May 25th, 11:30pm local time
San Miguel, El Salvador
GPS: 

Today, we managed to hit three countries in a day.  It wasn't easy.

Even with our late, late night last night, we were still up pretty early.  I didn't need an alarm clock – I guess I have some kind of internal one that kicks me out of bed at about 5:30.  Actually, it's not an alarm clock – i've been experiencing the same kind of digestive issues that Justin has been.  

Anyways, we didn't get on the road till about 8am or so – Rob and Justin did some more route planning with Brian, and Eunice fixed us a very nice breakfast – oatmeal with apple slices &amp; honey.  That's the best breakfast we've had since we started this little trip, i tell you what.

We got to ride along Lake Nicaragua this morning, which was pretty cool.  It's a massive freshwater lake less than fifty kilometres from the ocean, and it's the only location in the world that has freshwater sharks.  So don't go swimming and then act like a wounded seal. 

We did notice that Robbie's tire was running a little flat, and when we stopped for gas &amp; checked it out, realized that it had been running low for some time.  He's lost a lot of tread, and Sean is running low as well.  We decided that we'd grab tires in Mexico City.

Despite one short section of road with two-foot-deep-potholes, Nicaragua was an incredible change from the frustratingly crowded lanes throughout Costa Rica.  Traffic was light, the roads were in good shape, and we were able to whip through Nicaragua in four hours, hitting the Honduras border at noon.  We've seen a few accidents on this trip, and today made for our second overturned semi truck.  This one had fallen down into a ravine, scattering all kinds of... whatever it was that truck was carrying all over the place.  The other one was a truck that had gone halfway off the road over this canyon in Lima, which was very vertigo-inspiring to look at.  

I've mentioned before that I'm not a fan of siesta.  Brian and Eunice agree with me on that one, and today it really kicked us, hard.  Apparently even twenty-four hour borders close.  For siesta time.  And lunch.  As I mentioned, we got to the Honduras border about noon.  And then we had to wait for an hour and a half.  For the customs agents to have their snooze and lunch.  I could have cheerfully nuked that customs station.  For two hours after that, Rob employed his limited Spanish to try and get us through the border – it ended up costing us nearly $120 USD because we had to bribe the customs agents.  It was especially frustrating 'cause we knew they were doing it, were powerless to stop it, and they were trying to find out how much money we had, 'cause that's how much it was going to cost.  Rob overheard them talking about how much to rake us for, and the one girl they'd designated as their translator couldn't get out a sentence without breaking into hysterical giggles.

Especially interesting in the customs office was a posted sheet stating that the paperwork is free, and to report any customs agent that asks for money.  I took a picture of a big poster that seemed to say that Honduras doesn't have any corrupt customs agents.  I call balogna!  I had to keep shooing away this one irritating guy that wanted me to pay him to push a dirty wet rag around on my bike – 'car wash', no thanks.  The bathroom was interesting, too – like our hotel room in Medellin, it had no toilet seat, and apparently the water didn't run.  There was a huge rain barrel occupying most of the room in the cramped, dirty bathroom, and to flush one had to scoop water out of the rain barrel and pour it into the toilet.  So gross.

Every border seems to have these losers that just hang around and do nothing all day, and Honduras was no exception.  They enjoyed our frustration at our inability to get across the border, laughing as they lounged there in the shade, eating mangoes off the tree.  We got the last word, though.  Justin got them all to agree that they were losers.  They didn't know what they were agreeing to, though, which kind of takes away from it.

That put us in a big hate-on for Honduras, and we were very glad that we'd only be in that country for about an hour and a half.  This country has a love for its' police checkstops, though, and we were forced to actually stop our bikes on several occasions.  We were hoping to make it through Honduras without ever actually having to have touched it with our feet.  Justin loves to stop suddenly around blind corners, and this time I was unable to stop in time, and crashed my right saddlebag into his.  No damage, and he didn't even know that I'd run into him.  He came THIS close to dropping his bike, but he's still 0/0.

Rob dropped his bike twice at the Honduras border.

Unfortunately, the country itself is beautiful, which makes it hard to hate it.  But we were still out of the country in an hour and fifteen minutes.

Every day something bad happens to make us lose time, and today was a doozy.  First, three and a half hours wasted getting into Honduras.  We had a good feeling about El Salvador, though – it's the only country in Latin America that doesn't require immigration checks – they just make sure you don't have a counterfeit passport, and then wave you through.

The guy that checked our passports, though, was a real shocker.  When he looked at Justin's passport, he said 'Edmonton – isn't that north of Red Deer?'  We couldn't believe he knew about Red Deer – everyone else thinks we're from Vancouver or Toronto, and we don't know enough spanish – nor do we often care enough – to correct them.  Anyways, this guy apparently lived in Red Deer for a year a while ago, and worked at Olymel, of all places.  He liked Alberta, but it was too cold – muy frio.

Our optimism was misplaced.  It took FOUR hours to get our motorcycles imported into El Salvador.  We were stopped at this checkpoint and directed to a loading docks off the road.  About fifteen other people were milling around this door, which we assumed was the customs office (at no border crossing since Chile has there been any clearly marked officials office).  We're also always approached by people who want to help us cross borders.  Most times, we shoo them away, but this time we couldn't even find out where to get the forms for our bikes.  His name was either Jonathan or Franklin, and he was a big help.  

At least as far as government agents, go, in Latin America, you don't mess with food time.  We got to wait for an hour before we could even get the forms, and then we hung around for THREE hours before we could get that single stamp on our Super Important Sheet of Coloured Paper.  Then we got to march over to another unmarked building (this one was actually built of shipping containers) and watched as the customs agent struggled with a computer for thirty minutes (no exaggeration) and then put a sticker and a stamp on another sheet of paper.  Which we had to run and photocopy for them.  For the second time.  Finally, we could go and hand that stamped sheet of paper to the guy down the street, and get on our way into the merry land of El Salvador.

I appreciate, too, how the customs stations are built here.  The agents themselves are in sealed, air-conditioned containers, and the waiting area is a fenced-off cube.  It's so hot that I can feel the sweat pooling in my elbows and collarbones, and running down my legs.  My shirt is so wet I can wring sweat out of it like a towel.

We've lost so much time today that we're going to have to pull some long days and short nights, with some hard riding.  We're planning on pushing through Guatemala tomorrow and hitting the far side of the Mexican border as night falls, which should get us back to about where we need to be.

After getting lost several time, turning around several times, and then following a highway not marked on any map or on our GPSs, we were able to get rooms in a very nice hotel in the biggish city of San Miguel for the exact same price as our roach-ridden rooms in Costa Rica from the day before yesterday.  We were going to worry about locking our bikes up, and then we noticed the security guards carrying shotguns, and figured they'd be safe.

We've asked for a wake-up call for 4:45am, so we'll be on the road before the sun rises, and we'll be able to get many kilometres done.  Woot!

Ryan Noble,
San Miguel, El Salvador