Travels of the Bay family and the Yoda Van

This place is so over run with Gringos it is really starting to get on our nerves. Even the $18.00/night hostel we stayed in Liberia had cable TV with all the major American TV stations CBS, TNT, Nickelodeon, Food Network, HBO, Cinemax, and others. I think it is totally crazy that all the room rates we have been quoted so far were in American dollars. If you actually want to pay in the local currency you have to ask them to convert the bill (which they do at a pretty shitty exchange rate).

We arrived in Liberia last night and after settling in our room we went out to the closest restaurant to our hostel.

It happened to be a Chinese restaurant and we were greeted at our table by their fat young son who asked us in broken English “What you want to drink?” They are so used to Gringos here that even the immigrants don’t speak Spanish with us.

Despite all my complaining about the TV here, I did relish the opportunity to watch some mind numbing TV. I never watch football, and you could even say I hate it. Maybe it was the deliriousness accompanying the stomach flu I came down with, but the only thing on TV other than an un-watchable Hugh Grant movie was American football. There are definitely aspects of home that I miss and football seemed like a great way to catch up on them. I was actually enjoying it, despite the pictures of people wearing foam blocks of cheese on their heads. All the commentary was in Spanish and it really wasn’t so bad. At halftime I realized it was also being broadcast in English and we switched channels. When I realized that all this yapping was about how certain players were recovering from sprained pinkies and weather it is “1st down” or “4th down and inches” made me ready to switch channels. I also think that the entire country has dyslexia. Has anyone else noticed that the ‘V’ comes before the ‘R’ in Brett Favre’s name? In every language I’ve ever studied it would NOT be pronounced like “farv”. But still all you here is Brett FaRVe, Brett FaRVe. What is up with that? I’ll tell you, I’ve had enough of America and am ready to go back to Central America.

We were in a store today and in front of us were some Americans. They were paying when the guy leans over to me and asks me “Hey, what is the exchange rate here?” He didn’t say “Hello!” or “How are you?” or “Where are you from?” I tell him the approximate exchange rate and then he asks me “What is the currency called here?” I tell him they have colones in Costa Rica. How could you go somewhere and not at least “sort of” know what the exchange rate is? Matthias pointed out that Americans can book flights, tickets, vacation packages and charge everything to their credit card (in dollars) and never have to deal with details like local currencies and exchange rates. A lot of hotels actually have websites here and you can even book some of them online. This is very different from the rest of Central America.

A lot of people that we have met during our travels have described Costa Rica as “less authentic”. I actually don’t like that description of this country. I don’t think any of the people we have met are any less authentic than any other country is. (What does that mean anyway, to be less authentic?) They are richer. Does that make them less authentic? They don’t have garbage piles on the side of the road like Guatemala does, and they have better health care than other Central American countries. Most of the Costa Ricans I’ve seen are not dirty and barefoot. A lot of them are renting out their crappy bungalows for a pretty penny and that seems just as authentic as the American capitalism I’m used to. In a lot of ways they are worlds apart from the other Central American countries that we’ve been to, but that doesn’t mean they are less authentic.

Still, one of the nice things here has still been the Central American spirit. Matthias has been asking every one we meet if they know of an apartment for rent. Here’s an example of how this goes: We’re buying some groceries at the grocery store and Matthias asks the checker in Spanish “Do you know where we can go to rent an apartment. We would like to rent an apartment of 5 or 6 weeks. Do you know of anything?” The checker thinks for a moment, doesn’t know of anything and asks her manager. Her manager looks like he’s thinking of something and goes outside and asks a group of men standing outside. One of the men knows something and writes the name down for us. We ask where it is, and he says, “Oh, just follow me in my car.” We hop in our car and follow him to a hotel and he is able to get us a good deal if we agree to stay an entire week. Unfortunately none of these leads have panned out so far, but it is this part of the adventure that continues to make this trip interesting.

