Home on the Highway – San Francisco to Ushuaia, Argentina in an 87 4Runner
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We left Caye Caulker behind and headed back towards Sarteneja where we had left our truck. We took a quick pitstop in Ambergris Caye as we waited for the next ferry.
We made friends with a Coatimundi (You may remember these guys as “Crock Snacks” in Mexico. Now I feel kinda bad, they are awfully cute.
We picked the truck up and headed deeper into the interior of Belize. We had heard good things about “The Belize Zoo” and went to check it out.
The entry fee for the zoo was a bit steep ($15US per person??) but all the animals were rescues so we figured it was for a good cause. It turned out to be a great little zoo, with lots of native Belizean animals we have never seen before.
The Jabiru Stork, largest bird in Central/South America, 2nd largest wingspan in the world. Over 9ft wide!
THE HARPY EAGLE! The largest and most powerful eagle in the Americas. This thing eats Coatimundis for lunch. (Coatis got it rough…) The harpy eagles are practically extinct in Central America due to deforestation.
Harpy eagle attacking some poor zookeeper!
Junior the jaguar, It was great how little concerns for safety the zoo had, You could stick you arm in the cages and pet the jaguar…
Hahahaha, Lauren was shooting shots of this Tapir when all of the sudden it turned around and shot a 10FT firehose stream of urine (At least we hope it was urine…) all over her pants and shoes.
After Lauren burned her clothes we jumped back in the truck and headed towards Barton Creek Outfitters. A small hostel deep in the jungle of Belize.
Adios pavement
A fun river crossing
More pictures and the rest of the story on the blog… http://homeonthehighway.com
It has been a while since we have done an update, We ended up spending the past 2 months in Guatemala soaking up the culture, slowing down our pace, and doing some much needed repairs to the truck. Life had been a bit hectic and I couldn’t muster up the energy to write a decent blog. We are now in Honduras, tucked somewhere up in the Pico Bonito National Park hiding from the craziness of Semana Santa (Holy Week). For the first time in a long time we find ourselves with nothing to do but listen to the crickets and frogs sing lullabies outside our truck. Perfect time to do some writing.
The border crossing from Belize into Guatemala was fairly uneventful. We went through the process of checking ourselves and the truck out of Belize. Got the truck fumigated, paid for new visas and a vehicle permit. All completed in our crappy spanish without the use of a tramidor (Tramidor: Dude who hangs around frontier borders helping/scamming confused gringos getting into the next country) thanks to our friends at LifeRemotely who posted a great explanation of the process, fees, and buildings. We spent 10 minutes in the car studying up and hit the booths, about 30 minutes later we had everything we needed. We were officially and legally now in Guatemala.
We spent all our money at the border and had nothing left. Our tank was on fumes. (We waited to fill up till Guatemala, Belize gas was at $6/gal)
We assumed (stupidly) that there would be a gas station and ATM somewhere near the border on the Guatemalan side. Well there was an ATM but it was empty. No cash. We tried to ask if there was another “cajero” nearby but our spanish is so bad we received nothing but confused stares. Oh well… hopefully there will be one further up the road. We placed our faith in the 4Runners crappy gas gauge being off and headed further down the highway. We have our 5-gallon reserve tank in case we ran out.
The section of Guatemala we entered is named Peten. Unknown to us at the time, It is a very sparsely populated section of Northern Guatemala. We drove past miles and miles of clearcut farmland, rolling green hills, and a few small pueblos with no services. Our destination for the first day was the Mayan ruins of Tikal.
Eventually we arrived at Tikal, We never did pass an ATM or gas station for almost 60 miles. We tried to enter the park but they charge a ridiculously high price for entry ($~25US per person). We didn’t have enough dinero so we had no choice but to head out from Tikal to the next large town of Flores for some cash and gas.
Rolled into Flores sputtering, perfect timing, we found a nice gas station equipped with an ATM. Topped off our cash and our fuel tank. Headed back to Tikal.
We ran into our friends Paul/Susie again in Flores, they were also headed to Tikal. When we were both driving back to Tikal we passed our other friends Zack/Jill. Looks look we were all headed to the same place. We hit the entrance at the same time, just in time for Paul’s Trooper to start acting up. Not one to leave a man behind, we all set to diagnosing the problem in front of the Tikal park entrance.
Eventually we tracked down the problem to fuel. Figuring it was bad gas, we drained the tank and used my jerry can of U.S gas to refill it. While not running completely right it seemed to be doing better. By this point it was around 6PM and the park had closed. Having no place to go (We were planning to camp inside the park) We asked the guards if we could just camp in the parking lot in front of the park. No problem they said. So we did. Howler and spider monkeys crawling through the trees above, Us stinking like gas below. Luckily we had booze, all was well in the world.
Next morning we woke up early, Paul/Susie headed to town to further diagnose their issue. The rest of us headed into Tikal.
First sign we saw warned us of a “Coati Crossing”.. I guess we are in the jungle after all.
Tikal was like no other ruin we have visited thus far. The ruins are dispersed among deep jungle. You walk through 30 minutes of thick jungle canopy with monkeys howling overhead and then pop into a clearing with amazing ruins. It really gives you the feeling of discovering an ancient lost world.
Tikal is one of the largest sites of ancient pre-columbian Mayan civilizations. It was a hub for all surrounding Mayans civilizations, sort of a "capital" of the if you will. Estimations of population range from 10,000 to 90,000 inhabitants. Imagining a huge city of 90,000 milling around this place 2000 years ago is a surreal feeling.
Excavation of the ruins are still in progress, Check out this motorcycle powered cart they use to ferry equipment to the top of the temple.
More pics and detailed write-up on the blog http://homeonthehighway.com
From Tikal we hit the road to San Pedro where we planned to take some spanish classes. Our friend Zach had given us some info on the highways down there. There appeared to be two roads that took you from Peten down deeper into Guatemala. One was supposedly a much more rough and tumble route while the other was a decently paved road. Zach in the AstroVan opted for the easy route. We of course choose the rough and tumble path.
