[Above: The roads into Nicaragua from Honduras were rough and dusty. It made for a fun drive!]

Journal by Neil Dana

You gotta watch out for the police in these countries. They are tricky and will try anything to swindle a buck from you. Especially at the borders!!

Today, we all awoke in Choluteca, Honduras in a small hotel. There isn't any hot water here in the showers, and you wouldn't want to use it if there was. It is usually about 90 degrees or so in the day, plus humidity, and stays hot into the night. So a nice cool shower is a blessing.

We got in our Land Rovers and headed out of town. On the way out of town, there was a policeman who waved at us and yelled that we were going the wrong way on a one-way street. He came towards us to pull us over, but we just smiled, waved, and drove on like everything was normal, since we didn't want to risk another bribe situation.

We proceeded to drive through the beautiful Honduran countryside to the border. We really didn't get to stop in Honduras at all, just passed through most of it last night, and headed towards the border early in the morning to get to Nicaragua so we have some time to spend in Granada.

The last two days were my favorite days of course, we surfed in El Salvador and that was amazing! That is someone else's day to write about though.

So we approached the border and the fun began. First off, a cop stops us and ask for our licenses. Well, let's see here. Yesterday, when we gave the cop our licenses, he wouldn't give us our licenses back until we paid him. So this time, I showed him my license in my wallet and he tried to take it, and I said no, and just held it and showed it to him. He persisted and then I told him, "look buddy, the last cop I gave my license to tried to rip us off and I am not playing this game of yours, so look at my license with you eyes because your hands aren't touching it!" He looked at me with a bewildered look, and accepted my proposal. He then asked us if we had a fire extinguisher, trying to play the other angle, but we had a fire extinguisher, and he let us go forward.

So at these borders, since I am pretty fluent in Spanish, I am the official border negotiator, I do all the talking and paperwork and deal with the 3-6 hour process of swindling, mass copy making, and trying not to get ourselves ripped off too bad.

So today at the border crossing into Nicaragua, it actually went really smooth. I picked a guy to help us cross the border and he was honest: brought me to the right doors, expedited the process by eliminating some lines, and we actually paid the official costs (which is imprinted on the receipts) for our vehicles. It was legit and only took three hours. He did try to charge us six dollars for 32 copies though, which was ridiculous, but we talked him down.

At these borders, you really need to see the children. They are spending their entire days begging for money, or trying to clean your shoes for money, or sell you something. They are only little children, and have no education. It is really sad, and makes you realize how fortunate those are who have an education and the opportunity for much more than a life in a border town. One child was just staring at our food while we were eating -- he didn't ask for money, he just wanted food. He was dirty, malnourished, and looked tired, so I gave him the beef off my plate. Poor kid.

So now we pushed on through Nicaragua. Nicaragua is a great country. The roads are half unpaved, and the other half that is paved, is filled with potholes. It reminds me of the outback roads I used to drive when I lived in Costa Rica many years back. Because of the heat and dryness, there is dust flying everywhere. The people who live by the roadside have their houses and all their belongings filled with dust all day and night long.

The landscape is breathtaking, volcanoes almost everywhere you look, fields of sugarcane, rolling hills, rivers, and all kinds of tropical trees and plants. One thing I noticed also was many of the fields are not farmed or used at all, and I assume it is due to the massive hurricane (Hurricane Mitch) that wiped out Nicaragua and Honduras in 1998. I was in Costa Rica at the time and remember seeing the towns completely flooded and destroyed. What a disaster -- and to drive through this country a few years later, it's hard to imagine what it was like during those times.

Well, we pushed on through Managua, the capital, and got a tad bit lost, and then found our way south towards Granada! We arrived in Granada at sunset and it was such a sight. Granada is one of the oldest colonial cities in Latin America, founded in 1524. And unlike Antigua, which was completely devastated by the earthquake in 1773, Granada still has much of its colonial architecture in place.

So we then headed to the local pizza joint and delved into a North American (Italian) delight. Every once in a while, we have to stray away from the local foods and eat something from home, and mmmn, that was good pizza. On the way to the pizza joint, Rolf, wearing an M-80 on his ear, and Collin and Adam with a few in their pockets, started lighting fireworks and throwing them in the streets and having a blast! Kids all over these towns are lighting fireworks nonstop.

It is also the beginning of the holiday season, so there are a lot of festivities going on, for instance, after our pizza last night, we ended up in a bar upstairs overlooking the central streets of Granada, which was filled with Nicaraguans celebrating the "Procession of the Virgin." There were hundreds of people walking in the streets lighting fireworks, walking, talking, yelling, and proceeding down the street. At the tail end of all the people filing down the street, was a float with a young girl, I think Miss Granada, and a band playing the procession music. After they passed, within 10 minutes, that street corner was quiet. This procession goes on for 9 days, so I will let tomorrow's writer fill in on this.

Take care you readers, and know that we are heading to Costa Rica in a few days and once again, we will be surfing!

Neil
neil@drivearoundtheworld.com

Logbook for December 1st
Start: Choluteca, Honduras
Finish: Granada, Nicaragua
N: 11* 55.802'
W: 85* 57.003'
Mileage: 173
Notes: Team entered Nicaragua. Crossing took 4 hours.

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