This morning we said good-bye to our hosts after breakfast, which was a little different than yesterday, instead of beans and rice there was a bean mash with strong garlic taste, once again not a hint of bacon or meat, I think I am half Vegetarian by now.
We tackled the traffic and I expected the worse, cutting between the lanes of cars with fully loaded bikes is
NO JOKE !!! One of us dropped his bike, the person. will remain name-less, but in his defence, his bike is the heaviest bike between us, loaded with extra fuel-bladders, fishing-rods, cooler boxes for fish etc. When he dropped the bike he managed to smash his body into a small Toyota Yaris which rocked the car, the young girl was frightened by the “Bat-Man-Looking” stud and did not want to check if her door was dented in. The front wheel of the bike hit the other car, the got out and looked and there was no damage, so all happy we carried on. We were riding against the traffic coming into the city, so soon we were on a great road, like most of El Salvadors road, its wide and with a wide emergency lane and the tar had recently been re-surfaced.
Soon the Jungle\Forest-type terrain around us gave way to cane fields, and we went through a little settlement every 10km or so, we had to slow down and I would switch off my music as we entered the little town to be able to hear what sounds there are at each little “shop” that we ride past. The smells of the food vendors had me salivating. You could fix your exhaust next too the hair-dresser which is next to the tyre shop which is next to a lady frying bananas which is next to the little cart of a vendor selling home made juice, which is next to the fruit vendor, each had some source of music blaring away. In some towns the road would have an intersection and the traffic would back up, but this was no problem as there was a special “Lane” for motorcycles and bicycles, if only there weren’t so many inconsiderate pedestrians walking on the pavement we could have made even better time.
Along the way we passed at least 3 Volcano’s, and the road was in the shade for most of the morning as the trees growing on the side of the road were huge. But the closer we got to Honduras the drier it became, there was hardly any grass growing under the trees and it looked like it had been over-grazed. We hear the rainy season is about to start, so maybe we caught it at it worst, but we were no longer in the lush green jungle we had become accustomed to.
We passed a motorcycle and I noticed the lady on the back frantically waving and showing me to slow down. I did not understand why and kept on going. Later I noticed that she had managed to slow some of us down and now they started riding with us, becoming part of our group. It was only when we stopped for fuel that I learnt they were local bikers from El Salvador and was going to ride with us for a while and then another biker would take over and help cross over the border.
Later this couple disappeared and all of a sudden a green Kawasaki was leading our group. He lead us up to the border, then spoke to the person at the 1st check-point, this person moved a traffic cone and opened a new lane for us and I saw him speak into his Walkie-Talkie, and then each check-point just magically opened up and he led us right into the search area at Customs, then we greeted and he explained he can’t go any further but we would have no problem leaving El Salvador.
Here we met another couple in an Over-Lander Van, with Fuel Cans and spades and tent on its Roof rack and water tanks, they were also heading South, sure we will meet up again.
Getting out of El Salvador was a breeze, we were out and our Temporary Import Permits cancelled within 45 minutes, and then Honduras Horror Hit, This is by far the worst country we have crossed on this trip. El Salvador was a big step up from Guatemala, but Honduras is a huge step down from Guatemala. The people are much poorer, their standard of living is definitely much lower here.
Entering into Honduras started with the stamp of the Passport, which did not go to bad, only half and hour, three points where they check, check again and then stamp, but then came the Customs Hall where a Fixer told us that it was lunch-time and nothing will happen until 13h00, still 55 minutes away, but, if we pay him $200-00 he could “un-lunch” the system and we would get help. We thought this was his opening price and started negotiating, and part of the strategy of negotiating is to decline the price and make a counter offer, but this fixer simply walked away, we called his bluff and went to sit infant of the 2 windows looking at the two officials on lunch, we thought our “lost-puppy-look” would open the window, nothing. Note how many stickers had been stuck on the windows of the Custom’s Official, we should then have known that rules are not a big thing here.
