[Above: Drive Around the World Land Rovers roll across the El Salvador border into Honduras.]

Logbook for November 30th
Start: El Tunco, El Salvador
Finish: Choluteca, Honduras
N: 13* 18.761'
W: 87* 11.415'
Mileage: 195
Notes: Team entered Honduras. Crossing took 4.5 hours.

Help support our cause: Drive Around the World aims to raise money for Parkinson’s Disease research by taking four certified pre-owned Land Rover Discoverys around the globe following lines of longitude. Readers are encouraged to pledge small amounts of money per expedition-mile via a pledge form that can be found on our Parkinson’s page by clicking here. Everyone making a pledge of $10 or more to raise money for the Parkinson’s Institute will be put in a raffle to win an expedition-style Land Rover.

[Above: A gorgeous sunset at El Sunzal beach, near La Libertad, El Salvador.]

Journal by Justin Mounts

Hello everyone,

The last few days have been really enjoyable. Everyone has been really curious about seeing El Salvador, especially since we're all familiar with how the country was affected by war in recent years. We had a beautiful morning drive yesterday through a lush, green valley full of corn, milo, and other crops. The valley was flanked on two sides by volcanoes, and we were lucky to see Volcan Fuego belch a puff of smoke into the air. I tried to get a picture, but it didn't really turn out. But just imagine a full 180-degree view with the morning sun peaking over the volcanoes as one of them erupts, almost as if on cue.

Crossing the border into El Salvador, we encountered groups of locals, all curious about who we were and what we were doing. It appears that the American tourism market in El Salvador is still behind other Central American countries. It is a shame, too, because El Salvador is the prettiest country we've visited so far. As we traveled from Antigua to El Sunzul, we dropped aver 5,000 feet in altitude and the temperature jumped from 75 degrees to just over 100 degrees. This is important because in order to improve our fuel economy, we're not using the air conditioners except for really hot days. And we haven't hit them yet. Those will come in Australia and India.

The border crossing took us 5 hours. A little longer than expected, but there's not much you can do. Border crossings are full of paperwork and lines. They're never really that busy, but they're never in a hurry to get you through, either. We met some young girls working at the border selling water and sodas. These girls, like so many others in Central America walk around with large bowls on their heads filled to the brim with whatever they are selling. And they have done it for so long, that the items remain perfectly balanced whether they are walking up or down stairs, hills, or avoiding objects in the street. I should mention that these girls were 6 and 9 years old. It truly is a different way of life here in Central America.

As we approached El Sunzul (about 20 kilometers west of La Libertad if
you're following along at home), the terrain became very tropical. Palm-trees and other coastal vegetation began to appear, and remarkably the roads in El Salvador are great. In fact, they are much better than many of the highways in California. They are only 2-lane roads, but they are very well kept. We wound up missing the turn off to El Sunzul, but we found a small bungalow hotel called Roca Sunzal on the beach just east of our target destination.

We spent a lot of today getting to know several of the local residents. Our host was a native El Salvadorian named Oscar, and he is a Los Angeles neon-sign-maker who now splits his time between the US and El Salvador. He was smuggled into the US when he was 14 by his mother. Once there, he began learning the trade and after dealing with some unscrupulous bosses, he eventually started his own business and became successful. He has returned in recent years to invest some of his earnings into the local El Salvadorian community.

I spent a good portion of this day with Luis, one of the workers at the hotel. He helped guide me into town to run some errands. On the way we visited about our families. He is married, but separated. This seems to be a taboo subject in El Salvador. But he has a son who is 17 and plays football (soccer) and a 9-year old daughter. He used to live in Los Angeles as an illegal alien to make money to help pay to raise his children. As a truck driver in the US, he made about five dollars an hour. In El Salvador, he makes five dollars a day. He was eventually deported, but is glad to be back in his native homeland.

I spent the afternoon learning to surf, and I had a chance to visit with local kids who surf every day. My wipeouts are the best -- so I heard. I am so beaten up, it’s not funny, but I did catch about 6 waves. The effort was very worth it. Our day ended with a typical El Salvador dinner -- rice and carne (meat). We watched the sun go down on another day and went to bed early. Tomorrow is another full day of driving, plus we’re crossing the border into Honduras. I hope you all are well.

Until next time,

Justin
justin@drivearoundtheworld.com

Logbook for November 29th
Start: El Tunco, El Salvador
Finish: El Tunco, El Salvador
Mileage: Rest Day

Help support our cause: Drive Around the World aims to raise money for Parkinson’s Disease research by taking four certified pre-owned Land Rover Discoverys around the globe following lines of longitude. Readers are encouraged to pledge small amounts of money per expedition-mile via a pledge form that can be found on our Parkinson’s page by clicking here. Everyone making a pledge of $10 or more to raise money for the Parkinson’s Institute will be put in a raffle to win an expedition-style Land Rover.

[Above: Who is the real Colin "Corndog" McAuliffe?]

