Karma Karma Karma!

Nicaragua-Honduras-El Salvador

written May 1

Another million years have passed since the day before yesterday when I wrote last. I am currently writing this from the El Salvador/ Guatemala border and haven’t been able to find a place with internet where I’ve been staying, so I’m writing on a word document and will upload this to my blog later.

Mike and I were woken up by a ship being packed with crates, which sounded like bomb blasts, at 4 in the morning yesterday. Since I was already awake, I went out to the car to get some chapstick--which I’d parked in front of Hotel Central in Corintos, Nicaragua and paid the man who watches the area a few dollars to keep an eye on the car--to find the hazards on. Weird, I thought, I know we didn’t leave the hazards on. When I opened the door, I found the part where the car stereo had been completely dismantled and missing the stereo. After checking the rest of the car, in a complete frantic mess, I realized that Mike’s entire suitcase was missing, in addition to the cooler, the tent, every single toiletry and tool, all of our dirty clothes that were in the laundry bag and all of our dry goods. What was left was my suitcase, the styrofoam cooler, my empty Coach purse pushed under the front seat, our tennis shoes, the tarp for the tent and some snacks. Luckily, we had all of the paperwork, passports, computers, cameras and the iPhone in the room with us. And Mike’s surfboards (and my one) were safe and sound inside the hotel lobby. But, Mike and I were both shaken up and felt like someone was trying to tell us something about this trip--we just weren’t quite sure why it had to be in the form of our car getting broken into.

We left Corintos before 5 am and were into Honduras by 11. In the three hours that it took us to drive through Honduras, we were stopped at police checkpoints seven times--they wanted to get us for not having two emergency triangles and a fire extinguisher (the thieves left those, how nice of them) or any excuse they could think of. We also had to wait 45 minutes for a peaceful protest against the government that was blocking the highway. Finally, we made it to the Honduras- El Salvador border. In all of the Central American borders you have to check out of the exiting country, then drive over a bridge into the country you’re entering and do tons of paperwork on both sides. We checked out of Honduras in a relatively short amount of time but entering into El Salvador took over six hours. There was no system, so we got to sit and wait for a 24 hour pass, since they couldn’t enter our car into the system.

By the time we left the border, it was 5 pm. Mike and I drove another four hours, past San Salvador, but started looking for a place to stay around three hours into the drive. Finally, when we were so fed up with everything, we saw a sign for a hotel. I missed the turn because the sign was literally where the turn had to be made, so I was going to turn around and go back, but we saw a sign for another hotel. I knocked on the gate at the Casa Blanca Hotel that entered into a private parking lot (obviously a must from now on on this road trip) and asked if they took dogs, they said yes, and how much, $12 US, perfect! We parked and were introduced to the owner’s 29 year old son, Mario, who showed us to our room and told us to come up to the bar on the top story if we wanted to. A few minutes later, we were hanging out with Mario and his friends, having an amazingly good time. We had a couple of beers, some good conversation, made a plan to go surf at Jutla in the morning for a couple of hours with Mario and maybe his girlfriend, then went to sleep happy as clams. Last night made me believe in karma, especially traveling karma, so much--we were both so down from the car getting broken into, getting harassed in Honduras by the police, then spending eight hours getting into El Salvador, thank goodness we randomly stumbled upon Casa Blanca.

We woke up this morning at six, then went to the beach for a few hours. It was about a forty-five minute drive from the hotel (I’ll have to email Mario for the name of the town it’s in) down the mountains to the beach and the terrain of El Salvador was breathtaking. The rain forest reminded me of Costa Rica and the beach too, but of course it had its own cultural touches to it. Mike caught some waves while I played on the beach with the dogs throwing coconuts and Mario watched, we got some breakfast, then left. Mario was nice enough to take us to get toiletries after that, then to a Multiplaza mall (there’s two in Costa Rica and they’re comparable to any nice mall in the US that I’ve been too, and the one in El Salvador was the same) to get Mike some clothes, since he’d been wearing his only outfit for two days. We got back to Casa Blanca around noon, took a shower, then headed up to the border so that we wouldn’t overstay our 24 hour permit. If it wasn’t for the permit, Mike and I both agreed that we would’ve stayed at least one more night at the hotel to see more of the country with Mario as our friend and guide. But such is life, so we have to come back some day. (Mario, if you’re reading this, Mike and I will definitely be back to visit sooner than later and you should try to make it up to San Diego if you can!)

Okay, so that brings me to now. We’re sitting at the Guatemala side of the El Salvador- Guatemala border and supposedly we’re almost finished. I know our passports are checked, and the dogs are good to go, but the car takes forever to get put into the system. Really, couldn’t it be a little more time-efficient. But I guess that would mean we would see a lot more (or any for that matter) other travelers doing the same route as us.

Here are pictures of the last few days:

• The first one if on the way out of Popoyo--we were stopped by a massive herd of cows so I thought it’d be funny to remember.
• The second one is also on the dirt road out of Popoyo--it is a typical house that we saw all over the country of Nicaragua.
• The third picture is a “Bienvenidos a...” sign, but also note the massive guns the Honduran military (who looked like children) have.
• The fourth picture is of the peaceful protest in Honduras. I love the picture of Che on the yellow banner.
• The fifth picture is of Maecito sleeping on top of Max in the backseat, waiting at the border to get into El Salvador. He is currently in almost the same position, so I’m thinking it might become a habit for the rest of the road trip :)

We’re still waiting at the border and were just informed that (even after the seven hours it took them to do it) El Salvador put 15 instead of 17 numbers for the car’s VIN, so they are fixing it “as quickly” as possible. Vamos a ver... We’re trying to get to Antigua tonight and I’m guessing there will be lots of wireless there since it’s a huge Spanish studying hub, so I’ll post this later and write a short little summary of the rest of the day, too. And that’s all for now folks...