We arrived in Granada with our friend Cy and spent two nights there. Granada is probably the most beautiful town in Nicaragua. It is an old colonial town with buildings painted in bright colors. There was a lively market and we took a boat ride out to an island and saw monkeys. This was a big hit with William and Julian. Granada is next to Lake Nicaragua and there a lot of small islands close to the shore. A lot of these islands have been bought by wealthy Nicaraguans and they build houses on them. One of the owners decided to put monkeys on his island. When he got tired of them he put them on a neighboring island and one of the big tourist attractions is to take a boat out and see the monkeys. William was hoping that we could go onto the island because he wanted to run with the monkeys. Unfortunately you can only float by. It’s a monkeys-only island.

Our next stop was Isla de Ometepe which is farther south on Lake Nicaragua. The island consisted of two volcanoes connected in the middle. Cy was interested in climbing the active volcano and Matthias decided to join him. They left at 4:45 AM and it took them 10 hours to climb up and down the volcano, but the experience and stories they have been telling sure seem worth it. (Although Matthias is still not sure what is easier – 10 hours without the children or 10 hours of sheer agony of climbing a 5000+ foot volcano.) They had a great guide who told them a lot about the animals and ecosystem of the place they were climbing. They even saw about a dozen howler monkeys and a coral snake.

The boat ride off the island was a real trip. It was the ricketiest boat I’ve ever been on. There were some pretty strong waves that day and the boat creaked with every wave. After about 10 minutes the engine died. No one seemed alarmed, so we guessed it was just a normal occurrence. Judging by the shape of the boat it seemed likely that this wasn’t the first time to boat broke down on the water. It took about 15 minutes before they were able to get the boat running again and we made it safe and sound, just a little off schedule. Once back on the mainland we spent one more night in Nicaragua on the coast and the next day we continued on to the Costa Rican border. Things went fairly smoothly there except for the fact that they wanted the original title to our car (we only brought a copy). We had to wait an hour and a half for the boss to come back from lunch before they accepted our documentation. I should note that this is the first border crossing in a while where we did not see any of the officials playing Solitaire on their computer. Once we got through the border we headed back to the coast on the Nicoya Peninsula. The next morning (Thanksgiving) we spent some time on the beach. Matthias and I were on the beach with the kids digging in the sand and swimming in the waves. Cy took a walk on the beach and checked out tidal pools. Later we headed down the peninsula and took a ferry back to the mainland. The ferry left at 5:00PM, which was perfect time to catch the sunset over the water.

Costa Rica has such a different feel from the other Central American countries we’ve been to. In the first larger town we drove through we were confronted by a Burger King, Pizza Hut and other typical American fast food restaurants. One nice thing is that it seems much cleaner. Garbage piles on the side of the road were not uncommon in Mexico and most of the other Central American countries we’ve been to so far. But we haven’t seen any of that in Costa Rica. In some senses it also seems a bit more modern. For example, in Nicaragua on Isla de Ometepe our taxi was stopped 3 times by livestock crossing the road. Cows, pigs and horses are often times left to roam at will. We haven’t seen that at all in Costa Rica either. Also, in contrast to other Central American countries, tourism is a huge industry in Costa Rica. Since we’ve been here we have seen one small tour bus after another shuttling around Americans in white tennis shoes, khaki shorts and Hawaiian shirts.

Costa Rica doesn’t appear to have the roughness that all the other Central American countries have, but I totally understand why it is such a popular tourist destination. It is clean and beautiful and so far the people we’ve meet have been so friendly and helpful. Costa Rica has also set aside ~25% of its land for national parks and reserves. They understand that preserving their environment is key to preserving their higher standard of living.

Now we are in Alajuela, which is close to the airport and San Jose. Cy left this morning and it has been anything but dull since he left. At breakfast William was sitting eating his toast when he fell off his chair and split his chin open. A paramedic from Seattle happened to be staying in the room next to us and suggested we go to the hospital after ruling out any serious injury. William ended up getting 6 stitches in his chin. One interesting thing was that the Costa Rican government pays for the healthcare of all children in the country, so we didn’t end up paying anything. We would have been happy to pay for it, but they refused. The bill was less than 40 dollars, which for an emergency room visit in the states would be unheard of. Later that day we came back to the hotel and Julian was about to take his afternoon nap when he threw up all over the bed. So today we just decided to lay low in the hotel and get a lot of rest.