Journal by Colin "Corndog" McAuliffe

We left the tourist city of Antigua, surrounded by beautiful imposing volcanoes, watching the volcano known as Vulcan de Fuego erupt plumes of smoke. The majesty of that sleeping giant was impressive. Unfortunately we ended up watching this wondrous sight from the location of our breakfast break: the parking lot of a Guatemala McDonald’s that had hedges cut into the shape of the trademarked “M”. Strange feeling, but as my 2 Egg McMuffins disappeared into the depths of my stomach, so did my qualms concerning ingesting American fast food in a developing nation.

The day had started out early at 6am, the time we’ve set for days when we are planning to cross borders. On this day, we were planning to cross from Guatemala to El Salvador. We arrived at the border around 10am -- nice and early, and eager to move on. As usual though, the moving on part was the hardest. Personally, I’ve learned that one word rings truest at borders -- and that word is “patience.” There is tons of red tape and bureaucracy that takes place on the frontier between nations, and the only way to make your way through it is to kick back and enjoy the sketchy scenery that surrounds. I like to use the time to sit around to work on my Spanish, and who better to learn from than children.

Children in border towns often live sad lives: They spend the majority of their time panhandling or selling low-cost goods, mostly beverages, to the people in transit. On this particular day my most meaningful encounters were with two children in particular, Dennis and Mila.

I met Dennis as soon as I exited my car. He came up and asked if I needed any help (in Spanish) and I asked him if he could take me to a store where I could but some stuff I needed. Of course he could help, and off we went in search of a local tienda, at which I could buy what I needed. On the way, he asked my name, and when I told him, he couldn’t really pronounce it -- so I defaulted to “El Gringo Loco”, which immediately put a huge smile on his face. The store was found, and I used my change from my purchase to buy my newfound friend Dennis (third photo from the top) some candy. After that, Dennis was my best friend for an hour or two. We hung out and talked for a while. I used the Spanish I have to find out a little more about my new amigo. He was 13, had two brothers, had no girlfriend (although there was one girl he liked), he also liked soccer, and went to school, which he surprisingly said he enjoyed. Apparently, I had met him on the month of his summer vacation, and that was why he wasn’t in school. I asked which he liked better, school or vacation -- and as I figured, he preferred vacation.

Anyway, after some time spent in friendly conversation, Dennis’s friends came around, introductions were made all around, and when the others struggled with my name, Dennis informed the bunch that I was formally know as El Gringo Loco. Within minutes I had a bunch of little El Salvadoran kids yelling “El Gringo Loco” in unison, and just generally having a good time. They were an agreeable bunch of guys, so I bought them and myself an ice cream cone (the grand total for nine ice creams was one dollar). Now I had a little posse all my own. They followed me everywhere for a while, and I was having fun working on my Spanish and just horsing around. I taught them my “monkey dance” and Todd and Adam played some guitar so we could try and teach them some Beatles songs. I asked them all the standard “getting to know you” questions in Spanish and they all responded nicely: they all went to school and were enjoying their month off, and only one of them had a girlfriend, and her name was Roxanne (I tried to teach him the Police song of the same name, to no avail).

Eventually the guys started hounding me to give them stuff and I had to sit them all down and tell them all that begging for money wasn’t going to work, and that having fun in life was more important than money. That worked for a little while, but my fellow redhead Nancy decided to hand out some give-aways to some of the kids, and that started the begging all over again. At that point I kind of just wandered off and sat down on the curb.

So there I was, relaxing and trying to get away from the fray of children, when a little angel with a basket of beverages on her head walks up and sits down beside me. She asked me to take a picture of her and I was more than glad to. She told me her name was Mila, and we had a nice conversation about what her siblings’ names were, and if she went to school. She was definitely the most agreeable and cute out of all her peers at the border, and the whole crew took a liking to her. I spent a nice hour with her having simple discussions in Spanish and teaching her a little English here and there. We took some more photos with her sister for my “Cult of the Corndog” collection (see above), and she enjoyed seeing the images on my digital camera. Adam and I broke out our video camera and shot some interesting footage for our show, and then it was time to roll on to El Salvador.

When I first arrive at a border, I always have fun. The children are fun, cute, agreeable, and for me easy to understand and talk to. Eventually though, I always grow disheartened. It saddens me that these kids are out there begging for money for food. They always tell me they are hungry, and I usually believe them. I’ll never know if it’s true or not, because there is always the possibility that they just have nothing better to do, but for now, ill just assume that I am helping these kids out.

Colin
colin@drivearoundtheworld.com

Logbook for November 28th
Start: Antigua, Guatemala
N: 14* 33.606'
W: 90* 44.252'
Finish: El Tunco, El Salvador
N:13* 28.978'
W: 89* 19.955
Mileage: 135
Notes: Team entered El Salvador. Crossing took 5 hours.

Help support our cause: Drive Around the World aims to raise money for Parkinson’s Disease research by taking four certified pre-owned Land Rover Discoverys around the globe following lines of longitude. Readers are encouraged to pledge small amounts of money per expedition-mile via a pledge form that can be found on our Parkinson’s page by clicking here. Everyone making a pledge of $10 or more to raise money for the Parkinson’s Institute will be put in a raffle to win an expedition-style Land Rover.