Granada, Nicaragua

After crossing the border we decided to make the long haul to Granada a lake side colonial town that has that beautiful Spanish style architecture. We arrived sweaty and faint after a days driving and had some trouble finding a hotel with adequate parking. After driving around for an hour we settled on a fancy place which was nice for one night, but we moved to a cheap hostel after that, which is an affordable $10 per night. There are loads of restaurants and cafes here, which makes things a little more comfortable.

We have been hearing some strange sounds from the bike so we are going to try and get some mechanical assistance in Costa Rica, where we are likely to find good mechanics since they have a BMW motorcycle dealer there. We only hope the bike gets us there safely! Right now we are relaxing in cafes reading English magazines and dosing up on comforts before we head off to explore a small island created by two volcanoes on Lake Nicaragua which you can reach by a car ferry.

It has become clear some time ago that we won´t have enough time to make it to South America without rushing things terribly. In the end we settled on taking our time and enjoying the countries we do get to see, rather then racing the clock and ticking boxes. At first we were really disappointed but we have decided to leave it for a separate trip (Heading South '09, '10, '11...) and possibly extend this trips route with an extra northern leg that leads south to Los Angeles. We´ll decide once we reach Panama City.

Honduras

We had been warned but in the end the border crossing was worse than we imagined! The first sign that we had approached the border was a frantic flock of young men that stopped us on the road and shuffled their own photos printed on official looking plastic cards into our faces. Chattering in a mix of fluent Spanish and little English they tried to convince us that they all were official border crossing agents that would help us getting across in one piece and in as little as a few hours. Initially we drove right on but eventually agreed to accept some help from one guy. One guy became two rather magically and our "fixers" snapped Alex and pulled him away for hours and hours and hours of paperwork. As it turns out you need more paperwork to get a vehicle into Honduras then the local rain forests could sustain and help was really needed. None of the offices had even a sign above the barred windows so without local knowledge and fluent Spanish we surely would still be in the no mans land between El Salvador and Honduras. But even our hired local expertise was not enough to make the crossing in one day so a large amount of bribing was required to get anything going.
We got through after four sweaty hours and $100 dollars in bribes and obscure fees (among them an immigration fee we had already paid in Guatemala, and a hefty road tax even though we promised to leave the country that same day) . All together we spent about ten times the cost at other borders
We weren´t feeling too keen on Honduras after that experience and planned to drive straight through onto Nicaragua. We stopped for lunch and decided to spend a night before tackling another border crossing fearing the worst (another Honduras style experience).

Just after we arrived in a tidy hotel in a tiny mountain town called San Marcos de Colon Alex started feeling really ill. He developed a fever and went on to develop the worst case gastroenteritis I have ever seen, he was so ill and I was really worried. Luckily it didn´t last too long but we had to wait for a few days until he had the strength to drive. Slowly and gradually he was able to face getting on the road again.

The crossing into Nicaragua was a breeze in comparison and we almost enjoyed it! The fixer had a lot of bad things to say about the northern neighbor and entertained us with his seizable knowledge of European club football while waiting for the vehicle papers being typed up (free of charge!). We had heard good things about Nicaragua and were looking forward to doing more exploring.

Sunzal, El Salvador

We crossed the border without too much fuss from Guatemala into El Salvador and enjoyed a beautiful drive along the coastal highway. The coastline was far more beautiful than we had expected, we had seen pictures of black sand and well it all looked a little drab, but in reality the beaches are beautiful. We arrived around sunset and the seaside mountains were washed in an amber glow, we could smell the moist earth from the rainfall we had just missed. The roads were paved and generally not too bad. Though we did have to dodge cows, children playing, chickens and pigs, but after Guatemala it didn´t seem too bad. We arrived in Sunzal, a tiny beach town largely devoted to meeting the needs of adventure surfers. Our surfing careers have never quite taken off and we must confess although rentals and lessons were available, we found just watching entertainment enough. When we first drove in we pretty much drove right onto the beach by accident and immediately met two pilots from the US who fly to El Salvador regularly. They are keen surfers and gave us the low down on the area. They also generously invited us to visit them in the states when we head back. We also met some interesting brothers from New Zealand, one of whom was going to Canada to work as a fire fighter and another who was going to study law and philosophy in Australia. We have met so many interesting and adventurous people, who really seem to be making the most of their lives and opportunities.

Sunzal beach has only recently started to see some international tourists and the accomodation and restuarant options were extremely basic. We braved the water, which is bath warm, and had a swim, only my second (M) and Alex´s third for the whole trip. The pitch black sand was intrigueing and after you got over feeling grubby it didn´t matter that much. I must admit though it was at Sunzal that I got a nasty dose of homesickness, I don´t know if it was the black sand, but everything felt very foreign and frightening. There are many warnings around about El Salvador and in fact of lot of the countries we visit, after a while it can get to you.

After Sunzal we drove through El Salvador on the way to the Honduras border, we stopped to stretch at the side of the road and sat on the grass and watched tiny flowers moving, it seemed of their own volition all over the grass. We realised that hundreds of ants were carrying whole tiny flowers on their back, it made me smile and softened the ache of homesickness. We then made it to a nameless drab town near the border and decided to spend the night in a depressingly basic hotel before attempting the border crossing. We had heard that Honduras was the toughest crossing so we needed to embark on it early in the day.