Tomorrow we are headed back up north to look for an apartment. In mid-December my parents are going to visit us for nearly 4 weeks. We want to rent an apartment for a month or two where we can all stay and then take day trips. Matthias has been really great. He’s asked everyone we’ve meet so far if they know of an apartment we could rent. He’s asked at restaurants, hotels, cabs and even at the hospital. We have a couple of leads so far, and I think it’ll just be a matter of time before we find a place.

Sorry I can’t write a whole lot, but our friend Cy and I just returned from climbing the Conception volcano on Ometepe island in Nicaragua. I won’t be able to move for the next several days. Every muscle and every bone hurts.

The day after our border crossings we decided to continue on to Leon.  We had heard that it is one of the prettiest towns in Nicaragua and ended up being completely disappointed.  To top it off we were pulled over by police controls twice a long the way.  Out of all the crappy hostels in Leon, we found the least crappy one and spend the night there.

The next day we decided to go to Managua.  We were supposed to meet our friend Cy at the airport on Friday and figured we’d just get their early and spend a few days in the city.  On the drive to Managua to we were pulled over 3 times at police controls.  At one of the stops we think they wanted to give us a ticket since our insurance card has expired.  We can’t seem to get a straight answer if car insurance is required or not.  Even if we had proof of car insurance, they’d find something else to give us a ticket for, I’m sure.  Matthias read a story of someone who got a ticket for having a dirty front license plate.  So, like I said, they’ll find something to fine you for if they want to.  We continued to play dumb and didn’t have to pay anything, although at one of the stops they actually wrote our license plate number down and mentioned something about a fine at the border when we exit Nicaragua.

The worst was driving in Managua.  To start off there are no street signs in Managua.  We had a rough map, which probably would have been sufficient if we were able to figure out what the names on any of the roads are.  You might think I am exaggerating, but I’m not.  There was not one single street sign in the entire city.  We had been driving around for hours trying to find the tourist information.  We thought we were getting close and Matthias went to make a U-turn at an intersection.  Unfortunately we had just made an illegal u-turn straight into another police control and the police woman waved us over to the side.  First we had to wait for her to finish purchasing Christmas decorations from the car in front of us before she came over to us to tell us what we had done wrong.  Matthias had made an illegal u-turn at this intersection and she seemed very concerned.  She first she gave us a long explanation of what the left lane was for, what the right lane was for, and where it was possible to change directions.  She just kept going on and on.  Matthias had seen a sign for a “Retorno” which is a place you can make a u-turn, but we apparently missed it.  Eventually she said that she wasn’t going to give us a ticket and was going to let us go.  We were both relieved, and in the end she seemed ok after all, so Matthias asked her how to get to the tourist information.  They tried to explain it to us, and they even drew a map, but finally she just said, “Ok, I’ll show you but you have to pay my cab back to my station here afterwards.”  It sounded good to us, so I got in the back with the kids and the policewoman got in our car and sat in front next to Matthias and started giving directions.

Apparently traffic cops can just leave their stations for a while whenever they want to.  She just left her partner there and off we went.  We showed her the map in our travel guide of where we wanted to go.  First she directed us to the other end of the city.  At this point I was glad she was there because we were no one near where we thought the tourist information was.  Matthias ran a red light, but there really is not better time to run a red light than when you’ve got a traffic cop riding shotgun in your car telling you where to go.  But then slowly we looped back around to the other side of the city, close to where we were made the illegal u-turn.  The policewoman had us stop to ask for directions twice, and that is when we realized she had no idea where she was going.  Next she suggested that we hail a cab, tell him where we want to go and then just follow him.  If that is what the policewoman wanted to do we weren’t about to argue.  We flag down a cab, Matthias gives her 10 dollars to pay for the cab and she gets in it.  We follow along and eventually we make it to the tourist information.  She waves Matthias over so he can pay for the cab.  Maybe she thought the 10 bucks were for her.  Matthias paid the cab and off she went, back to work, I guess.

