A border a day

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Tim version:
* Crossed from Leon out of Nicaragua through Gualaupe, through Honduras, to San Miguel for the night... unfortunately ripped off a little in Honduras.
* Crossed further to San Salvador to replace my dead music player and pick up some other stuff... El Salvador and its people, amazing!

The version where I feel like writing in Spanglish as that is the only way I seem to be able to speak now!:

So, time to leave Nicaragua! This country rocks, and there is so much to do especially the more off the beaten track you wish to go. Its amazing what you can get up to when safety and often legality is dismissed! You just need to use your head, because no matter how stupid something may be, if you want to do it, there is undoubtedly someone that will let you (or sell it to you as an Eco Tour!).

From Leon I decided Id head for the Guasaule border crossing with Honduras, crossing through Chinandega. Only requiring 2 chicken buses, it was a cruisy run... I said my goodbye to Nica, had my freeby pancake breakfast and hit the road1

From Leon to Chinandega I talked to a guy of Uni age about a few basic things and got onto the topic of learning languages, and once again it was echoed that its really expencive for them to learn English! Dictionaries and other material being one of the big problems. He was a really smart kid and it drove home again how easy life is back in Aus, but it also made me re-realise something else - how incredibly important and useful the internet is to the 2nd and 3rd world! Books can be really hard and expencive to get here for various reasons, however there is an abundance of cyber cafes and computers and this kid was saying how much he uses it for University as even his lecturers often cant get the textbooks they require to teach with, let alone copies for the students. Meanwhile a flakey power grid and lots of power spikes make it hard to keep electrical goods alive.

*OK, some thoughts just popped into my head about my Nica experience so Im going to put digital en to paper while theyre here... feel free to skip over all this *
Hating big business - for some its a lifestyle, others its almost a religion, and the thought of a big mean corporation pushing out other smaller local business sounds horrible, but I think that conclusion comes about very prematurely most of the time and without nearly enough thought... its an easy line to follow, and a hard one to argue against. However, heres what I found in Nica. The "big evil" supermarkets and electronic stores provide otherwise unfound products and variety. Remembering this is Nica, by variety I mean more than half a dozen things! Its incredible to walk a market with hundreds of stalls, with dozens of electronic stalls and to see the same half dozen products at every single stand with no variety at all, and were not talking exotic variety, were talking basic stuff i.e. if you were studying journalism and wanted a dictaphone then you are shit out of luck. Same goes for a stereo with 2 tape players to make backup tapes. with all the bookshops in Nicaragua and Leon with much of their economy relying on students learning Spanish, I could not find one book on the rules of Spanish grammar, sentence structure, nor any lists of irregular verbs - a slight problem eh? The entrances of these large "evil" stores have good security and air conditioning providing otherwise unfound safety and coolness when you need it, and by working in bulk stock they can provide all of this along with inspected goods like meat and dairy products (which after buying meat that has been hanging freely all day over a rusty metal hook with flies on it and people coughing all around on a 30 celcius plus day is appreciated, especially because if you do get sick then healthcare is also more difficult to get, with makes a pretty mean circle of life for some...) and warranties on electronic goods. Not bad. They also employ a lot of people with a regular income. I dont know whether its a good or bad income, but to work in a safe cool environment with a guaranteed pay check certainly has its perks and suits many people. The real balance is to ensure good wages and working conditions are provided, which takes some work on the part of the government, and this is where the flaw appears to be...

Hand me down clothes! Never have I seen such a good use! It really makes you go "wow" as nothing is too good to hand down... amongst what Ive seen includes a fairly tough looking Creole speaking Afro-Spanish dock worker with a pink Varsity Ameriacn University shirt from a cheerleading squad with the name "Stephanie" embroided on it (in Bluefields, a tough area...), a man in a park in Leon doing rough gardening work using a Santa hat and its dongle to shade himself from the sun, and a guy who looked homeless wearing a girls top with frilled short arms and an elastic cleavage showing front.

