At One with the Van

Our other new friend right next to our rooms

9-14-10

Beautiful Hotel in El Salvador and last bath for several days.

We had church in the room when it started raining hard.

Our plates of Honduran-chinese food after we were done eating.

The ice cream melted faster than we could eat it.

Even the dog was trying to cool off

Our new friends in front of their room at the Mandarin Hotel

We spent many hours at the border.  Many vendors and travelers were under this building in the shade.  It was well into the 100's and no AC anywhere.  We didn't want to drink too much as bathrooms were a little hard to come by. It was definately interesting to see life here at the border.

The guy behind us said to say hi.

The Mandarin Hotel & Restaurant

We are one with the van.  It has taken on our clothing, our smell, and a good share of our time for the last 2 days. We left the entry border of Honduras yester day about 12:15.  That was almost exactly 24 hours from when we arrived.  As mentioned before some of the intervening hours were spent at the Hotel Mandarin.

We got back in line about 9am when the border was supposed to have its computer fixed.  We really don’t believe that there was a problem.  We have no idea why we had to wait, other than they wanted to extort more money from us, at least $250. Well they finally relented and gave us permission to go on.  The family from Tennessee, called the Vanderzons  also were allow to go on.  They were grateful for the help and company as were we.  We very much enjoyed getting to know them.

We found out it was worse with the trucker we had driven with in El Salvador than we thought. His tire and wheel had failed because of the topes, or speed bumps. His load had broken loose and slid into a house that was by the road.  That was how the little girl was killed. The mom saw it coming and jumped out of the way.   The houses there are often just feet from the roadside.  It was so sad.  We feel bad for him and the girls family too.

We had 4 hours to cross the country, which was considered a 2 hour drive.  We are really just crossing a corner.  Although it seemed simple, the roads were horrible.  There were hugely huge potholes everywhere.  They were so deep that hitting one wrong at speed could wreck the van or trailer.  We had to keep up a reasonable speed to cross in time, and thus Clint had to weave all over the road to avoid the biggest ones.  It was not possible to miss them all and not hit oncoming traffic. 

The country didn’t have speed bumps, but did have ---police stops.  The first one was set up on the highway not far from the border.  Clint had been told to have dollar bills ready and to give out $2.00 at these stops.  The first guy said he didn’t think our papers  were in order and that we would have to go back, but was thirsty, and would take $5.00 instead.  Later the Vanderzons who were at the stop before us said as soon as he saw us, he just waved them on.  I guess we did them a favor.

One of many police stops.  The Vanderzons ahead of us.

The next guy took the $2.00 happily.  The next guy said we were great people.  He thought we needed reflectors and a fire extinguisher . 

The last guy surprised us and didn’t want anything but to look at our papers. Near the end of our trans Honduran journey, we hit a large mountain.  There was great scenery, but there were so many people, bicycles, and free roaming animals that we had to really watch it.

We hit the border about 3pm which did prove that it was doable.  We did have to open the trailers and pay a little on the Honduran side, but it only took about 30 minutes.

We went on through to Nicaragua.  The stop there took until 5:30 or 6:00.  We were grateful for a little roadside stand there as we had not really had a meal yet, and we had great coffee and some bread.

Katie playing soccer at the border with local kids.

It was good to make it in too Nicaragua.The mayor of the border town tried to get us to pay a "voluntary" $1.00 per person tax for driving through his town.  He waived a paper around that he said made it manditory.  He threatened that we would be stopped by police if we failed to pay.  Clint read the paper which actually said we were exempt.  When we settled on $1.00 per car, he was smiling as we left.  Oh well no police stop anyway.

Katie and Nick played soccer with some local kids at the border.  The street was not very busy with cars at that time. 

Clint doing business. These buildings and people are an official part of the border.  It is often hard to tell by looking.

We were glad to be off into Nicaragua.  It was apparent right away that Nicaragua is a pretty modern well maintained country on the main roadways and cities.  The roads were good. No potholes.  Night fell quickly and by the time we started looking for a hotel we found none that could take our van. Nicaragua unfortunately passed by in the night.  It looked like a very interesting place. We hit a major rain storm. We also had to turn around several times as the signs didn’t match the directions given very well.  At one point we unexpectedly hit a lake of pretty deep water which was from the ditch overflowing.  We were giving thanks that although we couldn’t see for a distance, the road was straight and we stopped without going off.  In Nicaragua we noticed some celebrations going on in several towns.  It appears that it is their independence day.

After driving until 1 am, we went to the border which was closed and sat until 6 am.  We slept as best as able and eventually began to see people moving around.  The usual long paperwork process began then we went through customs.   As we  were bringing the van and lots of other stuff into the country after we cleared the Nicaragua side it took until well into late morning to go through to Costa Rica.  They had to call a lawyer from town to expedite the paperwork for importing the van.  I haven’t heard yet, but bringing in vehicles is very expensive.

Clint was really happy to be into Costa Rica where he understands the rules.  Also we are much closer to Renee and the family who he is starting to miss terribly, Nick too.

Welcome to Costa Rica!!