After that experience, we figured the next day we’ll leave the car parked at the hotel and just take cabs around the city.  The woman at the tourist information told us of a mall with lots of rides for kids.  I needed a new bathing suit, so it sounded like it would be a great outing for us all.  In the cab Matthias asked the driver if he knew a place where we could get our cell phone unlocked.  (We bought a cell phone in Mexico that we thought would work in most countries in Central America.  It has the right frequencies, but unfortunately it is locked and only works in Mexico.  It has been his mission since we arrived in Guatemala to find someone that knows how to unlock our phone.)  The cab driver happened to know a place that could do this for us so we stopped.  After a bit of bartering on the fee, they gave it a shot, but weren’t successful.  We got back in the cab and we were off to the mall.  All of the sudden the driver stops on the side of the road.  “We have a small problem.  One moment.”  The taxi had run out of gas.  Matthias and I just looked at each other and laughed.  In the US taxis drivers make sure that have plenty of gas before they take passengers.  I think the taxi driver had been through this before because he quickly whipped out the gas canister out of the trunk and put a couple liters of gas in the tank.  We were back on the road within a few minutes.  We made a quick stop at the gas station and then it was off to the mall, which was a complete disappointment.  It was brand new and there were only about 3 stores.  Since it was a Thursday all the rides were shut off and there was nothing for the kids to do.  We made a quick stop at the grocery store and got another cab back to the hotel.

At this point we were ready to leave Nicaragua as fast a possible.  The police stops are so trying.  Driving in the capitol was terrible and we felt like all we wanted to do is get out of Nicaragua as soon as possible.  Today our friend was flying in from Seattle.  We asked how long it should take to get to the airport from hotel.  They said it was a 30 minute drive, so we left an hour and a half before his flight was supposed to leave since we figured we’d probably get lost and didn’t want to be late. 

Our luck seems to be changing here.  We actually found the airport within 30 minutes and arrived with an hour to spare.  Cy’s plane was on time, too.  We navigated our way out of Managua very well, headed toward Granada and weren’t pulled over at all.  We arrived in Granada and the town is beautiful.  I know this country has a lot to see, and I’m glad we are able to start enjoying some of its highlights.

We had several blog entries so far describing how complicating and stressful it can be to cross borders in Central America. I don’t even know why we feel that they are so stressful, because technically, other than getting shot, the worst case scenario is that we have to turn around and try it some other day.  So far I have never heard of a traveler who wasn’t allowed into any of the counties in Central America. I also haven’t heard of anyone getting shot. Despite knowing this, they are still a pain.

I have crossed many borders in my life and up until now they have always been very similar. You get to border and have to deal a recognizable, uniformed, mostly (at least in the US) mean looking customs officers. He or she asks you a couple of questions and you are good to go. Not in Central America. In Central America the borders look more like market places. Usually there is one main building and hundreds of people around it doing their thing. They don’t even have flags of the country and no signs telling you that you are leaving or entering. However you know instantly that you are at the border when swarms of people surround your car and want to offer their services, sell all kinds of stuff (water, food, hats, cell phone covers, calculators, jewelry and who knows what else) or just beg for money or food. While Allison is the one who has to deal with the customs officials it is my job to deal with the crowd and also try to keep our children happy.

With only one exception we never found a place in the shade and the temperature has always been in the 90s. It’s always the same spiel: we find a place to park the car and Allison takes all of our documents and disappears somewhere. I never have any idea where she goes, what building she is in, how long it will take or what she is doing. I just hope that she will return within the hour with a smile on her face, because a smile means we are usually good to go.  I am amazed by how organized she is with all the paperwork.  Every time we are asked to show any form or permit it seems that she always has it ready and picks the correct one. I have no idea what all the forms are.

