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Published: June 27th 2015
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Distance driven today: 242 miles / 389 km
Cumulative distance driven: 7,115 miles / 11,450 km (10,000 miles to go)
Today’s trip: Tegucigalpa, Honduras to Managua, Nicaragua
International border crossings: 1
Harassment by local Honduran ‘fixers’ at the border: yes, and very annoying
We left Tegucigalpa this morning and headed towards the Pacific coast and the Nicaraguan border. As we got close to the coast, the temperature steadily increased and finally reached 105F/40C by 11am when we got to San Lorenzo. By noon, we had already consumed about half a gallon (close to 2 liters)
each of ice tea, during the frequent hydration stops. The heat started getting unbearable, and the thermometer continued to rise.
The road between San Lorenzo, on the South West corner of Honduras towards the Nicaraguan border, turned out to contain quite a few road blocks that would slow us down. Apart from the usual dogs, horses and cows that occupy the road; we encountered an unusual bad case of potholes. The 80km/50miles road was filled with enormous potholes, often half or even one meter in diameter (1,5 to 3 ft wide!) and 10-15 cm deep (4-6 inches deep). Also, the
potholes were located across the entire breadth and length of the road, as if somebody had deliberately attempted to randomly place the potholes in the most unpredictable pattern across the tarmac.
The result was that all cars, as well as the many large semitrailers, were engaged in pothole slalom driving, i.e. they were swerving sharply, across both lanes, to avoid the potholes. Naturally, we did the same, only to discover that if we didn’t leave sufficient distance to the vehicle in front of us, we ended up not having enough time to react to the pothole that would race towards us behind a truck. We must have hit at least 5 of those enormous potholes so hard, that I was sure the rim of the wheel had split in half, something which would have been the end of the trip! Not matter how slow we drove, it ended up being impossible to avoid all potholes.
Perhaps the biggest roadblock of them all was the multitude of police and military check points along this short stretch of road towards the Nicaraguan border. Apparently, there is a sufficient amount of illegal immigrant traffic here, not to mention all the drugs
routed northbound through this road. I counted over 11 checkpoints, from local police, national police, military and military police within a stretch of 40 min. We were waived through all of them, apart from one Military Police (MP) check point. The MP asked for my passport and vehicle registration. He got thoroughly confused by the combination of my Swedish passport and Washington state license plate. Was I from Switzerland but living in the US then, he asked? I am from the ‘other’ Switzerland I explained, the one in the north of Europe, and it is called Sweden, I tried. He did not seem to take my joke well, and instantly he had called several of his heavily armed colleagues in uniform to consult with regarding the situation. I could suddenly feel that the tension was rising, and it occurred to me that I really needed to defuse the situation.
What better way to do that, than to appeal to his human side of a police officer, in this case a military police officer. Somehow, I thought of soccer, and took a wild chance. “Do you like soccer” I said, hoping that my stereotypical image of a Central
American young man adoring soccer above all else, would actually turn out to be true. “Yes”, he said, “who doesn’t around here?” “I am from the same country as Zlatan Ibrahimović”, I said. In soccer circles, Zlatan is considered to be one of the ten best soccer players ever. But di this MP know that fact about Zlatan, and perhaps more importantly, did he know who Zlatan is?
Ah, he exclaimed, Zlatan!! He is my favorite soccer player of all times. And that was it; he immediately called more colleagues, but this time to let them know that they had a person in their check point that came from the very same country as the great Zlatan! What an honor for the MPs! We chitchatted for 5 more minutes about how great Zlatan is, and I did my best to pretend that I knew all about Zlatan’s career, goal stats, the current soccer clue he is playing for etc. The MPs mood changed to the positive, and he waived us through the check point wishing us the very best on our adventurous journey. Oh, by the way, in case we did see Zlatan when we got back
to Sweden, would we mind saying hi from the Honduran MP, he asked?
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