Our road actually turned out to be pretty decently paved (We heard from Zach that he accidently chose the road of death and sent us on the good road, HAHA!). We drove through lots of little lakeside villages and saw some beautiful Guatemalan countryside.
Our first introduction to Tuk-Tuks (The official in-town transportation of Guatemala)
Eventually we arrived at a small town by the name of Sayaxche. Here the road dead-ended into a deep river. We queued up for the ferry crossing with a few other sleepy travelers.
The ferry (which our friend Karina’s dad later informed us is installed/ran by the Guatemalan oil company) is an odd design. It has 2 outboard boat motors both on the same side of the boat. They work in perfect harmony to fight the rivers current and bring the ferry to its proper mooring point on the opposite bank of the river.
We got a cursory check by the military while on the ferry. I think they just wanted to check out the truck. Eventually arriving safely to the other side. We pushed through the town and wound through towns of small highway-side villages.
Coming up over the top of a blind hill at 60MPH to find dogs, people, babies, fruit stands… It’s a good test of the brakes.
The road was long and winding through the mountains. We were planning to stop in Coban, Guatemala for the night. Unfortunately the drive took much longer than we had planned. We were stuck driving at night through crazy mountain roads, in the rain, in the fog, with crappy headlights, and millions of people milling about on the sides of the road. Not a good situation. We made it to Coban and found the first motel we could.
We warmed up from the cold rain in the sketchy hot water shower. If you are sleepy in the morning just give the shower-head a tap. I guarantee a 110V shock will snap you out of your stupor!
Hit the road the next morning. There was an easy looking highway that led down to San Pedro La Laguna and there was a much more exciting route that took us up into the Guatemalan highlands. We of course, took the more exciting route.
The asphalt quickly gave way to dirt road as we found ourselves climbing higher and higher into the mountains.
We passed this statue of a Quetzal bird midway up the mountain. The Quetzal is the official bird of Guatemala and also the name of their currency. It is an extremely rare and prized bird. It has magnificent long green/blue tail feathers. It is very rare and seldom seen in Guatemala. It lives in the cloud forests high in the mountains. Which just so happened to be where we were unexpectedly headed…
We pushed further and further up the dirt road. The clouds and fog grew thicker and thicker. Eventually we were driving through an actual cloud forest. Pretty amazing weather compared to the 85F and humid temps we experienced the same day at lower elevations.
More pics and detailed writeup on the blog. http://homeonthehighway.com
San Pedro La Laguna, Guatemala is an interesting and beautiful place. The town sits on the volcano ringed Lago Atitlan (Lake Atitlan) at the base of the (now dormant) San Pedro volcano. It is populated bythe indeginous Tz'utuhil Mayan people who still work the land growing mainly onions and coffee beans for export.
The town is made up of an odd mix of ancient Mayan culture, westernized Guatemala, and flat-out takeover by gringos. You can wake up in the morning and watch an 85-year old Mayan lady haul a 40LB load of onions on her head from her hand-planted farm near the lagoon, spend your afternoon sipping freshly grown/processed San Pedro coffee beans, and waste away the evening getting S-Faced with a 19-year backpacker from Idaho. All within 1/4 mile strip of lagoon-front land. We loved it for all of its faces but most importantly for the little piece of isolated paradise we found at the Corozan Maya Spanish school.
We originally came into town actually searching for different spanish school altogether. We drove up and down the 1-way streets searching and searching for this other school. It was in our guide book, they said it was good! Where is it!?
During our frustrating search, time and time again we would pass this same little school sign. Eventually we said screw it, let check this place out. We were glad we did. What we discovered was a great spanish school that had everything an overlander could want. Secure parking, internet, and hot showers. Throw in a $25/week cabin with in-room propane stove and we were heaven. Classes were $75/week for 1-1 spanish school, the cheapest I have found in my research and our teachers were all amazing.
From the second we sat down to talk with Marta, the schools owner/operator, she made us feel welcome and at home. She spoke strictly in slow simple spanish terms that even we could understand with our horrible spanish. What the hell!? Are we talking in spanish already? This place is good! We signed up for 1 week of class straight away. We ended up staying for 4.
We relocated our clothes and essentials to our basic but comfy cabin. Complete with hammock out front.
Eventually bringing the mattress from our truck into the cabin to supplement the school provided bed. (We sleep like kings in our truck, Why not bring it inside our new home?
The accommodations were basic. A bed, a 2-burner propane stove, a few outlets, and a bare lightbulb. But what more do you really need? That’s all we have in our truck and we love it. We quickly settled in to our new cabin and started calling it home.
We made dinner from some leftovers we had in the truck and started preparing for our first day of spanish school. We were excited and intimidated. We spent the rest of night listening to our Pimsleur Audio books and running through Rosetta Stone lessons knowing we were woefully unprepared.
Next day we started classes. Marta assigned us each our own native San Pedro Mayan teacher.
We walked down the path to our individual tranquil huts out by the lagoon and started our lessons.
First thing was a pop-quiz. Oh great! I didn’t study for this! They wanted to gauge our skill level in spanish to get an idea of where to start the lessons. Needless to say I didn’t make it past NOMBRE/FECHA (Name and Date) (I guessed at FECHA…)
Lauren did a bit better, she made it to the second page before getting the glassy eyed stare of confusion.
Our teachers made no scene or judgements, just evaluated our positions and started right into the lessons. Our teachers spoke very slow, very clear spanish. We started with learning basic verbs and eventually moved onto to tenses, pronouns,conjugations, etc etc. All kinds of stuff. For 4 hours a day, 5 days a week. We would practice in the huts.
Some days class would fly by, other days we would beg for mercy “Por favor maestra, Mi cabeza esta lleno!” Please teacher, My head is full!
It was a calm relaxing atmosphere. Even though learning a new language is a challenge, it was hard to be stressed out in this environment.
In the mornings before class we would lounge around studying, reading books, going on hikes, whatever we wanted to do. One of our favorite activities was exploring “El Mercado” The Market.