As soon as Allison leaves the car to deal with customs half of the people surrounding us follow her and I have some room to breathe.  However it doesn’t take long before they return to the car because they realize that Allison seems to know what she is doing.  At the first few border crossings I didn’t want to leave the car at all, because it holds all of our belongings and it just doesn’t seem safe. Since it is so hot we have to keep the windows open and people just stand there, lean on the window and into the car with their arms and try to talk to me. To me it seems like total chaos, but I know it isn’t. They all offer their services right away (changing money, assisting you with the papers, selling stuff etc.) and then sometimes even seem to back off, but not very far.  As soon as one of us seems to be in doubt of what to do next, they are right in your face again. And even when we had 1 guy helping us with the paperwork his buddies keep surrounding the car assuring me that we picked the absolute best guy. Allison told me once that she felt bad for me that all I could do at the border was sit around bored and try to entertain the kids while I am waiting for her.  What she doesn’t see is that it is not boring.  It is impossible to become bored here because I’m constantly confronted by new people offering new stuff and I’m amazed at the craft of the con artists. 

I have tried all kinds of strategies on how to deal with all these people and none seem to work. At one border I just kept saying “no entiendo” (I don’t understand) – Didn’t work!  They either start speaking English with me as best as they can, or just continue in Spanish.  They are relentless. 

At one border there was a little kid who put his chin on my window and was staring at me for at least 20 minutes before he finally gave up and went away. At another border I tried to talk to the people and explain to them that I didn’t need or want anything. At least I was able to practice my Spanish, but they wouldn’t leave me alone.  The worst border however was the one into Honduras. Not only where there about 5 kids who jumped in the car when I had to change Julian’s diaper, there was also a mentally handicapped guy, who kept asking me for money. He kept extending his middle finger.  He wasn’t trying to flip me off, his finger had been cut off half way and he was trying to show me how he was injured.  I told him “no” and he left. Not for long though. He kept coming back, extending his middle finger in my face and asking for food. I had a leftover Burger King cheeseburger and thought that if I gave it to him he’d leave me alone. Bad mistake!! Not only was impossible to get rid of him and his half middle finger, he kept wanting more and others were joining him. A bunch of bus drivers nearby watched him and kept telling him to leave and he at least stepped away form the car, but not out of sight. I felt very uncomfortable, because the guy obviously had a screw loose.   I wasn’t sure what he was trying to do next so I had to make sure to keep the children away from him.

Unless there are crazy people at the borders I feel relaxed and don’t only stay in the car with the kids. In El Salvador (the crossing with the 2 Hummer drivers) the kids where playing with the kids of the Hummer drivers for several hours.  At the Nicaragua border we left the car to play with a little girl who was selling water, but I don’t leave the car out of sight and I hope that we don’t have to go to the restroom, because the restrooms at borders are the absolute nastiest I have seen so far.

As you might guess by the title of this blog entry this was one of the most stressful days we have had so far.  We left Suchitoto, El Salvador and headed towards the Honduras border.  The drive was uneventful and we reached the border.  The best way to know you are arriving at a border is the group of 20+ men running towards you, waving their arms as if your car was on fire, flashing badges and whistling at you.  This business of being a border helper is cut throat and those closest to our windows have the best chance of making a couple of bucks.  They come at you from all sides, too, not just the driver’s side.  “It’s going to take you 4 hours if you do it alone.  I’ll get you through in 30 minutes max.  There are four offices and it is really expensive.”  Matthias and I were both thinking that this was the usual ploy to get us to spend a ton of money for their services, but this time it was us who were wrong.  Everything they told us was true.

I was hoping to get through this border crossing by doing everything myself.  At the last 3 border crossings we were able to get everything accomplished on our own and I was confident I could do it again.  The first few steps were pretty straightforward.  We left El Salvador without any problems.  We drove past the office where we were supposed to get our car permit cancelled, but the twenty men running after our car whistled and yelled at us to come back.  We figured that they all couldn’t be wrong so I went in and, sure enough, they were right.  That was the office to get our car permit cancelled.  I got the permit cancelled without problems, and I still thought I had everything under control.  We went to Honduras Immigration and one guy, Rene, just wouldn’t leave me alone.  I really didn’t want his help, but he just kept walking with me and pointing me to the window I needed to go to.  We got our tourist cards and the final step was to get our car permit. 