Some went to eat chicken and drink beer, some said they would wait and jump up as the window opened:
While some waited I saw the fixer pop in all the time and hand forms to the officials on lunch, but through a side door, and 5 minutes later money would pass hands and the paperwork was completed and the import permits issued. At 13h00 we stood in front of the windows and started handing in our copies, yes, we had to make copes again, this time you could buy cool drink and do your copies all in the same shop:
We noticed that the 2 fixers was bringing customers to the window and wanted to pop their faces into the window and speak to the officials, but the fixers had never dealt with a bunch of hot and bothered South Africans, so we formed a scrum and simply pushed them out of the sight of the officials indie the office. Things got heated and Afrikaans words were spoken. Doc had to intervene and told us that the custom lady had said he must come to the window, she heard the commotion and saw the fixers standing at the back of the scrum, and beckoned us out of the way and gave the fixers their papers, so, moral of the story is that money always win at the border, these people are there every day and making a few Dollars on the side is far more important than the “first-come-first-serve” Rule, so tomorrow I will have my dollars ready and buy myself a Fixer and tomorrow we are crossing the mother of all long-wait border crossings, into Nicaragua. We are going to try and do a pre-clear on line tonight and see if that helps. I looked at the link last night and it starts with Covid info, then 4 other pages of questions and papers you have to submit.
As I was one of the 1st in our group through it was my turn to watch the bikes, specially after we had now made two enemies (the fixers) and we wanted to make sure no tyres gets slashed.
I ordered the only thing on the menu, it was a take-away and no seating, and only shade in between two buildings with aplastic chair they offered me, so I sat with 2 street dogs and a cat and shared my chicken and “chips” with then while thinking how lucky my dogs are they are my pets and not fending for themselves in 45,5 Degree heat, dodging trucks and cars.
When I looked at the chips I saw it was banana, but they use green bananas and they are not sweet at all, so if you close your eyes you would not know that it is not potato you are eating. My lunch companions were also very choosy and refused to eat the banana, they only wanted meat, so I decided that they were not so skinny because of their situation but because of choice, if my ribs and hip-bones were sticking out so much I would eat anything edible, but not these street dogs and their friend the cat.
This is my lunch spot:
I have been careful not to drink the water from the tap, even if I brush my teeth I don’t rinse my mouth with tap water. But I suspect the ice is the culprit, so unfortunately I had to find a toilet, non is provided at the border, but you can pay R10-00 and use the toilet in the bottle store. It is clean and comes with many soapy options, but sadly you can’t flush the toilet, even though it has a cistern, here you use the bucket system.
You can see I am scratching here to fill the blog.
Milsy in his new R60 Sun glasses which will in due course cost him thousands of Rands to fix his eyes, for R60 you can’t expect much UV Protection can you.
Both the take aways in this photo selling chicken were sold out by the time we left the border, (it took just over 3,5 hours) which I though was stupid, why not have more stocks to sell, but then I realised there were no fridges, so the chicken you arrive with better sell out fast before their temperature reaches 45,5 Degrees.
We split up and Rocky Peens and I rode ahead the remaining 83km to the town we decided to look for accommodation in. it was not easy and only the 3rd hotel had enough rooms, but it is perfect, its cheap but not nasty, it has its own little “Cafe” upstairs in the breeze and when the others arrived whey asked where the swimming pool was, Pie told then that not only was there a pool beyond the boundry wall but something similar as the Valley of the Waves, like at Sun City, up to now they boss rather drinking beer than looking for the pool.
Look how heavy Peens’s bike is loaded, and not one spare in there, all the spares are on our bikes.
Tomorrow is short push to the border, hopefully we don’t need to pay to “un-lunch” anyone, but we hear from people in El Salvador you could spend 10 hours crossing the border, so tomorrow is going to be challenging, but you can’t make an omelette without breaking some eggs.
Hold Thumbs for us
Fleisch
Good luck for tomorrow dad!! 🤞🤞🤞🤞