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Central America or Bust!!!! H3 -2003

so we booked it into San Salvador, with the directions that I've had pocketed since the U.S. which I received from our hasher contact in SS. we're told that once we get on the main street of this certain neighborhood, we should look for a pharmacy by the name of so and so. (can't remember right now) well, they failed to tell us, that there are like a bagillion pharmacies on the street. the other marker, they said, was a british union jack, flying over the entrance to the "British Club" house. A bar, restaurant, social club for ex-pats, where the hashers would be congragated and awaiting our arrival, after running their trail.

Well, come to find out later, that the flag is missing, because the Iraq war is in full swing, and there are people protesting the American and British embassy and these guys don't want to atract any unwanted attention to the club. Mind you there is an armed guard at every store location, whether it be a pharmacy, bank, candy store, shoe store, what not...they are armed to the teeth, uzi, 12 gauge multi load shotguns, FAL's, M16's, or AK47's.....but they always seem so nice when you ask them for direction...would hate to see them pissed, and unloading a clip anywhere near me. says a lot.

we meander back and forth down the street, and finally stop to ask for more directions, when I heard a bunch of whistles going off, and it was hashers, seems we stopped right across the street from the club...which had a brass sign that said "British Club" only it was about 1 1/2 feet by 1 foot and above the door, not noticeable from the road. we park, go in, and make our way to the bar. a few people see us, and see helmets and ask if we're the crazy fucks that are riding to Interamericas hash in Costa Rica...I say yes, and they usher us to the back, where the party is in full swing, and immediately hand us a half yard of beer....nice!

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..another shot of the party. it was raining by this time, and everyone is outside in the rain, drinking beer and socializing. they had a little salvadorean dude, spinning the vinyl, and I asked how late the bar would stay open, and they said, that they run it, and it would stay open as long as we wanted it to. fucking sweet. they handed us cigars, shots of whatever, more beer....
paco looked at me when we had the half-yards of beer, and said "we can't drink this, we're on motorcycles" as I was finishing my share. we're not going far.

food was great, the people here treated us like family...

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here is my contact, Inbox (hash name) as paco tries to steal a kiss for the camera...

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that night was a late night. I was told I was dancing with helmet on...so as to not injur myself when I fell...drank a lot, and were treated like royalty. we then were hungry...of course, and Karin took us to get some food. we had of course already taken the bikes over to the small hotel (which was in a converted house/mansion) and we parked our bikes in their garage. when we were going to leave the party, it was only 2 blocks to our hotel, and our hosts would not let us walk there. they were actually pretty adamant about it, saying it was not safe...hummmmm, we did what they said, but made me wonder and remember the armed guards at all the stores.

this was the garage outside our hotel. we got up late, and had a good breakfast, and said our goodbyes and were ready for the road, into the unknown, and several other countries.....

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we muscled it across el salvador, after battling mid day traffick to get out of the main city. this country is great, still not on the eco tourist map, but all the smoke belching buses make for nasty smells as you fight your way thru traffick. Paco and I are syncronized as far as our riding goes, we move well together, and make calculated risks to get thru the cars, and change lanes, we never get seperated, and I think I can count on one hand the people that I know that would be able to hang tough and do what we were doing. there was no time to be a pus about it. you either moved thru traffick or you had your lunch eaten. the craziest think I saw while leaving the city, was taking a turn thru a roundabout (popular in europe) where this girl that couldn't have been more than 15y/o was on a moped with her mom on the back and the mom had an infant in her arms by the infants waist with his little feet just dangling out in the air. no crying, no signs of worry on the little guy, but I was like "hahahaha, holy shit" oh, well, it's their world, and I don't worry about it. they do all wear helmets of various degrees, except that no one straps them in. their straps just hang next to their cheeks. we were told to keep our helmets close, or they would cut the chin strap to take the helmet and still use them. go figure.

here's some random stop we made, after taking the wrong turn...at a cemetary, which they had all dolled up in bright colors for some day of the dead or something like that, festival.

we found our way and moved on, to the border with honduras...

