BootsnAll Travel Network



Border Crossing Into El Salvador

We left Antigua around 8:00 AM.  We wanted to get an early start since you never know how long the crossings will take.  We made great time and got to the border sooner than we expected.  Leaving Guatemala was straightforward – we went to immigration, they scanned our passports and then a border policeman signed our car permit as proof that we exited the country with our car.  That is when things started to get difficult.

As usual I went in to the permit office since the car is in my name.  Matthias stayed in the car with William and Julian (in 95 degree weather) and entertained the group of 8 year olds trying to offer their help in crossing into El Salvador.  This is only the 3rd border crossing so far and I thought it would be a bit easier since I have a few weeks of intensive Spanish classes under my belt.  I understood about as much as I did the first two times, and it is a little frustrating to know that I will probably have to do this 11 more times before returning to Seattle. 

Matthias had noticed a couple of hummers with US plates at the border and he thought we should ask those people if we were actually in the right spot to get our permit.  The owner of the Hummers was the first person in line and I was right behind him.  He was born in the Dominican Republic, but spent most of his life in the US.  He spoke Spanish and English and I was happy that he could tell me at least if I was in the right line.  There was no one at the counter, so we just waited and chatted.  It turns out he used to pitch for the NY Mets in the 70s and 80s and was now moving his family to Panama to start a jet ski rental business.  His wife was driving one Hummer, he was driving the other and each was pulling a pair of brand new jet skis.  Talk about sticking out like a sore thumb.  After about 25 minutes of chatting with him, I noticed the customs officer at the next counter was playing solitaire on his computer and figured this might be kind of a long ordeal.  It turns out the reason we had been waiting so long was because the computer system was down.  At least I was number 2 in line so when they came back up I should get through very fast. 

After about another hour they decided to start passing out numbers so people could go outside and not have to wait in the office.  The only option at this point was to wait for the computers to come back online.  We wouldn’t be able to get past the next control without a vehicle permit, and even if we could, trying to exit without a valid vehicle permit would result in a lot of trouble and fines later.  A security guard walking past also said that the computer systems almost never went down, but when they do they are always down for at least 24 hours.  We started thinking about where we were going to get food and how we would probably end up sleeping in the Yoda Van that night. 

In the meantime Matthias had struck up a conversation with the pitcher’s wife out in front of the permit office.  That was great because they have 3 kids (ages 3, 4 and 5) and William and Julian had a great time playing with them.  She also had time to tell Matthias about their horror story of crossing into Guatemala.  They arrived the day before at the border at El Carmen around 8:00 AM.  They we working on getting their car permit to drive their Hummers through Guatemala and the border officials were giving them a real hard time.  11 hours later, a woman at the border said point blank “Christmas is coming up we would like to buy presents for our family.  If you want to cross into Guatemala tonight we want money.”  They ended up paying $600 dollars in bribes to various officials at this border.  One condition of them entering the country was that they were also required to have a customs official come with them to “guide them safely” out of the country – for a fee, of course, that they were required to pay.  It is not uncommon for foreigners in nice cars to be car-jacked, and Guatemala considers it in their own interest to see that these people are escorted safely out of their country.  So our new American friends were also traveling with their best new Guatemalan buddy whose only job was to see that they get out of the country as fast as possible.

These guys were definitely different from any of the travelers we have met in the last 3 months on the road.  When the El Salvadorian customs official was taking the inventory of our car he looked over at the Hummers and said “Those cars cost at least $90,000 each.”  And this family was traveling with two of them and a load of jet skis in tow.  It is no wonder the Guatemalans smelled opportunity.  Most of them will work their entire lives and not make that much money.  In that sense the Yoda Van is certainly a good car for this trip.  It doesn’t have “cha-ching” writing all over it, and no one in their right mind would think we had any amount of money just by looking at our vehicle.  Another thing that might make things easier for us is the fact that all the paper work is in my name, and that I don’t speak great Spanish.  When I finally came back to get my permit, the pitcher was still trying to push his way through a mass of people to turn in his paperwork.  They kept telling him he had his papers in the wrong order.  If anyone told me that my papers we out of order, I would never have understood.  They just put them in order for me.  In fact, the man doing the inventory of our car filled out all my paperwork for me.  I also think they were just trying to mess with this guy, because they could.

After 3 hours the computers came back online and we were off after another hour.  We drove to La Libertad which is on the coast just south of the capitol San Salvador.  The drive along the coast was spectacular.  For most of the drive there were almost no houses.  I kept asking myself “Why doesn’t anyone come to this country?  It is so beautiful!”  I know its reputation has been tarnished by civil war, but we haven’t seen any signs of that so far.  Our friends the teachers from Guatemala City gave us the name of a great place to stay right outside of town.  We’ve spent a lot of time on the beach, resting in hammocks and talking to other people staying here.  There is a long pier in the middle of town and we’ve have bought fresh shrimp and fish and have had great meals the last few nights.  When we first got here there were 3 Americans who are working for the Peace Corps, once they left it was just us and two Austrian guys on a surfing vacation.  We spent a nice evening drinking beers and talking, each of us in our own hammock.  They left for Guatemala and we were really sad to see them leave yesterday.  One of the nicest things about this place is it isn’t overrun with tourists, and as such you are never bombarded by people trying to sell you stuff.  That changes if you go into the city of La Libertad, but we are away from all that.  We are the only tourists here that aren’t surfers.  But that is about to change since we’re taking my first surfing lesson tomorrow.  Ever since Puerto Escondido I knew I had to learn to surf.  Right where we are at in El Salvador are some of the best surfing beaches in all of Central America.  Who could think of a better place to learn to surf that this!

The Beach in El Salvador



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3 responses to “Border Crossing Into El Salvador”

  1. Louis says:

    Interesting reading, thank you

  2. Jaime says:

    I enjoyed reading your blog, good luck.

  3. Mark C says:

    I have crossed the Guatemalan/El Salvadoran border several times and never had the insident that you’ve described, it’s good to know. But for sure, I was not driving a hummer 🙂
    By the way, love El Salvador, really loving people, I’ve found some pictures of El Salvador: http://www.viaggee.com.
    thx for reporting, cheers, Mark.

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