Today we crossed out of Guatemala and into El Salvador. Let me start off by addressing the fact that from border to border in Guatemala, it was only 344 miles. Not too shabby. However, we drove that in 10 hours of driving time! Absolutely inconceivable as to why it would take a person 10 hours to drive 344 miles. I could have driven to NJ from Myrtle Beach in that amount of time, which is roughly 600 miles.
Since starting this trip we have dreaded the borders, but for the most part (aside from having Abasi's favorite machete taken from him at the Mexican border) it has been pretty smooth sailing. Well today that all ended. We really didn't know THAT MUCH about El Salvador because it was a last minute decision to go through it to cut down time in Guatemala, by just continuing on the Pan Am Hwy. I swear to you it took 1 hour and 40 minutes to get through customs, immigration and car permits. ALMOST 2 HOURS! Poor Abasi had to deal with all of the BS while they ran him from one place to another while they sat there and did NOTHING. They were actually the only country to ask for papers for our dogs thus far also.
Once we got out of the bureaucratic nonsense, we were almost immediately pulled over and asked to show them our papers. They checked our papers, made some "calls" and even asked us to open the tow box on the back of the car. But again, we ignorantly and expertly played "No Speako Spanisho" and while the probably thought we were jackasses for even trying to drive through a spanish speaking country, they also felt we were once again a waste of time and let us go.
We continued on our way, through the bad, rocky streets, through the country, on our way to at least San Salvador. We didn't really want to stop there but we wanted to get at least that far so that we only had a bit more to go tomorrow. We go to San Salvador, the capitol of El Salvador, and were quickly flooded intro traffic and even more annoying, a Saturday street market, where it was car vs hundreds of people. It was interesting to see though because El Salvador uses the American Dollar as their currency, so if you're ever looking for a deal, go there.
We finally got through and decided to make a mad dash to San Miguel, El Salvador, hoping it would put us in a big city to get a room and a great place to start our trek in the morning. Well, we did get there, because I am currently sitting in our hotel room in San Miguel, however like most places in Central America thus far, you never really know how far you're going. There are simply no signs or they lie to you. Honestly, one time the sign said 65km for 10 miles... it's unbelievable. We definitely undershot how long it would take us to get there because we did end up driving in the dark for about half an hour until we finally came to San Miguel. I know, FREAK OUT RIGHT? Central America driving after dark?! It really isn't that bad, just be aware and get there safely... and clearly we did or else this is a whole new kind of blog people... a haunted one.
But it's not... and we are fine.
San Miguel is actually pretty big and it even had a big carnival going on tonight, but we were obviously to tired... and gringo... to go. Just kidding about the gringo, though we do get stared at like we are carrying some new kind of alien blood. I get that there aren't a whole lot of Gringos in the area, especially a mixed couple, but c'mon people STOP STARING AT US! AND definitely stop pulling us over because we have gringo plates... which happened one more time that day.
Funny story about the second time we got pulled over in El Salvador. The one military cop stayed with us at the car because he knew some English and of course we pretended not to know any Spanish. Well while his friends looked over our papers, he talked to us in English and when we asked him how he learned English he said, and I quote "from watching Sylvester Stallone movies." AWESOME.
So here we are in San Miguel, El Salvador... dogs are walked, fed and sleeping... Abasi is sleeping and I'm heading to bed now too. We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow because we're trying to finish El Salvador, cross into and out of Honduras and into Nicaragua... which borders our destination country, Costa Rica!!!! Hopefully tomorrow will run smoothly because we have some concerns about Honduras' border in terms of the dogs but we shall see and conquer whatever comes our way.
I'm off to bed now, exhausted, and hopefully the Benadryl I just took will help me fall asleep faster and make my heat blisters go away. Honestly, who moves to the Caribbean when they have the skin sensitivity I do? This too shall pass.
Much Love, Pura Vida.
HEEYY, get us out of here... I wanna see The Lazy Mon!
HEY, lemme out!
Some el futbol, no?
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