09/02 Back in Honduras, but only for the night. It’s a short run to the border with Nicaragua along this stretch of CA-1–most riders only ever see this little section of the country since they tend to skip the northern section and ride the PanAm all the way down. Not me though (or Karin and Marten who ride all over the place like I do). I’m out of the mountain (elev: 434 feet–been a long time) which is kind of sad.

My worries about crossing from El Salvador were unfounded. The border agents spent quite a bit of time examining my passport but they didn’t say a word about the missing entry stamp. I handed over my $3 to the Honduran customs people and sped off.

Some police stopped me at a “checkpoint” not too far after crossing. There were 2 of them but only the younger one came over to talk to me. The other older, chunkier officer didn’t get up the whole time. At first he wanted to know where I was going so I told him. Then he asked to see my passport. He flipped it open and looked at it for 10 seconds before giving it back. For the next 5 minutes he basically just looked at my bike while letting all the cars/trucks go by without so much as a second glance. I knew something was up at this point and this was confirmed when he pointed at my bike and said, “mucho dinero” and then clearly checking out my gold necklace. He asked for my passport again and read off my name for me immediately followed by a request for a $10 exit fee. I looked at his name tag and read his name (Roberto, R) and then asked if I could have a receipt. I guess saying his name and asking for the receipt did the trick because he waved me off and went back to looking for more bribe money suspicious vehicles.

Rained all day and quite hard for a good bit of it. I was warned to stay away from one motel here (Hotel Bonsai) so I found a place called Hotel Kali that is amazing. All new furniture, clean bed, great wifi, AC and friendly owners. No hot shower. Only $14 and change. The place last night was bad. Spotted 3 cockroaches, one was so big I thought it was my bike moving across the floor. The AC was horrible and I ended up turning it off at 1am because it was so loud.

I’ve been reading all these weird books lately: An Inquiry into the Nature and Wealth of Nations, The Earth as Modified by Humans, Youth, The Invisible Man and The Science of Human Nature. I downloaded War and Peace but I can’t bring myself to stare at the screen for that long. Grabbed them for free using the Stanza app for my swell iTouch. I kind of wish I had a Kindle…

09/01 I did end up riding into town both to check out the museum and to find some new brake pads. Failed on both. I couldn’t find the museum but then again I suppose I didn’t try very hard. The rear brake pads I bought like 2 weeks ago wore down to the medal which has me wondering if I was ripped off. I’ve never had brake pads wear out that fast and it wasn’t that hilly. The front ones were OK so I popped them on the back. The first 12 miles was all downhill but nothing one set of brakes couldn’t handle. I had to walk my bike down the hill leaving Hotel Lenca this morning. No way was I riding down that steep, wet, cobblestone monster.

Depending on how nice the border guard is I might be back in Honduras tomorrow. I didn’t get stamped into El Salvador and even with CA-4 I think you have to get an entry stamp. Since no one was stationed at the crossing coming in I might have to either pay a fine or be stuck here forever. I have a note ready in Spanish professing my ignorance but hopefully I won’t need it.

Being in El Salvador for such a short time kind of stinks but this border agreement (CA-4) where you only have 90 days to spend in 4 countries sucks. Why on Earth would they want to drive out tourists so fast? Every day we’re here we spend money. I didn’t really get a taste of the culture or the people either. I came in at a place that probably has more reason to be anti-American than anywhere else in the country and I did notice that drivers didn’t wave/honk as much as in Honduras but 2 days is hardly a good time frame. Everyone waved back if I waved first so that was good.

Nothing exciting on the road today. It’s getting flatter (and hotter) so I can get more miles in. It’s also 5pm and the sun is still out–amazing. When I arrived in Santa Rosa I hit an ATM and went looking for a hotel. Oh, and why on Earth do stupid ATMs have to say “Insufficient funds available” when the actual machine is out of money? That scared the crap out of me. El Salvador also uses the US dollar as its currency so I have some green backs again. Speaking of money problems, I didn’t notice a $0.24 balance on my credit card so they hit me with a $30 fee when it was late. I emailed them and told them how sorry I was and they cleared the fee and the $0.24. Thanks IBM Credit Union.

Anyway, a kid asked if I was looking for a hotel so I followed him over to the one his mom manages. Decent enough place for $15. Even has AC. The same kid also walked me over to a bike shop to get 2 new sets of brake pads. I bought him and his mom 4 Cokes to say thanks.

A couple days ago something kind of cool happened that I forgot to mention. It was on the crazy road just before the border in Honduras. At the top of a hill a car stopped and the driver gave me a bunch of bananas. We talked for a bit (Spanish) and he took off. That was pretty nice.

08/30 Yay, a new country. Easiest border crossing ever but getting to it was over the muddiest road I’ve ever been on. The location of the border between Honduras and El Salvador in this area is disputed so there wasn’t a customs post on the E Salvador side. The lone Honduran guard probably wouldn’t have checked my passport had I not brought it up. A mile or so down the road I did end up getting stopped at military checkpoint and would have been through there in 10 seconds had it not been for a higher ranking guy that basically just wanted to act cool in front of the other guys because he could speak a little English.

