Eventually Honduras

I have been to La Union twice before in my life and this Saturday morning marked my third visit to this unprepossessing port town on the Gulf of Fonseca. It has not improved much with age though it is now thoroughly modern compared  to past visits. 

In 1986 as a reporter I looked into the state of fishing in the middle of a civil war and found things to be not scintillating. 
In 1999 Layne and I and our two dogs stopped here on a passage from Mexico to Nicaragua.The pharmacists were fascinated by my huge patient Labrador Emma adopted by us from the Santa Cruz SPCA and they wanted to pet her. 
I didn’t try to pull the same trick with Rusty in the same pharmacy a full generation of employees later...
We bought pupusas from a stand that got five star reviews on Google Msps and they were just fine. Lunch for two for $2:60. 

There was a line when I pulled up across the street. That looked promising. We got four to go, one cheese and one bean pupusa each.

Rusty and I walked the streets a bit while Layne went poking around in the shops. 
















It was hot and busy on the sidewalks  of La Union and soon enough Rusty knew when he had had enough, time for his air conditioned bed and a bowl of water. 

A half hour on the worst, most potholed road in El Salvador would get us to the iconic El Amatillo border crossing into Honduras. 




There is a certain sadness leaving a country you have enjoyed, a place whose customs you have had at least a chance to get used to, a country where you know the currency, the stores, the food and that feels at least slightly familiar. Oh and the paperwork in El Salvador is simple. 

Five minutes at customs and I was clear to leave.

Another five minutes at passport control and off we went…

…across the bridge separating El Salvador from Honduras. No eighteen wheelers - lovely! 

Among Latin American travelers the  Honduran border control building at El Amatillo is famous, a monument. I had longed to cross here and at last my wish was fulfilled. 

Except nowadays you don’t drive through, more’s the pity but you find somewhere to park and dodge the touts and money changers who want to “guide” you through a simple process of seeing immigration first. The clerk had lived in Iowa and was delighted by my wife’s birthplace so they chatted and he typed out details and took $3 each. 

Across the famous hall was a young lady finishing lunch. She took out papers and typed out our Temporary Import Permit for the GANNET2 -$35. All done in less than an hour. 

And lest you think our van journey is remarkable of pioneering check out these stickers, only a few among the travelers who mark their passing here. 

We could have easily skipped the quarantine office which we eventually located in a green container among the 18 wheelers jockeying for exit permits for their loads bound for El Salvador. Speaking Spanish saved us and I am not surprised many travelers think there is no pet paperwork requirement at this border. We could have saved $12 and twenty minutes but making Rusty legal saves us worry so we try to do the right thing even when that involves not having a clue where the office might be, we just kept asking and there it was tucked away. 

He came out to take Rusty’s official portrait and shocked he was the little bugger didn’t run away. 

But as usual he refused to pose for the camera. Layne watched from the passenger seat and laughed. 

Even going out of our way slightly to do the right thing cost us twenty minutes and the entire birder crossing from exiting El Salvador to finishing our entry into Honduras took less than ninety minutes. 

The open road! Smooth, straight just a few potholes and no speed bumps. Lovely Honduras! I mean there’s more to this country than the roads and we did notice right away  some differences, older buses and cars, more trash and magnificent views of mountain ridges volcanoes and huge threatening rain clouds. 

And beggars and thin dogs and occasional lunatics strolling up and speaking gibberish. Honduras has been the United States’ staunchest ally through the 20th century and is about the poorest country in Central America. I’m not sure the two are directly related but it makes you think. 

It’s a mere  100 miles from El Amatillo to the Nicaraguan border but we planned to fiend one night along the way and appear fresh and ready for the customs bureaucracy early on Sunday. 

What could be more innocent than two elderly retirees in a van traveling around Central America? 

Up next how to locate a safe sleeping spot in a strange land not equipped with campgrounds or even a rudimentary understanding of RV travel! Are we having fun yet? You bet. 

Nudging Toward The Exit

Our last two days in El Salvador were busy partly organizing paperwork to cross two borders in short order and partly shopping in a country by now familiar to us and well equipped to supply our needs. 