I started to appreciate Rene when he first pointed me to the office I needed to go to to get all the paperwork started.  There was no sign “Get Your Vehicle Permits Here!” or even the slightest clue that this is where I needed to start.  When I finished in this office the woman said “Ok, now you can go to the next office.”  Luckily Rene knew and I followed him.  I still felt I could do this on my own and was reluctant to start any conversation with him, lest he think I actually wanted his help.  But my Spanish is so bad, and he was really helpful telling me how much to pay and when and what papers to hand over.  Eventually I gave in, and by the end I was thankful he was there.  There really were 4 offices we had to visit, and then get copies and then return, and get more stamps and pay more money.  I do believe that even with my bad Spanish I could have gotten the permit, but in the end I was happy to pay him ten dollars to speed everything along.  I’m sure Matthias, William and Julian were happy too because it was hot and there were a lot of wierdos hanging around this border. 

We left the border around 2:30 and were hoping to spend a night in Honduras and then cross over into Nicaragua the next day.  We set off and just a couple minutes down the road we were stopped at a road block.  A tall, gangly, sinister man came up to our window and asked for Matthias’ driver’s license.  We had a really hard time understanding what he was saying, but it sounded like he wasn’t happy with Matthias’ driver’s license.  We double checked that it hadn’t expired and tried to understand what he was saying to us.  Eventually he mumbled under his breath “viente dollares.”  We understood perfectly what he wanted: twenty dollars.  But Matthias looked at me, and I shrugged my shoulders and said “No entiendo!”  (I don’t understand.)  He said it again, but we just continued to play dumb.  Eventually he gave Matthias his license back and waved us through.  We felt so disillusioned at this point.  The border crossing was expensive (about $60), by far the most expensive up until now.  Right away we were confronted with corruption in Honduras.  We just wanted to get out there as fast as possible.  The border to Nicaragua was only 120 km away and we decided to go and hope we could get through fast before dark.

We made good time through Honduras and arrived at the border just after 4:00 PM.  Our odometer is in miles and our map was in kilometers.  Mileposts can be spotty in this part of the world, so we are never exactly sure how far we are from any given destination.  We realized we were at the border when the swarms of men descended on our car.  There were no signs that we were about to leave Honduras, just the masses of men trying to get us to change money and offer help crossing the border.  To start a border crossing this late in the day was a bit risky since we don’t like to drive at night and the next town with hotels was 77 kilometers away.  We had resigned ourselves to crossing into Nicaragua that day, so I went up to the border and started things moving.  We got our tourist cards for Nicaragua.  The man told me it would cost us 7 dollars for myself, William and Julian, but for some reason Matthias’ tourist card would cost 8 dollars.  Normally that would come to $29.00.  At first I gave him $14.00.  But then he said he needed $14.00 more.  I was still one dollar short, but he seemed happy and gave me a receipt.  But the funny thing was that the total on the receipt was only $8.00.  If you ask me, he took me for twenty-bucks.  I bet it really only costs $2.00 per person, which is why the receipt was for $8.00.  Really all I wanted was to get through as fast as I could, so I didn’t ask any questions and just kept going.  Getting the car permit for Honduras cancelled was a piece of cake, and getting the new car permit for Nicaragua was just as easy.  I think it only took us 45 minutes to get through the border, which should be record time. 

At one point when I was waiting for the border patrolman to finish his game of solitaire and finish stamping our passports I looked out and saw Matthias standing outside our car with a group of men around him.  The stories he has to tell of border crossings are totally different than my stories.  He’s out there with kids and con-artists and beggars, and most of the time in the heat with two little kids in the car.  I thought I had it rough for having to go in and get all the paper work straightened out, but I’m not so sure.  He’s got a lot of stories to tell about border crossings, too, and I think he’ll write a blog entry about them soon.