Here you can find pretty much anything the heart desires. All native, fresh, organically grown fruits and vegetables are available for a fraction (literally less than 1/4 the cost in the U.S.) of the price. Lauren and I would load up our bags with fruits and veggies. Never spending more than $3-5 for more than we could possibly eat in a week.
been cranking out the blogposts lately, trying to use this downtime for good instead of just evil!
Our alarm started ringing at 4:30AM… I felt my body panic in confusion. WORK!?
Nope. Just hiking a volcano today… whew.. that was close. I realized it was the first time I have woken up to an alarm in almost 5 months (Not that I am trying to rub it in or anything…)
I stumble around in the pitch-black cabin fumbling for the light-switch. I find it and listen to the groans from the sisters. “5 more minutes?” Lauren asks. Nope! Not today, We gots to go.
Our destination for the day. The top of Volcan San Pedro on Lago Atitlan. It is the large volcano on the right-side of this pic. You can see the town of San Pedro down below it.
We load up the backpack with snacks/water, put on our hiking shoes and head up the road. The early morning darkness is chilly and foggy. There is Toyota pickup waiting for us, We load our gear inside and jump in the back. We get a good-grip onto the black steel coping lining the bed and hold on.
VAMOS!
Lauren and fellow overlander Jill from Anywhere that’s Wild.
We wind our way through the silent streets of San Pedro picking up a few more hikers then start heading up the mountain to the trail head.
Eventually arriving at the the still pitch-black trailhead we crank up our headlamps/flashlights and hit the trail.
I read it was advised to use a guide on this trail due to some robberies/attacks on tourists a few years ago. Nowadays they have improved security and there is nothing much to worry about. However, the entry-price to the park included a tour guide so we took one. Our guide was named Pedro, I would put Pedro around 75 years old or so. He had 1-tooth and a big *** machete. My kinda guy.
Were hiking along in the dark single-file up a tight trail. It looks like we are hiking through some sort of coffee farm but it is too dark to tell. I am thinking to myself, it is kinda spooky out here… good place for robbers…
I hear someone from the back of the line scream “OH ****!” then I hear the distinct sound of metal on metal machete/machete clanging together. ITS HAPPENING!?
I turn around to witness the carnage and see my fellow hikers looking down the side of a steep rocky hillside at a very confused Pedro splayed out on the bottom. Looks like our guide misstepped and fell down the hill. What I originally heard was not the Pedro battling evil banditos but actually the sound of his machete clanging against the rocks as he rolled head over heels down the hill.
We check over Pedro and find him surprisingly intact for a 75-year old man falling down a cliff. He quickly tires of our medical attention gains his composure and yells “VAMOS!”
Up we go.
As dawn breaks we make it to a small shelter with a nice look-out over the Lagoon and San Pedro lights below.
Sun coming up a bit, we can actually see the trail now.
The first 45-minutes were fairly easy going, we were crossing primarily sideways across the mountain. However once we started heading straight up the volcano I realized… I am outta shape. It has been a while since we had been on a real challenging hike and I was feeling it. Also, Carly, who just shipped in from sea-level Florida the day before, was not exactly prepared for this much climbing at 6000FT either. Pedro on the other-hand was a never-tiring billygoat and nipped our heels the entire time to climb faster. Not bad for a 75-year old man who just fell off a cliff…
At first he had patient words of encouragement to speed us up…
“Es bueno por tu corazon!” (It’s good for your heart!)“
La Vista is muy bonito” (The view is very nice)Eventually degrading into…
“Listo?” (Ready?)And finally a flat-out
“VAMOS!” (Let’s go!)“OK Pedro… OK Pedro…” Carly exclaims between winded breaths as we climb further up the mountain.
Lauren, of course, climbs straight up the mountain like she's on a leisurely stroll through the park.
We climb through lots of forest, coffee farms, corn plantations…
[urldecode=http://homeonthehighway.com]More pics and the rest of the story on the blog. http://homeonthehighway.com[/urldecode%5D
Carly spent the rest of the week hanging out with us and touring around San Pedro. One thing she wanted to do while in Guatemala was to visit some Mayan ruins. In a country where over 50% of the population is indigenous Mayan it would be sacrilege to not visit one of their ancient sites.
We got to googling and did tons of research searching for nearby ruins to check out but came up
bupkis. During our search however, we did find the Iximché ruins just outside the town of Tecpan. I knew we passed Tecpan on the way to the airport in Guatemala City. We figured we could head out the night before Carly left, drive to Tecpan, wake up early, tour the ruins, and get Carly on a plane around noon. Sounds like a plan to me!During our spanish class we told our teachers about our plans to drive to Tecpan that night.
“Oh, you picked a very special night to go to Iximche.”
“Por Que?”“Tonight is the Mayan new year!, of course”
… Of course? Our teachers explained about the Mayan Haab calendar, the long count-calendar, Tzoltin, equinoxes etc etc.The Mayans expounded upon 5th century BC knowledge of time and came up with a system to track/predict important events long before they ever heard of a Roman/Julian/Gregorian calendar. It is actually a series of several different calendars combined into one all-encompassing date keeping system.Pretty cool and complicated stuff.
Apparently it was so complicated that there were only a few people in ancient times who could actually understand it. These calendar readers were important nobleman in the Mayan society and worked closely with the ruling class. Mayan rulers used the power of the calendar to assert dominance and power over their cities/countrymen. If the king can predict what day the sun will be blocked by the moon, he must be talking to the gods and we should do what he says.
While I was very confused with the whole explanation (It’s hard enough explaining concepts of time in english, now try it in a language you can barely understand!) I managed to glean that tonight, March 21st, was an important night. Our teachers said the ruins will be open all night with shamans and elders performing rituals, blessings, and celebrating the new Mayan year. We were in for something special. Excited with the news we ran back to Carly. We packed her stuff and hit the road around 5PM for Tecpan.
The drive to Tecpan was uneventful. I was kind of hoping to see droves of natively dressed Mayans making a pilgrimage to the ruins. We drove through the sleepy town around 9PM and headed towards the ruins to check them out.