Manners - Or lack thereof! Its a different culture I know but the lack of manners in some areas is disgusting. This is certainly not a typical Nicaraguan thing, most are well mannered, but there are some things that just got to me... and it isnt to do with their economic position as the country cowboy style poor areas have incredible manners! Sharing footpaths, not littering, letting ladies go first and elderly have seats, and saying "sorry" or "excuse me" if you bump someone or cause a problem - all of this appears to be seriously lacking and it gets to you after a while! A very strong mental note for my future parenting... this kind of thing does not appear to come naturally and needs teaching from an early stage.

Whats really natural? I started the trip with an "I want to see some real raw nature, not these set u natural parks" mentality. National Parks, well maintained zoos, they all felt a bit "set up" before... not so now. Theyre just as natural as you can really find anywhere much of the time, and if popular and visited, with goo funding they are much better protected and better looked after! The Nicaraguan jungles and surrounding bush, by staying "raw and natural", is now polluted, over hunted, and deforrested. Introduced species, poor harvesting practices, the havok they can cause is chronically bad... and its all here for you to see.
*OK, back to the travel...*

Chinandega to Guasuale, microbus, easy, nothing special... the border crossing, it sucks. From the bus I was hassled worse than ever, my bag getting pulled from my hands into cycle taxis, the usual stuff but in much greater numbers.. I flipped and let them get to me and hired one... my first mistake. My second was letting him take me to his money changing friend who ripped me off about $5 (my stuid mistake as I had my exchange rates wrong, and he played on that). My 3rd was not knowing the CA4 region entry and exit conditions well enough and letting immigration charge me 2 bullshit fees of $6 in total. Honduras, I aint impressed... On the Honduran side the people were blunt, unhelpful, and really just pricks. I caught a microbus to Choluteca just wanting to get out of that border. From there it was a much happier easier bus ride to El Salvador, the El Amatillo border.

Heh in Choluteca I saw a Pizza Hut, but not quite as you{d expect... it was a stand in the sun with one guy standing behind it with a dozen pre cooked pizzas, also in the sun. Yes there was a menu, but it was pointless as you could only have what he had already. Not exactly the best situation for keeping meat and cheese in a healthy state!

You also notice a big difference in affluence in Honduras compared to Nica. Its still poor, but relative to Nica it felt surprisingly rich.

Now the El Amatillo border... the Honduran side, shit! Again, poor advice, no help, and a feeling that every question I asked was a major pain in the ass and I was ruining their day, and that included their guy with a tourist information badge on. Then came the El Salvadorian side - Wow!! I literally sighed a happy sigh and let my shoulders drop. The immigration guys not only checked really quickly and charged nothing, but they also gave me the full rundown on the CA4 agreement, told me the Hondurans couldnt and shouldnt have charged me and showed true disgust, and then we talked a bit about El Salvador. The vendors and bus drivers, equally incredible! Their border side wasnt cluttered, I wasnt hassled, it was just so so good!

I was aiming for Santa Rosa for the night but in the dark missed my stop and instead went to San Miguel. The Lonely Planet guide for El Salvador, and San Miguel in particular, so wrong! Ignore it please, whoever wrote it was just grumpy at the time and its really screwed up El Salvador as a backpacking destination I think. I got a wicked private room, basic but awesome, with local workers and movies playing on a TV for less than $4, totally secure. Had some good talks with the Barber and drunk around the corner, good food from some vendors outside, and got some good travel advice from the owner. The day in San Miguel is fine, the night earns its reputation more as seedy and possibly a bit dangerous, but hell, its a largish industrial town... thats the same anywhere! Anyway, so freakin happy to be in El Salvador and now Honduras, thats the first country I can say I actually dont like. I know it was only a short encounter but I talked to a lot of people and involved a few towns and it was the only country to have everyone acting like pricks. Did I mention our bus got stopped and I got all checked over by the police, the only person on the bus (the only gringo on the bus too) to have that happen to and I thought Id have to make my first bribe? Thankfully partially due to my poor Spanish and the cops frustration I didnt have to...

Tomorrow, San Salvador! The guidebook makes it sounds seedy and horrible, which would kinda match the other Central American capitals, but with the book being so wrong about El Salvador so far i now wonder what its really like...

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Photos

Transport police?
Transperth guards, you think you´ve got power, check out these guys!

Rio Sucio
At least that what I call it

My flashy room in San Miguel
Which actually had a really comfortable bed!