We were through the border crossing before 5:00 PM, but now we had to get to the next major city.  We thought 77 km would be a quick drive, but the roads past the border were awful.  They were paved with enormous pot holes, and Matthias had to drive like a slalom skier to get through them.  At the rate we were going it would take us 3 hours to get to the next town.  Then the roads got worse.  They went from paved with potholes to dirt roads in even rougher shape.  There was also a storm brewing in the horizon and we could tell we were headed straight for it.  We came to a police control.  They checked our passports, driver’s license, vehicle permit and they even asked us if we had insurance.  We showed them our old Allstate card, which probably isn’t even valid anymore, but they had no idea that US insurance isn’t valid outside of the country.  It worked for them though.  We also asked how long it would take to get to the next town and they said an hour and a half.  It was certainly going to be dark by then. 

It got dark quite fast, but luckily the road became much better.  In 1998 Hurricane Mitch devastated most of this area.  Some of the roads have been repaired, but a lot have not.  Luckily it was only a small portion that was really bad.  75% of the drive was on good paved roads, but what also made it so difficult was that every now and again you would run into a section that was dirt roads and it was impossible to anticipate when, and it was so dark it was almost impossible to see.  If the oncoming cars were approaching slowly you could guess that the road was about to turn bad.  Or if there was a car in front of us that suddenly braked, you could guess that the road was about to turn to dirt again.  One good thing about the storm was that every time lightning struck the streets were illuminated well and we could see the road.  Eventually it started to pour.  The pavement was so hot from the sun during the day, and the cool rain caused the streets to steam.  For at least half of the drive the roads were swirling with steam like a witch’s cauldron and it was impossible to see if the road was actually good pavement or dirt road.  This was a very stressful drive for Matthias.

We eventually made it and even found a decent hotel room.  Now we are in Nicaragua and are struggling with more police controls.  We were warned by the Peace Corps volunteers we met in El Salvador that Nicaragua is rough on drivers.  They’ll pull you over for anything with the hopes of getting a few bucks out of the deal.  We were pulled over once so far and we think the police officer was trying to tell us that we passed a bus illegally.  We really didn’t fully understand what he was trying to say to us.  Eventually he got mad and just waved us on.  I think from now out we’re going to continue to play dumb. 

We left the coast of El Salvador after 6 nights.  We had found a great place to stay and really enjoyed meeting the Peace Corps volunteers and the Austrians, but the new crowd was becoming dumber by the minute.  By the time we left we had actually wished we had left a day or two earlier since El Salvador has so much to see and we felt like we wasted a bit of our time hanging around a bunch of losers.  One day I was sitting in the internet café next to two of the girls there and one says “I’m so fucking bored.  Is anything going on in this town?”  The other girl responded “No.  And to be honest, I’ve never met anyone here that I would actually really want to hang out with.”  And the first girl says “Yeah, that’s pretty much Central America.”  Aside from this place and one other place, we’ve only meet interesting people.  We were just on a different wavelength than these people and knew it was time to leave.
 

We left the coast and took a drive along the Ruta de Flores and over to Lago de Coatepeque where we spent one night.  This supposedly beautiful route up into the mountains along coffee plantations was quite disappointing (probably due to the overcast weather), but the lake was spectacular.  The lake is in the crater of a volcano that erupted long ago.  It is almost perfectly round and you can see from the slope of the bank of the lake that you are in the middle of a volcanic crater.  The lake has very clean turquoise water and there were no tourists.  We only met two tourists at the lake, and they were only on a day trip from San Salvador.  It was a very quiet and peaceful place.
 

Next we drove through the capitol San Salvador and onto Suchitoto.  Suchitoto is a very charming city with cobblestone streets and a nice white church in the central square.  Our Peace Corps friends gave us a recommendation for a good hotel and we ended up spending two nights there.  We had great food and they had a swimming pool and lots of kids which was perfect for William and Julian.
  We only spent about 9 days in El Salvador and I wish we had more time here.  There are a bunch of other lakes and nature reserves I wish we had time to visit.  Even though it is such a small, densely-populated country there is a lot to see.  Aside from the surfers we only met 3 tourists in the entire week and a half.  The roads are great which made driving easier.  The people were so curious about us and friendly, too.  The border crossing was easy, cheap and not-corrupt.  Originally we thought we would not return on our way home, but we might have to re-think that.  This country has been such a pleasant surprise and I hope we are able to return on our way home.
 And almost the best thing about El Salvador is that they have the best ‘80’s music radio stations ever.  I can’t remember the last time I heard Stevie Wonder 3 days in a row, or woke up to “Eye of the Tiger”.  Guatemala was pretty good in that respect too, but El Salvador is even better.