We arrived at the Iximche ruins.. A construction crew was busy building a stage for some reason, but no signs of any ceremonies. We wandered past the construction workers and into the actual ruins. No one was out checking any tickets or anything at this time of night. We ambled down the pathway until we realized we were actually walking on-top of Mayan ruins. It was so dark we couldn’t tell until we noticed the mud/brick walls and carved steps. Cool stuff, out here on our own ambling around ruins in the middle of the night.
There was no moon that night, It was pitch-black outside. Not sure if that happens every Mayan New Year or just a coincidence… With the accuracy of the Mayan calendars I am leaning towards it not being an accident.
We kept seeing small groups of people walking off into the woods. We asked a group if they were headed to the “ceremonias”, They said yes so we followed them down the random path.
As we walked the path we heard soft chanting steadily growing louder and louder. We pushed through some trees to a clearing to find this scene awaiting us…
Mildly intimidated we slowly worked our way into the circle. We were the only non-Mayans there. It was pretty obvious we were tourists but we did our best to be respectful and remain out of the way. The Mayans did not seem to mind us and were friendly. We were discreetly snapping photos under our shirts, eventually realizing that the other Mayans there were taking pictures of the whole process. Clearly this was a rare occasion and an experience for some of them as well.
The shamans were building the ceremonial circle when we first arrived. On top of a giant round stone platform they laid out an intricate circle design on the ground with sugar. Then layer by layer they started filling and building up the circle with various offerings. Cinnamon, honey, sugar, rice, maiz, avocados, coins, incense, candles, Quetzelteca!, beer, you name it. All things they were thankful for in the previous year. The entire time the shamans are chanting various prayers. This is all taking place in Mayan dialects so we have no idea what they were saying. The building of the circle was a beautiful and meticulous process.
After the circle was completed one of the elder shamans got up and gave a speech in Mayan and then translated it into spanish. I believe the jist was that it is important for the Mayan people to preserve their culture, teach it to the children, and educate others about it. He described things they were blessed with and things they had to look forward to in the coming year. He thanked everyone for coming to the ceremony and then got down from the platform.
The shaman headed back to the ceremonial circle and began to light the candles in the circle. Meticulously lighting each candle in a specific order North, South, East and West. Once all the ceremonial candles were lit he said another prayer and lit some small pieces of wood in the circle which set the entire thing ablaze in a huge fire.
Once the fire was going, he spoke with the other elders and said something in Mayan to the crowd. The entire crowd dropped to their knees all facing to the North and began chanting and praying. Not ones to be left standing around like a bunch of bozos we followed suit.
After praying and chanting for about 5 minutes in the North direction. Everyone leaned over and kissed the ground. And turned to the South. This process continued until we had prayed in all directions North, South, East, and West. Emotions were high, lots of people crying and whispering prayers. A very devout moment. We were privelged to be attending and witnessing such an event.
Eventually the prayers ended and the band struck up again, playing lively traditional music with flutes, drums, and marimbas. A few Guatemalan men and women danced what looked a helluva lot like an irish jig around the flames of the fire for a while. Everyone was pouring beer and quetzecal into the flames, as well as having a nip or two themselves. The men were smoking MASSIVE cigars. They were huge, as big around as a papertowel roll. The ladies were trying their best to light up cigarettes. (It was obvious none of them ever smoked as I watched them struggle with matches and trying to figure out how to light the cigarette, One lady set 1/2 the cigarette on fire in her hands and then started puffing on it!)
As the fire would die down someone would emerge with what I believe was sugar? and dump it all over the fire to bring the flames back. Eventually more wood was brought out to keep the party going.
So… Lauren, Carly, and I are standing around having a good ol’ time watching these Mayan’s party it up. Excitedly discussing our new once in a lifetime experience when all of the sudden we hear. SQWWAKK! The distinctive sound of a chicken. Uh oh…. Looks like the parties just getting started!
More pictures, VIDEOS, and the rest of the story at http://homeonthehighway.com
We spent 4 weeks in San Pedro La Laguna, Guatemala taking spanish school. It was a great learning experience and we really enjoyed slowing down our pace and getting to know one location intimately. However, after a month in one spot our brains were burned out on spanish and we were ready to move on.
Our last night at school they threw a big bash for all the students. We cooked up a traditional meal of Chuchitos and Jicacma tea. Laurens teacher loaned her a traditional mayan outfit for the event.
The school got together and started cranking out Chuchitos (basically a Tamale with a lot less work) You take a ball of maiz flour and some oil, mash it up into a tortilla shape and fill it with some chicken/vegetables, close it up and wrap it in a leaf from a ear of corn.
Chuchitos ready for cooking
Throw them in a pot on top of the fire with a bit of water, steam for 45 minutes.
Serve with salsa and EAT!
For a beverage, take a pot of water, add a boatload of Jicama (Hibiscus) flowers, and some sugar. Heat for a while, add sugar, and serve. Jicama tea.
We are going to miss our cabin in San Pedro, but all good things must come to an end and the trip must continue!
We said goodbye to our teachers at Corazon Maya spanish school in San Pedro La Laguna, Guatemala. We became very good friends with our teachers. You spend 4 hours a day for 3 weeks talking to someone and you form bonds. We often wonder what our guatemalan teachers are up to these days…
We said goodbye to our sweet ass cabin
And took in our last views of Lago Atitlan…
Were off to Guatemala City to get some much needed repairs done to the truck (reoccurring theme??) and meet up with some friends.
We made some friends off the internet (surprise, surprise) who offered up their place for us to crash in Guatemala City while we got some 4runner repairs done (by another friend from the internet!). We pushed into Guat City with no real idea where we were going. Guatemala City is a crazy town, traffic is horrible, the streets are a maze, and the signage slim. After driving around in circles for a while, making a few payphone calls, and being lost for about 2 hours we finally found our way to our friend Julio’s place. Probably the nicest home we have seen so far in Central America.