Rusty checking out the rabbit cage at Finca Macedonia where we were staying. Rabbits are farm animals small enough to not put the fear of God into him: 

Our morning at the coffee farm in the mountains started with a bang as we waited for Brenda the owner to give us the all clear to use her shower. Her pitbull called Piston, a brute with a personality showed up at the van and took an instant dislike to Rusty. I saw trouble brewing but they went at each other before I could grab Rusty’s collar. I tried to separate them as Rusty retreated to the van and I held Piston s brief moment as Rusty slid underneath, his refuge. Piston wasn’t having any and followed slipping out of my grasp. I grabbed his tail and a hind leg and fell down behind him struggling to pull him away from my dog. The noise was defending and two farm workers showed up with a rope to lasso Piston and hold him. Eventually Rusty came out from under GANNET2 after they left and I was relieved to see he was fine. It turned out blood dripping from his mouth belonged to Piston who ended up with antiseptic all over his face. Rusty defended us like a champ. I was quite proud of my little street fighter. We had a laugh with Brenda, no hard feelings and shared a cup of delicious Salvadoran coffee. Life on the road… with all its surprises. I hugged Rusty a lot but he shrugged me off. 

We tried to find eggs and failed. They only sold them in boxes of three dozen at the supermarket. 

We got down to sea level more or less and trudged toward San Miguel, the largest town close to the Honduran border. 

Southern El Salvador is a much poorer part of the country, shabbier homes less manicured streets, more roadside trash, more run down cars. 

The vet in town charged us $20 for two health certificates for Rusty, one to pass the Honduran border on Saturday and the other to cross into Nicaragua on Sunday. And then she clipped the little tyke’s nails. By the way he is still 55 pounds his steady weight all these years. 

We filled out the online applications to enter Honduras and Nicaragua and we made a few extra photocopies -oh the paperwork! 

And Layne failed to find a few of the things we like to eat at the San Miguel Walmart. 

No blueberries or walnuts, no blue cheese, none of Rusty’s favorite food or his preferred treats so shopping was a bust! Oh and then Layne tried to get just half a dozen eggs to put in the fridge…”Stop!” She said as we passed a hole-in-the-wall store. She came back defeated. 

“I got eggs,” she said, “ but only five. She sells them in fives for a dollar. And she wouldn’t sell me a sixth. No way. She sells eggs in fives only.”  You get used to this sort of thing. In Mexico the shopkeepers laughed at Layne and her little yellow plastic six egg holder. She would fill it with six eggs all right but they sold eggs by weight…weird. 

Darkness was descending as we left Walmart with a few odds and ends. We left the dead dog to the right as we edged out into the evening traffic. Cars pushed and shoved but we managed to get on the main road out of San Miguel toward our planned camp for the night. 

Layne found a lake south of San Miguel and iOverlander showed others had stayed there successfully, at Laguns de Olomega. 

The listing said there was an abandoned water park on the edge of the lagoon and locals come and hang out but overnight it’s quiet and a good place to sleep just twenty minutes from the city. 

There were a couple of motorcycles and a car when we arrived at sunset but it got dark quickly and we were alone. 

The resort water park thing looked like it hadn’t been used in years. We both felt a bit creeped out by the ruins and the somber atmosphere but we decided to stick it out. 

Clearly there are people who use the place most likely at weekends. You can imagine before, boat rides music and families picnicking. 

In the US the owner of such a property would throw up a fence and mutterxdarkly about liability and insurance regulations etc…

Here there is no liability and no one to sue. You play here at your own risk. I don’t have much faith in American libertarians who call for freedom from trial lawyers and all that. Everyone when the time comes wants justice and a big payout when they feel wronged! 

Rusty and I wandered at our own risk while Layne made for dinner which was sausages and ribs, Salvadoran style. 

Below you can see a table and stool chained together. I can imagine a long Sunday of selling snacks right where Rusty was resting. Besides the place was clean and the trash cans empty. 

We slept like logs, no one murdered us and the next days drive was a meandering plan to visit one last town before the Honduran border.