a entry stamp, the man was very confused, scratched is head and gave us our exit stamps. Everything seemed to be going well... we paid for are stamps, got our driving permit, and all the dog papers in order. a few copy's here and there..we made it into Guatemala.... next thing we know edwardo has our Guatemalan vehicle permit and Allyne's passport and we are following him through thick congested traffic on road just wide enough for us to squeeze by. He said we needed insurance when we finally stopped, we all were a little confused and went with it. Edwardo asked us to lift the hood. Jordan went to open the hood and the hood slipped on his sweaty palms and fell with a force of Hercules's fist and crashed down onto Jordans thumb and latched close... Jordan ended up lifting the hood up at remarkable speed and was yelling in a Spanish accent... the mexicans/Guatemalens wanted to take him to the hospital on the motorcycle that had been driving edwardo around all day and we had followed over. we wanted nothing to do with it, they grabbed us a car and whisked us to the medical center. upon arrival the doctor came outside and said go see alex.. we went to see alex.. 20 min later, a stitch and 5 dollar tip to the doctor ( free otherwise) he was stiched up and good to go with a prescription of pain pills and antibiotics. when allyne and jordan returned they got the insurance in order ( which was a very high bill for which may or may not be real insurance) we asked for a place to stay and they drove us to a truck stop for the night. One border down 6 to go...

(Allyne) We drove across the Country of Guatemala..... very nice country, they seem to do somthing with sugar cane sticks... We saw lots of trucks full of sticks going to mills??? Interesting... Another thing, is the crazy driving.. their major highway has one lane going each direction.... but they are super lanes (extra wide) so scooters and bikes can ride next to you, and it also makes it easier to pass, because some think that it is wide enough for 2 cars to drive in...... it's not. SO imagine, to large lanes full of semi's tucks full of people, little trucks, delivery trucks, cars, scooters, buses, motorcycles, taxi bikes, bikes, all traveling down one road trying to pass each other on both sides. I can definatly say that Guatemala is the crazyest country i've driven in so far. We stayed the night at a hotel (did not feel safe enough to pull off to the side of the road) . The next moring we crossed from Guatemala, to El Salvador...... we made sure we did not get someone to help us way before the boarder. Some one helped us exit Guatemala, for 5 bucks, and said we were on our own for El Salvador. It was the easiest border crossing. Everyone was nice, and half of them spoke engish, and all the services were free! THere was also a nice sign saying that everything is free, do not pay anybody to come into El Salvador. El Salvador was interesting, and we atempted to drive it in a day... well we got just over halfway and it got dark. We sused out a hotel with a big enough gate and parking space to accomodate us. There was a really nice security gaurd with a shot gun, to help us get settled in, we decided on an airconditioned room and free parking. We noticed that morning that Trooper had a large tick in his ear.... we could not get it out, and when attempting found another one. WE tried burning it's but but tooper would not have any of it. We tried later this night and were finnally successful in removing it (after trying numerous things to get it to latch off rum, teatreaoil ect) we left early and made it to the Honduras boarder...........

Honduras. We picked a crossing jocky to help us, he told us it was very hard to cross into Honduras, and it took alot of time. So we found out, waiting in the RV swealtering hot. Someone came and inspected the dog, actually looked at him and checked his ears and paws (lucky we did our own enspection the night before). They charged us for the inspection and for importing him into the country. We then had an inspection of the car asking if we have any fire arms, drugs, alcohol, perfume ect. We then payed for the vehicle import, and taxes, and other things, that i quicky saw the recipt for. After we got all those papers through (2hrs). He went to check and see if our tires could be fumigated, but no they had stopped for lunch (or so we were told) so he said we had to bribe the cops, and pay the fumigation fee so we could get a stamp. Oh yeah our jocky forgot about insurance, so we had to pay more for that. SO almost 200 to get into Honduras.....FU$^@*. We decided after our next boarder crossing to see and have all recipts before we pay anything.
After driving into Honduras we were stopped by a police road check. He asked to see my licence (Allyne) and so i gingerly gave him it.... mistake. He wanted to know if we had tinkidoreies, we did not know what he was talking about,...... he pointed out cones,,,, orange cones/ (luckly we had bought some in the states, because jordan had read about something like this. Then he asked where our reflective tape was. and pointed out other trucks that had them... we then took the reflective tape off the cones and stuck it on the side of the RV. They then told us it needs to be red and white reflective tape. So Jocelan proceeded to stick the red tuck tape next to the reflectores. The cops werent buying it. I told them in broken spanish that nobody told us these requirements to drive at the boarder. Joceland told them that we don't drive at night, so it souldent matter..... nope they diddent care, they wanted to take my licence and give me a ticket for not having the proper reflective tape. I was very upset with them, but they diddent care, they wanted some money, finally they said ok, if you give me 20 dollars you can go. I fought with them for a while about this (all the while the kids from the town, were asking joce for somemoney. Finally I told Jordan what they wanted, and he said "20 bucks that's all they want? pay them and lets get the fuck out of here". I paid them, jocelan ripped my licence out of the cops hand, and we took off. We drove for about 100 km more, and we were stopped 5 more times during this 100km!!!!
And when they asked to see my licence, I held on to it tight, and gave them a copy of it to look at..... or they pryed it out of my hands promising to give it back. We showed them our seat belts, fire extinguisher, tape and cones each time we stopped... and made sure not to get shaken down again! We stayed at hotel california that night, and enjoyed some more aircon, we also ate at the Pizza Hut in that town, just to spite the Hondurans.... we were also craving pizza

Honduras to Nicaragua went well, and we got a jocky that spoke very good english, and told him of our experiance coming into the country, and was very strick with our money, wanting all recipets, and asked him to ask us before paying anything. IT went smoooth and we were very happy to get into Nicaragua, everyone has been nothing but friednly, waving and giving thumbs up all the way down. They are a very helpful peoples, and shake your hand after a conversation. We are at a hostel, happy to be in a nice country. We will update again, sorry for the long blog... it's what happens when you cross 4 borders!

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Photos

Surf beach in El Salvador
hopefully we can go for a surf here on our way back up

Comments

[Braden]

More Trouble
All right, guys! Stick it to the man! Remember: possession is 9/10 of the law. Convert that to pesos and it's somewhere around 12/10. Be weary of giving up the goods. Sounds like it's fight, fight, fight, fight, barter a fine. I suppose that if you barter a fine up front, you just get hosed, though. Remember: This is fun! Jordan, in the name of Carlos Beltran would you please stop getting hurt! Thank you. B

[Janine]

Way to go travellers!
Two more borders to go! What crazy laws they have. I hope Jordan's thumb is OK. Sounds like you guys are getting good at dealing with the policia. Good thing $20 is a lot of money to them. Two weeks till we fly down.. Can't wait to see you all and hear your stories. Jocelyn and Simon, do you want to drive the car down to Panama to meet us, spend Friday night there (Mar 5th) and head back the next day? Norm has rented us a room. If not, we'll take the bus up to Las Tablas like Braden did. See you real soon. Take care all!