Julio and his wife Karina welcome us into their home. We busted out the bottles of booze and became fast friends. They asked us what we missed most from the states. Our answers were… #1 Chinese Food. #2 Movie theaters. (It doesn’t take much to please us…)
That night we went to get some Chinese food. Wantons and Brahva beer!
Our new friends, Julio and Karina.
After stuffing our face we went to the movies and watched Girl with Dragon Tattoo (subtitled in spanish). In one fell swoop Julio and Karina satisfied our American desires. (Tickets were $2.50 each for a state of the art movie theater, Julio couldn’t believe we paid $10-$15 to see a movie in the states)
Next morning we took the truck to our mechanic Adrian in Guatemala City. I had a laundry list of things I needed done/fixed on the truck. Adrian said he would treat the truck as his own and we placed our baby in his hands.
The repairs ended up taking a while and we spent the next few weeks partying it up with Julio and Karina. We met all their friends and family and got to see a side of Guatemala City most travelers never see.
Guatemala Cities “Eiffel Tower”
The worlds biggest plate of Guatemalan typical snacks. Julio got very excited.
Capital building of Guatemala (The Green House)
Guachitos! Guatemalan Drunk food. Greasy delicious hamburgers served up till 4AM.
Old town Guatemala City
Read the rest of the story at http://homeonthehighway.com
Before our trip we researched all the countries we would be visiting on the PanAm. Overwhelmingly, overlanders reported the most issues with border crossings, corrupt cops, bribery, and theft in Honduras. From what we read the cops seem to like to play it fast and loose in Honduras with “official laws” changing daily or even in between car checkpoints…
We came prepared with our “Anti-Bribery toolkit". 3 reflective triangles, 1 fire extinguisher, roll of reflective tape, crappy nudie mags and cheap cigarettes.
We mentally prepped ourselves for chaos and headed towards “El Florido”. We reached the border, nestled in a small valley between some large green hills.
What we found was not quite the insanity we expected. In fact it was actually a pretty sleepy frontera with just a few trucks idling about. Not a single scamming tramidor or corrupt official to be seen.
Equipped with our new spanish skills we asked around a bit and figured out the process. We found the aduana office and talked with a customs official who took care of stamping our passports out of Guatemala and canceling our car permit. We gave him all the paperwork and just sat back, he ran around various offices taking care of everything for us. Gratis! (Free)
Well… that was easy. It must get crazy on the Honduras side right??
We get back in the truck, drive a few hundred feet down the road and park in front of the Honduras Customs office. A man in a customs shirt comes up to us and says he is headed to lunch… OK?
Apparently, the customs office closes daily for lunch. (OVERLANDING PROTIP: Get your border crossings done before 12:00PM)
The official instructed us to get our passports stamped into Honduras and then come back later to handle the truck paperwork. Alrighty… We didn’t really have much of a choice so we stamped into Honduras and headed over to the comedor (restaurant) to have some lunch.
We entered the small lunchroom and the customs official waved howdy to us over his bowl of soup. We spent an hour eating lunch with the entire customs office watching “Scrubs” dubbed in spanish on the lunchroom T.V.
FYI: I don’t think “Scrubs” style of humor translates to Central America… though that Zach Braff sure is dreamy.
When lunch was over we headed back with the customs official to the office. A bunch of stamps, bunch of copies, and we were in. No strange fees, no bribes. Easy. Just how we like it.
As long as you have plenty of time to hang out for lunch “El Florido” is a great border crossing.
Welcome to Honduras.
I read somewhere that 75% of Honduras is on at least a 25% incline. I believe it, this country is full of rolling hills and mountains.
Our first stop in Honduras was Copan Ruinas. We had heard tale of a bar there with a german owner who was brewing up 100% organic hefeweizen and other german beers. After drinking nothing but tasteless lagers for the past 5 months I was dying for a beer with some real flavor. Oh ya. I heard there were some Mayan ruins nearby too…
We pull into the city of Copan Ruinas and start asking beer questions, someone points us in the direction toSol De Copan, German Bar and Restaurant.
We walked up and met Tomas outside smoking a cigarette, He saw our truck driving down the street with the California plates. He said “You guys must be thirsty?”
We spent the rest of the entire day and evening hanging out with Tomas and making all kinds of new friends in Copan Ruinas. Once Tomas said we could just camp outside the bar we REALLY hit the sauce…
I don’t recall much from that night. I do remember we woke up the next morning in a fog. We drove 5 hazy minutes to the ruins, stepped outside the truck. Looked at the steep hike, looked at the hot sun, and then looked at each other… We jumped back in the A/C cooled truck and headed to the beach chugging water and tylenol the whole way.
Maybe next time Ruinas!
Up until Honduras the weather has been fairly mild, not too incredibly hot, not to cold. The instant we crossed into Honduras it started to heat up and humidify quickly. We thanked baby jesus that Adrian fixed our A/C in Guatemala City every time we stepped foot out of the truck into the inferno outside.
The palm-tree lined sandy shores of Tela, Honduras were more our speed on that hot day. We sat in the shade, ate fresh ceviche, and nursed our hangovers.
Sunset over the Caribbean. Tela, Honduras
Thoroughly relaxed and recovered from our hangovers we pushed towards La Ceiba, Honduras and Pico Bonito National Park.
Semana Santa (Holy Week) was rapidly approaching. During Semana Santa the entire latin american populace takes the week off and heads to the coastline to party it up. On the beaches of Tela we were sitting at ground-zero for the madness. The hotel owners all said we should get the hell out of dodge before Monday, every single hotel room was booked up for the next 8 days and people were flocking in by the thousands when we hit the road.
We headed for the hills! Specifically Pico Bonito national park located outside the town of La Ceiba, Honduras. We stopped by the grocery and stocked up on supplies. We were planning to be gone for at least a week up in the mountain, vowing only to come out once the madness had ended.
The Rio Cangrejal winds through Pico Bonito park. Rio Cangrejal is known for its world-class white-water rafting.
I had some fun mashing through some wild river crossings and getting some weird looks from kids wondering why this gringo is driving in their swimming holes.