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oh, yeah, while exiting San Salvador, we stopped thru one of the markets to get our bearings and snapped these photos. note the raw meat hanging in the market being sold. hahahaha. another holy shit moment for me, but then again, it's their world...

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the city was pretty dirty, everywhere we went. they didn't have the trash control that other major cities might have...then again, I don't think that trash control was on the top of the survival checklist.

me with the bikes.

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moving on. when we arrived at the El Salvador/Honduras border, it was like most borders in central america, dirty and not much appeal to it. just another place to watch your money and waste precious time, doing paperwork, and swimming thru red tape.

you had to get a copy of your passport, vehicle registration receipt, and such and such, then bring the triple copies back to the main officer, go over to the other one, have your passport stamped with your permit, then go to the other officer, have your passport stamped with your vehicle permit, then the other officer, who checked all the stamps, and gave the go ahead, then you took it to the cop in the parking lot, who approved it and let you go out. you had to watch the "tramitadores" as they would tell the copy lady that you had copies for them, then he would say " it's 25 cents right?" and the copy lady would say, yes, and you paid .75 cents for your copies. when in reality it was 5 cents per copy and you just got taken. now, you may ask, why make such a big deal out of such small amounts of change....well, because it's a cycle, and the more they think they can get away with, and the more they can swindle you out of, then the amounts will continue to go up...so we always told the "tramitador" to keep his mouth shut, and we would talk to the lady, otherwise he got no tip. and the copies were never more than a few cents each. they'll get you where they can. we tipped them well, when they helped and told them to fuck off when they didn't like on the other side of Honduras.

these guys looked like they didn't have much to do, and were just hanging around the border. we figured we wouldn't get out of Honduras that night, so we took our time at the border and smoked a cigar, and bullshited with the cop who was cool.

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this was the officer and he was pretty cool about things. we talked to him, while the paperwork was being taken care of by the "tramitadores"

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we had gotten word while in San Salvador to hit this border crossing and to take the northern route to arrive here, as it would be cooler and more scenic thru the mountains, rather than the southern route thru hotter and flatter areas. it was a nice ride. once across the El Salvador side, we had to enter the Honduran side, and go thru the whole monkey circus again...well, shit!

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here is where things got a little questionable, we decided to let the middle men, do some leg work, but we gave them an inch and they decided to take a foot, and wanted us to pay them more money for some pseudo paperwork and permits, the funny thing is, that when they were trying to muscle us out of it, telling us that it was neccesary to leave the border checkpoint, the guard looks over at us, when I ask him if I need anything else, and he says, no, you are done, you don't need anymore paperwork, the little fucker was still trying to convince us that we needed the paperwork, and then still wanted a tip for helping him out. I told him to fuck off, as i moved towards him...i was really pissed and seeing things in a shade of red. paco was pissed to, and we ignored them, and gave them no money. fuckheads. got our paperwork done and moved on down the road, cautious of couse, in case these guys had contacts up the road.

I think in general things can happen to people, and we weren't completely oblivious to it, but then again, I don't like to be threatened or made to do something I don't want to do. we rode with the expectation and wariness, that anything could happen, until we got to a safe haven, or hotel. such is adventure.

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note the cows on the side of the road in the last photo...lots of free ranging going on. it wasn't the cows or horses you had to worry about, it was the calves and fowls that were not used to the noise of traffick that might run out into the road.

there were also a lot of these guys traveling on the panamerican highway.

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also, there were lots of goats just chilling along the road.....kept us awake. we also had to make our way to a town, and a hotel, as we would not cross honduras tonight. We continued thru Nicaomo, Honduras and arrived (after dark) to a town called Jicaro Galan. we made our way thru the town, and found ourselves a roadside restaurant. when in doubt, get some food, rest for a sec and get your bearings. we asked about a hotel, and the lady was nice enough to point us towards one. she was pretty talkative, and we just listened, as I've learned it's not always the smartest thing to open your mouth and insert your views on world/political/religious topics before getting to know someone in a foreign land. she talked to no end. talked about the other countries in central america, how the costa rican women were spoiled and weak, because they were all kept women, the nicaraguan women were bitter, and the salvadoran women were dirty...hahahaha, had to laugh to myself as we listened, said our thanks, paid, and went to the hotel. they let us park our bikes in the front, and had a night watchman who promised nothing would happen to the bikes...he swore it on his families pride and all. said a bunch of bikers had come thru some months back for a rally in costa rica.

we got a room, and relaxed for the night. we're in the middle of nowhere, and it is the best shit I had done to date.

this is a photo of us thru the mountains before we got to our daily destination...

