Through Honduras and into El Salvador – 5/25/2013
May 27th, 2013 by rallyadmin
After we checked into the hotel, I decided that we could at least solve the document check problem. I took the original document that list Nicaragua as a country excluded for coverage and clipped the the image of the page. Then with a little PhotoShop magic, I very carefully erased the words “and Nicaragua” and pasted the newly edited clip on to a new page. Copy the page to a thumb drive, go down to the desk, print out a new page and we’re in business. I hope. At least, we might get through a document check. Clemo would be proud of me.
We’re up and gone very early. I think that both of us want to get this “no insurance” problem over with and the way to do that is get out of Nicaragua. It’s less than 200 miles to the Honduran border and it’s an easy drive with not much traffic.
The road winds its way west and south through a long line of volcanoes. There’s a high overcast and one of the volcanoes, Momotombo is almost in the clouds. But not quite. There’s a steam plume coming from the summit crater atop the almost perfect cone that rising from Lake Managua. It forms an archetypal volcano.
We noticed that there appear to be electrical generating stations at the foot of the volcano that are releasing steam plumes. It’s obviously an active volcano but the small villages and farm that ring the base of the cone seem totally unaware of its existence. I’m sure that a couple of serious rumbles from Momotombo would change that quickly.
The road is good and there’s not much traffic. But the poverty level is much more obvious. That may be because the country side is not as tropical but more open farmland. Occasionally, the villages are all huts rather than small houses. And the dreaded tumulos (speed bumps) have returned. Fortunately, the villages are few and far between and we make good time in spite of the tumulos.
We get to the border and, as usual we’re ambushed by the local “aduana guides”. We pull up to the aduana and park. Inside to the exit aduana and then to the passport control. In less than 30 minutes we’re out of Nicaragua and into no-mans-land across the bridge to Honduras.
Our plan is to be in Guatemala tonight so that means 4 border crossings in total. Out of Nicacaragua, into Honduras, out of Honduras and into Guatemala. That looks like a very ambitious plan but leaving Nicaragua was the polar opposite of entering Nicaragua. And we always have the “ aduana guides” available to us. We’d have to beat them off with a stick to avoid them.
We do Honduran entry passport control with no issues in just a few minutes. aduana control is another matter. Our “guides” Ramon and Julio really do make things happen at least in the right order. As usual there are no instructions posted anywhere and if you try to do this on your own without the guides help, you can do it but it takes much longer just because you keep waiting in the wrong line until someone helpfully steers you in the correct direction. Then you have to come back to the line that you were incorrectly waiting in in the first place. In short, the “guides” make a difference.
But it seems that at every step there are greenbacks going out for permits, fees and taxes. It takes about 45 minutes (actually quite a short time, in our experience) but we are “finito: and redy to head into Honduras. Except, of course, for the little matter of the “guides” fee. They are reaaly being greedy and we argue for a bit but in the end, John holds his ground and they take what we’re willing to give. It must be enough because they call they’re friend Popo and tell him to meet us in a few hours at the Honduran exit customs.
Honduras may very well be the poorest country in Central America. And one of the hilliest. We pass through areas where the ecology seems to change every 10 kms. It will be tropical jungle, palms and banana tress and then suddenly everything changes to semi-arid scrub land.
We don’t understand it but we suspect that it has something to do with the geology of the area. This area that we are driving through, flatish and nearer the coast is also littered with volcanoes. The problem may be that in these dry areas, the ground just doesn’t hold water.
But soon enough we’re heading uphill. We’re on a good road that turns into a 4 lane road and then starts climbing steeply. It seems that in a short time we’re back at 8,000 feet and still climbing on the twisty 4 lane, then 2 lane, road. And the weather starts to turn.
The high overcast that has been keeping the temperatures down is not bringing fog and rain. Driving these high mountain roads is challenging in good weather. In this fog and rain, it’s too much of a good thing even for driving fanatics like us. And if you gain 6,000 or 7,000 feet on one side of the mountains you get to give it all back on the way back down. Without frying your brakes in the descent.
In about 4 hours we’re at the Honduran/El Salvadoran frontier and as we pull into the aduana area, an Honduran “guide” runs up to the car. As John rolls down the window, the guide sticks his hand in the window and announces that he’s Popo. We both break up. These guys are just too much. He says that his friends Ramon and Julio called him and told him thet he should help us. They said that we were “muy buenos hombres” (this literally means “good guys” but I think in guide-speak it means that these bozos have cash and they’re willing to spend it.)
We do get some help but the exit procedure from Honduras is much simpler than the entry procedure and we don’t get much help for our money which isn’t much any way. They do point us to the passport control (in – passport control then aduana; out – aduana then passport control).
We cross no-mans-land into El Salvador and pass through the most uneventful border crossing yet. And we’re back on the road to San Salvador, the capitol for the night. The road is the same as what we’ve been driving since we were in northern Costa Rica, complete with the multiplying numbers of speed bumps in every village the road passes through.
This may be The Panamericana but it’s still the main drag through each of these little towns and without the speed bumps, the traffic would be blasting through each of them mowing down kids, stray dogs, moto-taxis and the odd stray cow, horse or goat. It’s understandable why they’re there but it’s a very frustrating way to drive a long distance.
You go a couple of kms at 50 mph and slow to a stop, cross the bump, accelerate, slow to a stop, cross another bump, accelerate, slow to a stop, cross another bump, etc. For 6 to 8 speed bumps. Then accelerate to 50 mph for another couple of kms and start the procedure all over again in the next town.
But just as the light is starting to fade, we’re in San Salvador. We find a hotel for the night. Stop. Turn off the Spot. Open the wine.
Obi-wan
One Response to “Through Honduras and into El Salvador – 5/25/2013”
Enjoying your posts – sounds like a great adventure. Would love to be a fly on the wall — lol– not a passenger in the car!
Stay safe ~