On the road we pass this hut slinging some sort of jungle hooch. We, of course, pulled over to have a taste.
Guifiti/Gifiti is a Garifun native drink made out of sticks, herbs (including that good good), spices, and rum. It tastes like garbage but they say its good for your health and vigor.
Saluld!
They also had this bottle of AIDS for sale. Surprisingly it was pretty good.
Sun was starting to set and we still had not found a place to camp, We passed a few hostel/hotels on the way up the mountain so doubled-back to check them out.
We found a spot called “Omega Tours” who offer cabins/camping/rafting tours in Pico Bonito. $5 a night and they have a bar. Sold!
[urldecode=http://homeonthehighway.com]More pics and the rest of the story on the blog at http://homeonthehighway.com[/url%5D
We packed up our stuff from the “Omega Tours” in Pico Bonito and headed to town to stock up on supplies, gas, and cash. We were planning to drive out to the remote “Miskito Coast” and needed to be prepared for anything.
We load up the grocery cart with tons of food, water, beer etc. Hit the register and try to pay with our debit card. Lady tells me its not working for some reason… OK, try this one? Still not working… Great. OK Let me go pull some cash from the ATM.
ATM is not working either. Crap. We try Lauren’s card, same thing. Nada. “Please contact your bank” UGH. Worst case scenario as we now have no money, no food, and no phone to call to figure out what is going on.
We apologize to the clerk and abandon our cart full of crap in the store, luckily we were in a mall and figured we could find a payphone/internet café to call the bank and see what was up. We went out to the truck and pilfered our last few bits of change from the ashtray to pay for a call.
We find an internet café which is setup for international dialing, after messing around for 20 minutes trying to dial a 1800 number (If you have ever tried to use a phone outside the country you will understand!) we finally get through. Then we end up waiting on hold for 45 minutes…. Lauren and I start to wonder if we have enough change to cover this call.
Finally an exasperated man picks up the line, Before I get a chance to say anything he yells “THE VISA NETWORK IS DOWN! YOU CANT USE YOUR CARD!”
Oh. Looks like we weren't the only ones with problems….
It turns out while we were staring blankly at the grocery store clerk and then confusedly stumbling from ATM to ATM with no success. The entire VISA network in the states was taking a 45-minute coffee break.
We hung up the phone, walked out to the ATM, and tried again. The sweet whiiir of cash being queued up was like music to our ears.
Life is all about timing my friends… 10 minutes earlier we would have had no problems getting cash, 45 minutes later the same. We just happened to arrive at the perfectly incorrect time.
Overlanding ProTip: We have a stash of US currency in the truck for emergencies like this, however the store did not take U.S. money. We now keep a little stash of local currency in the truck as well. You never know when your card is going to crap out on you.
Stocked up, fueled up, and ready for adventure! We hit the road to the Moskito coast.
The directions we had were shaky at best and we ended up taking a wrong turn into a small sketchy neighborhood. Before I got a chance to turn around we found ourselves smack in the middle of a police-checkpoint in this barrio.
The checkpoint was manned by 6 young fellas. They see us coming and pull me over. Young guy asks me the usual paperwork questions and then says he needs to search my truck… OK. We haven’t been asked to search our truck yet in Honduras so I thought it a bit odd.
Then he asks me to get out of the truck. Again odd, I haven't been asked to get out in quite some time either.
So I get out and he puts me up against the truck and gives me a crappy cursory pat-down. The first pat-down I have received since leaving the U.S. Obviously he wasn’t looking very hard since he doesn't notice I have a buck knife in my pocket. He starts asking me if I have drugs, where we are from, did we come here to buy drugs. We are conversing in spanish, I am telling him… No we are just lost, we are tourists bla bla blah.
He continues to search the truck, I roll down the rear-window, he opens the cooler and comes back around to the front of the truck. He then tells me “Having a cooler full of beer during Semana Santa is illegal…”
I say… Por Que? (Why?) and he says because the police say so…
So from this point on we know this guy is trying to take us for a bribe and we mentally shift gears.
As sick as it sounds… We have been preparing for this moment now for so long we are almost excited to get a chance to have a go at some corrupt cops. The game is a-foot!
He rechecks all of our papers and tells us our vehicle import papers are only good for Guatemala (which is BS. Why would Honduran immigration give me an vehicle import document for Guatemala?) so I call him out on that in spanish. Surprised by our confidence. He moves on.
Then he says I need a front plate. I explain to him you do not need one in the United States and they do not issue you a front Honduran plate at the border, in spanish. He moves on again.
He starts saying I have drugs in the car, since I am from California and Californias love drugs! (I see our reputation precedes us…) I tell him we do not have any in spanish. He moves on.
The cop just keeps coming up random crap hoping we cave and just offer him cash. I keep calling him on his B.S. in spanish. He is almost smiling at this point, unable to keep the con alive and remain serious.
Eventually he just straight up starts asking for a bribe/regalo (gift). That is when we start playing the fool and immediately forget all the spanish we know….
Everything he asks now is met with a "no entiendo"(I dont understand)
He asks Lauren something, she replies “No entiendo”
We go back and forth for 10 more minutes with him asking me for a regalo and me saying “no entiendo”and talking to him about random nonsense in rapid fire english which really confuses him.
He keeps saying in frustration “You don’t understand my language!?”. Guess he forgot about the 1st half of our conversation that took place entirely in spanish…
Eventually he calls his buddy over who just tells him to knock it off. Young Cop #2 takes our paperwork from Young Cop #1 hands it to me and tells us to get going.
Home on the Highway-1 Honduran Corrupt Cop-0
While every case dealing with the police is different…we have found, as have most others, if you play along with the cop long enough, waste their time, or just downright confuse them. You can get out of most bribery incidents without paying a nickel.
NOTE: This was our first bribe attempt in over 5 months of travel and 20,000+ miles covered. The majority of police/military we have encountered have been friendly and helpful.
PS: He never did ask about our reflective triangles, fire extinguisher, or reflective tape!!!
