Costa Rica Driving Adventure Day 9: San Salvador, El Salvador to Somotillo, Nicaragua

We started out thinking we had about 2 hours to drive from the war zone that is San Salvador to the border in Honduras. The drive through Honduras is only 80 miles, so the plan was to cross Honduras, enter Nicaragua and drive an hour to the historic city of Leon, Nicaragua for the night. We missed a turn leaving San Salvador and got lost for about an hour or so. Barney got out and asked for directions.

It then took an additional 3 1/2 hours to drive from San Salvador to the Honduras border. We were now 4 1/2 into the day and just arriving to Honduras. The drive through this eastern part of El Salvador was uneventful and we appreciated the nice roads through this part of the country. We got our papers stamped and quickly left the El Salvador side of the border. It took about 15 minutes. We still had to go through the Honduras side of the border. A man on the El Salvador side of the border told us to be careful at the Honduras side of the border as it was filled with thieves, drunks and drug addicts. It sounded pleasant.

The Honduras side was similar to the Guatemala border crossing with helpers swarming like bees to a beehive. These people don't take no for an answer and follow you until you are done, yelling, screaming and agitating you the entire time. The Honduras border crossing area and Honduras in general looked like a large trash dump.

Even the national flag at the border was in tatters.

Cows were walking through the border area unattended. Gretel started barking at them.

I got a helper because the crossing process here was very confusing. At one point, I asked the helper where the trash can was as I had a box of trash from the s.u.v.  He said, I will take it for you. He walked 5 feet and through it on the ground. It looked like thousands of other people did the same. There was a burned up car sitting there that looked like it hadn't been moved since the 1980's. There were no trash cans at all! This helper was a little different. He did everything he was supposed to and fast. However, he would also lie in order to get us to give him more money. For example: He told me I needed to pay a bribe to the border cops because I didn't have a front plate on the s.u.v. I told him that wasn't the law there and he dropped it. Also, he told me I could pay $15 to not have our bags searched in what would be a lengthy 2 hour process. I told him no. Anyway, there were about 5 of these scams. Besides this, the guy did his job and we were out of both sides of the border crossing in 1:15. During the 80 miles through Honduras we were treated to see mile after mile of trash and boring scenery. It appeared that Honduras had deforested this area and what was left was brown grass and occasional small trees. The houses we saw were 3rd world shacks. Shortly after we got into Honduras it started pouring. We joked that this would keep the cops inside so they couldn't shake us down for bribes. We were right and we were not stopped by any cops through this country. I was concerned about the cops here as I read a blog post from someone who made this drive who was stopped 14 times in this 80 mile stretch! About 1/2 way through Honduras, the storm got really bad with heavy rain and lightning.

We did not see and lights the rest of the way. We did however, still see Mormon missionaries.

When we got to the border crossing into Nicaragua, it was dark and raining heavily. There was no power at the border. We had no idea if the border was open or not and were kind of concerned as we would have had to back track 40 miles one way in heavy rain to find a hotel. The usual mob circled the car to help. One man told us the border was closed, but for $20, he would have his "friend" get us the necessary border crossing stamps. Frankly, we didn't know what to believe. Barney and I decided to look around to determine if the border was open. I use the term "look" loosely as it was pitch black and raining very hard. We entered the Aduana building and saw, much to our surprise, that it was open. It was being run with a total of 3 flashlights. The entire floor had 1/2 inch of water on it. We got a helper to get us the exit stamps for Honduras. He did his job. Then told me it would be $40 for the pets to exit Honduras. I knew this was a lie. An argument ensued. He insisted I pay him the $40 and a tip. I told him no, gave him my last $17 of Honduras Lempiras for a tip, shut the window and took off to the Nicaraguan side of the border. We have light! The Nicaraguan side had minimal light as it had a generator to run some lights. We got a helper here who took us through the process. It was still very dark and raining heavily. We got to the last step, which was to have the pet certificates stamped and then we were done. It was very hard finding the building for the pets. It had no light and was run with 1 flashlight. The normal building for approval of pets wasn't being used for some reason. The Aduana agent asked for the pet papers with the stamps from Honduras on them, which I gave to him. He then asked for 2 more copies of such paperwork, which I didn't have. I thought, no problem, we'll just make copies. Wrong! The only copy machine was on the Honduran side of the border and there was a power outage there. I then got the idea that I would try giving the Aduana agent 2 unstamped copies of the pet papers that I copied in Michigan before leaving. To my surprise, he accepted them and we were done here in 1:30. On the way out of the border area, we saw a friend we made named Jose. He and his wife were diving from Connecticut to Brazil for the World Cup. He told us that our helper on the Honduran side had reported us to the Honduran police who were now searching for us! Yikes! Time to haul ass out of here to Nicaragua. It was still pouring and very dark, so we decided t stop at the first town, 5 miles over the border for the night, Somotillo, Nicaragua. There was only one hotel in the town, the "Victoria Hotel", so we got 2 rooms there for the night. This hotel looked like it hadn't been updated since the Victorian Age. The last 2 nights, my room lacked hot water so I was looking forward to a nice, long warm shower. Nope, this place was a down grade! It had no running water at all! There was a large bucket of water and a bowl in the shower so you could scoop water and pour it into the toilet to "flush" it.

Forget internet, I don't think this town had internet at all. My a.c. unit tried to work and eventually got the room down into the mid 70's. Oscar was still hot and panted most of the night. The room was small and cramped and looked like a prison cell.

There was a bar over the "bathroom" entrance that was 5 feet high.

I hit my head on it no less than 8 times. We decided to get something to eat at the town's restaurant. It had no menu. We were told that we could have ribs, chicken or rice and beans. Give me option number 3 please. I order a rum and coke and was given an entire bottle of rum! This little guy joined us for dinner.

I ran out of cat food here so I ordered a chicken dinner for Bugsy to go. There was no finding cat food in this town. The plan for tomorrow is to drive to San Juan Del Sur, Nicaragua, which is near the Costa Rica border for the night and cross into Costa Rica Sunday morning.