Driving through El Salvador and Honduras

We crossed into El Salvador on the Central America Carraterra 2. This border was relatively mellow but the El Salvadorian border town immediately following is definitely a little sketch.

I had a 14 year old kid in rags handle our crossing paperwork and by the time we finished crossing night had already fallen.

We stuck to our guidelines and decided that there would be no driving at night in El Salvador. There really isn´t anything at the border and the road from the border is deserted for miles.

This left only one option, my little border boy.... I´m going to let Brad take it from here...


... Hey folks, this is where it gets a little weird, so try and stick it out with me.
Like Jana said driving in El Salvador at night is not an option; the gangs control the streets, not the cops.
It was dark by the time we finished up at the border and we asked our border boy if he knew of a place close by that was safe. He literally walked us another 50 feet past the border and got us a room with gated parking for the truck.
Well this hotel wasn't really a hotel, I think it is safe to say that one day this was a working hotel. However, nowadays it is more of an orphanage for kids who don't have a place to call home, or for kids from out of town that are working the border.
This place did not even have keys for the rooms. The toilets did not work, and the shower just barely trickled water. I would have avoided the shower all together, but I was as ripe as a banana ready for cooking. There was blood on one wall and fairy tales written on all the walls in Spanish.I think they were there to keep us safe.
Neither of us slept well, but come dawn the next morning we were off again with Honduras on the mind.
El Salvador was beautiful and rich with coast line. I wish we had time to stay and surf, but we had a time frame to stick to so we just kept on trucking.
Now for Honduras, this will be short and sweet as we both would be happy if we never had to drive through or spend any time in Honduras again.
I have never seen a country that is so corrupt. This country has many problems right now and poverty is a very big issue along with hunger and of course theft. With that said, the govt officials are the ones to watch out for. I am thankful I brought some nudie magazines along strictly to pay off the corrupt officials. I had 2 policia threaten to cut up my drivers license if I did not give them $20. After I explained that we spent all of our money to get into the country, I was able to pass them a few mags and get back on the road.
Sorry there are no photos from this leg of the trip, all of our electronic equipment was hidden in deep in the truck, with hopes that we would have it when we left the country.
If you ever find yourself in this country at bight and don't know where to stay, let me know and I will set you up, but for now I don't want to think about this day.

Till next time.

Guatemala to El Salvador

Debra, Gary, and choosing caravan partners ---

Due to the chaos surrounding the vehicle exit requirements, and the ensuing wild goose chase through Tapachula, we quickly found ourselves in this border town at dusk (which I have coined the "witching hour") and ducked into a legitimate, incognito hotel with secure parking before the vampires came out to suck gringo blood.


The next morning we pulled up to the Banjercito office (see previous blog) behind a black 2004 Mustang with Nevada plates. What a couple of tools, right?

Enter Debra and Gary, whose names and vehicle descriptions have been changed to protect their conspicuously fugitive identites.

Gary: Hey there! Where you headed to? Costa Rica? Let me guess, English teachers, right?

Brad: Uh, no, just travelling.

Gary: Yeah, I'm headed down to teach English with my wife, we're totally sick of the states. Yeah, she just couldn't live without her Mustang.

Debra: She's my high maintenance girlfriend. The roads have been a real bitch on her though... They're going to get better in Costa Rica, though.

At this point I'm thinking, what planet is this woman from, has she never seen the Volkswagon bug size potholes seeping throughout the Costa Rican roadways? And a Mustang? Please. We've designed our vehicle and packing job to be as low profile as possible which makes what is about to happen next all the more asinine.

Gary: So, you want to caravan down?

Brad: Uh, yeah, that'd be great.

I agreed as well and in hindsight I think I did so just to see what would happen next.

We later learned that the Mustang was recently purchased, that Gary was making payments on it and it didn't even have plates yet. Debra just had that Nevada plate on hand and threw it on so the federalis wouldn't think it was so bizarre that she's driving a $40,000 car without plates in southern Mexico... because that's totally normal, right? I mean I've got plates in the back of our truck from 5 states and 2 South American countries...


This sort of behavior appeared to be totally normal to Debra and Gary. In fact, Gary heartily informed us that he wasn't planning on actually paying for the car anyway. These sort of bizarre comments arose virtually every time we stopped the vehicles.

At one point, Gary asked if we wanted to share a hotel room with him because he was just too cheap to pair for one on their own. Then he did the unthinkable and actually stopped a ¨police officer¨for directions.



When we got to the El Salvador border at dusk. I was pissed. If I hadn´t been on the fence about sticking with these two, we would have been in a hotel by now safely watching telenovelas. When he said he didn´t want to pay for a border guide to get him into Nicaragua, we split, we were through the border as night fell and onto our next problem of finding a safe place to stay pronto. For all I know, Debra and Gary could still be at the Nicaraguan border.



The lesson here is to choose your caravan partners wisely. Just because someone speaks the same native language as you and is also driving south does not mean that you will be safer driving with them. Safety in numbers only applies to intelligent people.



The upside of Debra and Gary is that I might actually get to call someone in on America´s Most Wanted one day.