ATM disaster dodged, Corrupt cops deflected. What else could go wrong!?
We are climbing through the mountain passes of Honduras and I can tell the 4Runner is losing power. Not exactly sure what is going on I do what any proud Toyota owner would do and simply ignore it. Hell… She still runs don’t she?
Eventually we are coming through a construction zone near the top of a pass and I lose all momentum/power. The truck basically cuts out. The accelerator pedal pins flat to the floor and doesn't come back up.
We are smackdab in the middle of the construction zone. Huge dumptrucks and bulldozers battle it out with the mountainside all around us. It is at least 95F, hot, dusty, and LOUD.
We are stuck blocking the 1-lane of the passable highway with gigantic buses and semi-trucks all honking and trying to squeeze around us.
I jump out of the truck and pop the hood. Chaos everywhere. Tons of dust, huge loud tractors, people honking like crazy at us. I check the throttle cable and its all screwed up, sagging from the throttle body like a limp noodle.
I try to jerry rig it quickly. No go, It wont retract. Something is jamming. I pull out my tools and take it apart in the middle of the highway with people passing everywhere.
No wonder it wont retract… Line is frayed and jamming inside the throttle cable housing.
Not going anywhere fast I decide to push the truck to the side of the road and assess the situation. I figured the cable had not yet broke and I could just remove the frayed wires and it would get me a little further. While I was working on this 2 random construction workers came over and started talking to us. They said they knew a mechanic in the next town and would be happy to give us both a ride. We locked up the truck and jumped into the construction workers truck.
They gave us a ride to town where the mechanic looked at the cable and said we needed a new one (you don’t say!?) He didn’t have one but knew there were parts stores in the next town. Back into the construction workers truck we go. Drove about 15 miles to the next town….
We searched from store to store. 83 throttle cable for a 22R motor, 88 throttle cable for a diesel Hilux, 22RE cable for a Corolla. No exact matches for a 87 4Runner 22RE. I figured I could make the 22R cable work but the parts guy insisted we need the right one.
The little town did not have the right cable but they assured us we could find one in San Pedro Sula (Large industrial town of Honduras). However the town was almost an hour away.
I started asking the guys if they knew a taxi that we could call to take us all the way to San Pedro. They said “Nonsense!” and off to San Pedro Sula we went, a 45-mile drive in the construction truck.
An hour later we arrive in San Pedro, same situation. Store to store to store with no exact match found. These guys have been helping me now for 3 hours in the hot as hades Honduran sun. We can barely speak to them, we have no idea what the hell is going on with our truck back at the construction site, and store after store turns us down. Our gracious construction workers are getting frustrated as well. I am wishing I just rigged my cable and ignored these guys, when all of the sudden I see a little hole-in-the-wall parts store "TOYOTA REPUESTOS IMPORTER". I jump out of the truck and run in with my cable, 30 seconds later I have an EXACT match 87 4Runner cable. We all rejoice and head back to the truck.
With the bad cable out.
We put the new cable in. Success!!! Back in business. I offered to pay these guy for their gas/time (They drove over 60 miles and were with us for almost 5 hours) but they refused. They said to us…
Today we help you, tomorrow maybe someone help us.
I forced a few cold coke-colas on them from our fridge, we gave them some hugs, thanks, and said goodbye.
Time and time again we say that the people of Mexico/Central America we meet are the nicest, friendliest, most giving people on earth. The people of Honduras live up this mantra as well. We have loved getting to know them and their beautiful country.
We had seen the movie "The Mosquito Coast"with Harrison Ford a few years ago that described this very remote undeveloped area of the northern Honduran coastline. We forgot all about it until we saw the name again in our Honduras guidebook. The Moskito Coast is described as the least developed area in all of Central America. With minimal roads, no services, and no tourist infrastructure. It sounded right up our alley.
We heard about a 4×4 trail that hugs the coastline out to a small Miskito village named “Pueblo Nuevo”. They said it was rough going, lots of beach/sand driving, river crossings, and no support out their if something was to go wrong. SOLD!
Winding through the hills towards the coastline
The paved road gave way to dirt path on the way to the coast.
Loads of Coconut/Date palms, Banana trees, all kinds of fruit trees. Dole/United Fruit Company/Chiquita Banana have had Honduras on lock for 50+ years. You can find various sides of the story, some people say they have exploited the people/land for profit, others say they took a malaria-infested swamp and turned it into livable habitat and provide a decent life for the people. Either way, They are here to stay. We passed mile after mile after mile of fruit trees. And thousands of people selling bushels of fresh off the tree (still green) bananas everywhere. You could buy a huge bushel of bananas (like 50 bananas) for $1.
Dirt roads through mile after mile of plantation.
Somewhere along the way on these horrible rutted roads, I go to push the brake pedal down and it hits the floor… Slowing to a stop, I jump out and find the front driver side brakeline spewing brake fluid and my front caliper bolt missing.
The caliper bolt had somehow rattled its way out allowing the caliper to rock back and forth eventually causing the brakeline to snap. 40 miles out into the bush with no brakes… We had the option to turn around and head back to civilization (Knowing that it was Semana Santa week and most shops would be closed) or just keep mashing it out towards the Miskito Coast using just the transmission and E-Brake to stop. What do you think we chose?
Getting further and further from civilization we encounter lots of small Garifun/Miskito villages. Most people live in simple thatched roof mud huts out here. Very basic but they all seemed happy and smiled at us when we waved.
Couldn't find any place to camp so we rolled into a small village and ask around for place to stay. We find Don Tinos hospedaje (small hotel) for $5 a night. We met Tino himself who was a nice guy and it was getting dark, so we say OK.
Things are a little rougher inside. Raggedy bed with roach guide on the wall. The roach guide did come in handy that night as we played “GUESS THAT BUG!” TV syndication rights in progress, back off FOX!
I tried to crimp/JBweld the snapped brakeline so we could at least have 3 working brakes. It worked for a few minutes but after I bled the brakes and applied some real pressure to the crimp/JBweld it gave out spraying my eyes full of brake fluid (fun!)