Good God I miss the Austrians. In the last 2 weeks we’ve have met 4 people from Austria and also a couple from Switzerland whose company we really enjoyed. We are still in El Salvador in surfer paradise, but today Ulf and Mike our Austrian friends left and we are pretty bummed that we’d be all alone in the hostel. Luckily in the afternoon a new bunch of surfers showed up and we were looking forward to meeting new interesting people.

We watched them check in and were excited to get to know them. We hadn’t really got a chance to talk them when they started watching a surfing video. Out of curiosity Allison asked what the video was and they responded that it was Christian surfing??? Wow, Christian surfing!! We felt a little bit out of place, especially after they only kept to themselves during dinner and left us with the nice area of the hostel, the place with all the hammocks. When it was time to bring the kids to bed they took over the hammocks and we didn’t really have a place to go, so we decided to wait a little until there were hammocks available so we could join them. There was one guy playing the guitar and the rest were dead silent. The guy with the guitar said in a tone how I would picture Jesus to talk “Please, come and join us”. So we did.

He played real well, but also very silent. It felt that the silence was to show the importance and the deeper meaning of what he was singing. In fact it was so quiet that it was hard to hear him with all the birds, jungle animals and the waves in the background. Man it was powerful music, at least for some of the listeners and I just kept thinking how nice it would be to have the Austrians back. My mood changed somewhat when he started playing Neil Young “A horse with no name” and afterwards a lot of Bob Dylan and Beatles songs. Then it all of a sudden felt really relaxing to lie in a hammock at the ocean and listen to good quiet music. If it just wouldn’t have been for the “Surfing for Jesus” video.

The next day they all seemed even dumber.  One girl posed the question “If you could only say one word for the rest of your life what would it be?”  One guy chose the word ‘no’, one guy chose the word ‘yes’ and another chose ‘hmm”.  After they had a conversation amongst themselves using only these 3 words in every intonation people they howled with laughter.  Then they started wondering (aloud unfortunately) if ‘hmm’ is even a word.  The girl decided that in some freaky country in the world hmm probably is a word.  If I could use one word for the rest of my life it would have to be ‘dumb’, or ‘stupid’, or ‘Jesus, please take these losers away from me.’  Afterwards they exchanged stories of drug deals gone awry, breaking into people’s houses and stealing stuff.  These people are just too cool for me.  Now that the good company has left we’re ready to move on tomorrow.

We had our surf lessons today.  The Pacific really whooped our asses.  We were each only out there for about 45 minutes and were totally exhausted.  It is hard work to paddle out to where the waves break.  It was a calm day, which is perfect for learning.  What was really cool was being so close to other surfers and watching them surf.  Matthias had 2 rides and stood up both times.  I had two rides and only got up to my knees.  We are thinking of buying a board and surfing the rest of the way through Central America.   We’ll see.

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 3^rd 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!

As we did for Mexico, we thought we would summarize some of our impressions of Guatemala.  We’ve been here for nearly 6 weeks and have seen quite a bit of this country.

A Lot of Kids Have Really Hard Lives in Guatemala
Many of the indigenous children grow up never learning to read or write.  Young kids, some as young as 6 or 7, are sent out into the street to work during school break.  They shine shoes or clean cars at intersections.  Some of the indigenous rent out their little children for a day to men that bring them to Guatemala City to beg.  The families of these children are paid (7 or 8 dollars), but everything the children make begging goes to the men doing the renting.  At street fairs I’ve seen groups of children huddling in the back of food stands all day long while their parents sell their creations.  It is also not uncommon for young Mayan girls to sell bracelets or shawls.  I’ve seen girls William’s age selling a handful of their bracelets for 1 Quetzal (about 13 cents).