Spent last night in the town of Marcala. Not much going on there but it gave me a chance to remove both my fenders. Karen had warned me about the mud and she was right. It was pretty brutal. I would have been stopping a lot if I still had them on. The road was so bad in many places that nothing short of a truck with high clearance would make it through even under somewhat dry conditions.

I’m going to stay here tomorrow and relax before heading south and then back into Honduras before cutting into Nicaragua. My fenders need to go back on and my poor legs are sore. Riding 32 miles through mud and then carrying a 100 lb bike plus 70 lbs of gear up a massive amount of stairs to get to the hotel room did me in. Glad they had a hose here I could use. My bike was filthy.

Perquin is a pretty significant place in that the FMLN (rebels) made this their home during the Salvadoran Civil War which claimed the lives of 75,000 people. The Museum of the Revolution has exhibits related to the war so maybe I’ll ride in tomorrow and visit. I can’t help feeling weird going there as a US citizen knowing what our government did–kind of like how I felt at Wounded Knee in South Dakota.

08/27 Decided not to stay in Gracias even though I’m going to miss that shower at Hotel Guancascos. I met the owner when I was leaving (the motel; not the shower). I forget her name but she was from the Netherlands and was really nice. Lonely Planet kind of ripped the service at the restaurant and the management a little but I didn’t see anything wrong with either.

After an uneventful ride yesterday I spent the night in the village of San Juan. The motel was recommended by Karen and Martin who are a few days ahead of me riding the same route I’ll be taking. Each night Karen emails a summary of the days ride so I know what to expect. I never would have found the place in San Juan without the email. It’s called La Posada de Rosario. There’s no sign and nothing in front to indicate it’s a motel. It’s about 300m south of the Texaco to the left of a white building with the word “agroveterinatio” or something like that.

This rain is driving me nuts. Every day at 1pm it starts and usually doesn’t stop completely until well after I’m in bed for the night. It’s nice in the morning though. Usually the sun is out and it’s nice and hot. I grossed out some guy when I wrung out my sweat-soaked shirt at a rest stop. That was at the top of a hill that I’d been riding up for about half an hour.

I’m going to start a rating system for stares. Level 3 is when someone stares at me so hard I have to look down to make sure I remembered to wear my bike shorts. I’ve been getting quite a bit of that and it’s making me paranoid.

Staying at newer place in La Esperanza called the Hotel Margarita (or close to it). It’s not too bad but there’s no mirror in the bathroom. Kind of weird. At 5600 feet, this is the highest town in Honduras. The climb to get here was kind of brutal just because it was basically riding up a mountain for 20 miles. There were no steep sections which was nice because the last 10 miles was on dirt. Lots of muddy spots. In one place I was riding really slow down a hill to avoid a mud-filled pothole when my bike started sliding sideways. That was kind of exciting.

Walked around town for a while checking out the sites. Up on the side of a hill is an old cave called La Gruta which has been turned into a chapel. There is a noticeable lack of stray dogs here which has me wondering if some sort of “program” is in place.

08/25 Not long after leaving Santa Rosa the road dropped down pretty fast into a valley which afforded some nice views for almost the entire day. Not too many villages but there were a couple little tiendas were I could get some aqua. The mountains in Honduras are not quite what I expected based on the ITMB map. I kind of thought I’d be in some crazy, rugged mountain ranges since the map has so many shades of brown on it. The mountains here are all tree-covered and generally not more than 5000 feet or so. There was one big range just to the west called Cordillera de Celaque that apparently has the highest mountain in the country at 9300 feet. Maybe I need to wait until I get into the Andes. I’m spoiled by the northern Rockies.

I beat the afternoon rains by about an hour. Karin and Marten told me about a place they stayed called Guancascos so I checked in there. Love the shower and the views are pretty impressive since the hotel sits up on the side of a hill overlooking the town. The restaurant upstairs serves the *best* rollitos de pollo. The order they brought over was so good I ordered second round.

I might stay here 2 days so I can check out the town but riding has been so easy I hate to lose my momentum.

After digging around a little I found a Wordpress plugin called OSM that can read in GPX files and display the map. Now it’s easy to see where the heck I am (Stephanie). Now if I can just figure out a way to show elevation info I’ll be happy.

Update: Wandered around town a little but it’s raining and, although the town is nice enough, there wasn’t much draw to exploring the side streets. I’m pretty bummed about something that happened to another bicycle tourist today too. She was riding (alone) near Limon, Costa Rica when 2 guys came riding up to her, kicked her off her bike into the ditch and then stole her handlebar bag. She ended up losing her camera and passport not to mention her sense of security. Fortunately a guy in a car saw what happened and the little pieces of crap cowards ran off before they could steal her bike too.