Oh well. E-Brake still works!
We mash on further. Tino from the hotel tells us there is a road that leads deeper into the Miskito Coast but the road is completely sand and there is a "river crossing" we need to pass. OK, I can dig a river crossing. He says its difficult to pass the river if you don’t know where to cross. He assigns some random dude from the village to jump on the back of our truck to show us the way.
Our new guia (guide)
We drive through the village and eventually out onto the beach, We drive through the deep sand for a ways when the truck stalls due to getting stuck in the sand. Homeboy jumps off the truck and starts running towards the ocean and taking off his pants. Lauren and I are thinking… What the hell? Did we just give this dude a ride to the ocean so he can go for a swim?
Eventually we realize this guy is fording some sort of underwater sandbar and trying to show us the way to drive across the friggin ocean to get to the other side.
I look at Lauren and say…. Looks like were driving in the ocean! We get out and air down the tires to 10psi which frees us from the sand and we head to the start of this underwater sandbar. Homeboy runs back to guide us once more.
We drive into the ocean, water up to the hood of our lifted truck and this random Honduran kid swimming in front of the truck in the ocean.
We camped out on the beach and did not a see a soul for most of the next day.
Later in the afternoon, 2 young guys came riding up on horses. We started talking and it turns out that one guy was from Belize (and spoke english) and the other dude was Garifun from the village just up the road. We shared some beers and became instant friends.
We spent the rest of the day sharing stories, drinkin’, and riding their horses bareback on the beach. Kenry told us the last time he saw white people was over a year ago, another Californian (surprise, surprise) had backpacked his way down to the village.
Eventually we run out of beer and they say we can buy more in their village which is about 5 miles up the beach. OFF WE GO! FOLLOW THAT HORSE!
We parked in front of the village bar, headed inside to BOOMING reggae music and a handful of 5-10 year old kids doing some of the dirtiest dancing I have ever seen. It was hilarious. We picked up some more beer and on our way out a drunk dude tried to sell Lauren a dead iguana for dinner. I almost bought it (I've been trying to eat iguana this whole trip!) but my buddy said it wasn't a good tasting one.
We headed back to the beach and continued the party. Our friends brought a bottle of Miskito hooch, which got us all pretty loopy. The stuff was straight fire water.
Not a bad spot to party at.
After many beers and bottles of Miskito liquor I decided it would be a good idea to ride the horse again…
UP YOU GO!
DOWN YOU GO!
SUCCESS!
We say goodnight to our friends, they pose for some stunna shots and rode off into the sunset.
Another night in Paradise.
Border fiasco behind us we drove deeper into Nicaragua. Nicaragua is the land of volcanoes. Pretty much everywhere you turned your head your eyes would meet at least one or two of them towering over the horizon. On the road to Leon we were passing many parks that looked good for camping.
We turn down the road into one of the parks, A guard meets us at the gate. We tell him we want to camp near the Volcano. He seems confused but then explains there is a road that goes up the Volcano and points towards some farmers and their cows plying up some path.
We ask “Can we camp up there?” He says “Sure!”
So we headed off towards the “road”.
We end up in "traffic" behind a farmer, his horses and his young son. The "road" appears to be more of a cow path that farmers use to move their cattle from pasture to pasture.
After slowly creeping behind this farmer up this horribly rutted and rocky path for about 15 minutes he stops and asks us what we are doing?
We tell him we are trying to drive up the Volcano to camp….He says he has never seen anyone drive up this road and it gets pretty rough ahead. I ask him if he thinks its possible to continue, He replies “Maybe…”
We push on further up the volcano, the road continues to deteriorate the higher we get.
I am mashing in 4×4 over huge boulders, the path is barely wide enough for the 4Runner to fit. I was having a blast tackling this challenging trail, letting the 4Runner do what she was born to do. The farmer is enjoying watching these crazy ass gringos drive up his volcano. Poor Lauren is bouncing all over the truck, worried about breaking our home while driving up this crazy path.
The farmer is now on-board with the adventure to drive up this Volcano. Him and his son are going up ahead of us clearing huge differential murdering boulders out of the way and helping me pick lines to climb up and over rocks, cliffs, and washes.
After about an hour of mashing the living crap outta our truck we reach a point where we just cant clear the differentials any longer. The farmer looks heartbroken. He offers up his horse to Lauren and I to continue our journey. He wanted to take us back up to his ranch and to spend the night with him and his family.
We considered his offer. Unfortunately, the 4Runner was wedged in the cow path, Nothing else could fit through. I figured I should probably turn around and not leave my truck out here in the middle of nowhere blocking the way.
Sadly we had to say Thank you and Goodbye to our farmer friend and his son. We reversed in 4×4 for about 1/4 mile to a wide enough spot to turn around and start heading back down the mountain
Eventually we get back to the guard at the park gate. For some reason he was laughing his butt off when he saw us drive up… turns out that SOB knew it wasn't a trail for trucks! He was pretty impressed when we told him how far we got up though.
We caught a beautiful sunset that night as we drove into Leon, Nicaragua.
I also got pulled over TWICE in one day in Managua for legitimate reasons. It appears Nicaraguans actually enforce laws of the road. Passing on a double-yellow and using a turn-lane to pass is illegal here…
I explained to the first cop I was just a dumb tourist and he left us off with a warning.
The second cop actually confiscated my license and was about escort us to the bank to pay our citation. Before he pulled off towards the bank he asked where we were going for the day. I explained we were trying to get to Volcano Masaya. He starts laughing and explains we are very lost and completely off-track. All of the sudden he gives me license back, tears up the ticket, then pulls out his motorcycle, stops traffic both directions in the 6-lane highway and gives us a police escort all the way across town to the correct highway to Volcan Masaya. Talk about a turn of events!!
[urldecode=http://homeonthehighway.com/volcano-driving-in-nicaragua]Rest of the story, more pics, and videos on the blog at http://homeonthehighway.com/volcano-driving-in-nicaragua/%5B/url%5D
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