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a picture along the roads, with the sun going down. to think that mad civil wars were fought thru these countries, and much angst and strife was met out here in this country, and now we are riding thru it.

I must say, I prefer countries, that have had civil wars, and such, because it seems that after everything is squared away, the U.N. or other world bodies, come in and help rebuild these countries, new roads/highways, and such.....so the roads were the best. the americanized countries, costa rica and panama, seemed to have the worst roads. i also prefered riding in the first countries, guatemala, el salvador, nicaragua, and honduras, rather than in the americanized ones, because the traffick seemed to be watching out for you, or better yet, just watching out for things around them...very defensive, while offensive....in the americanized countries, they just seemed to follow lines, and not really look around....made us an easier target for them.....just an observation.

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we stayed the night, in Jicaro Galan, and got a move on early the next day. tipped the night watchman, and sure to his promise, nothing had happened to the bikes. Our route now took us thru San Lorenzo and on to Choluteca. we were moving pretty well, and seen a few motorized cops, and would get a nod, and stares from them...mostly at the bikes. it seems that 2 wheels is 2 wheels all over the world. even when we stopped at checkpoints for the military, which there were many, they were more interested in knowing how far we had traveled, how far we were going, how much a bike might be worth and such. our answers were always cautious ones, so as to not make us seem like a likely or good target. the bikes were worth "not that much" hard to maintain, and not to fast, and we always traveled to a diff. area. but mostly they were honestly interested in the bikes. very cool.

we got on the road and made it to choluteca, and were winding our way thru the city, and took a wrong turn. go figure. we would ask for directions, and then ask again, usually total of 5 people that we would ask for directions, and take the average of the same answers and go that way. seems people didn't want to, NOT help someone out, especially a foreign tourist, so they would give directions, even if they didn't know. noteworthy, but not helpful. on one of those wrong turns, we rode for a bit, realized we were going the wrong way, pulled over to check the map, and this guy on a BMW GS rode up to us, with El Salvador plates, spoke english and spanish, and said he saw us go by, and thought we were going the wrong way, so he followed us to make sure, and he was right.....(heres us on the side of the road, he took the photo for us)

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after going over the map with us, he escorted us to the right turn off, and waved goodbye. a good samaritan, and again, 2 wheels is 2 wheels....our good fortune. so we were on the road again, the day was moving along just fine, and we would be in nicaragua by mid morning.

the canopied jungles were awesome to be riding thru, it made it difficult sometimes, as the sun would dance thru the trees, and throw shadows in front of you, and sometimes be mixed in with a dog or a pig or something.

speedbumps at all towns, and we were well versed and ready for these.

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self portrait from the night before, down the road. poor mans sun visor, made out of electrical tape across the top of my visor. works well.

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we made it thru Honduras without much fan fare, some nice roads, great twisties, and mountain towns, moving at a good pace, and we are actually hopeful that we might be able to tack on extra miles before making the party in San Jose, CR. We hope to make the canal, as it was an added part of the trip.

at the exit of Honduras, we got our paperwork in order, and apparently needed to have like 7 stamps of different things. a stamp for having our copies done. a stamp for having the personal permit, one for the vehicle permit, one for payment of the permits..blah, blah, blah.....but finally we were moving along. Here is the Immigration section of the Honduras border where we had to be written into the book, by freehand, to log us out of the country. fucking awesome.
the guys were really cool too, kept going on about their country, and very proud of it, and happy that we had visited it. told us we wouldn't see anything like it, no matter what other part of central america we went to....haha, we'll see.

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