Day 19 Saturday 13th October: ‘Four countries down and seven to go’ – But still on the Warm up

Chris Writes:

We awoke at what are our usual times now ranging from 04.30am – 06.00am depending on how many people are in the bedroom that night [the budget doesn’t always allow to have a room each and we usually have to share].

Remembering that after our excellent lunch at Beto’s yesterday, that we hadn’t eaten an evening meal we were all hungry. We also recalled finding what appeared to be a dead body blocking our path on the shoreline walk last night back from the assortment of near empty but very loud, surfer bars that dominate this coast. We revised our opinion to ‘extremely comatose’ remembering that the said person had a bottle of some sort of alcoholic beverage wedged in his armpit.

Breakfast over we started to repack bags which is an art, as carefully folded and ironed clothes expand after being packed and repacked several times over 18 days. Seventy-five days of clothes, shoes, medication and various other items [Mike and John both have a UK electric four plug extension lead – don’t ask why] it becomes exceedingly difficult to fit into the original case.

We checked out and loaded the Cayenne for the last time as we headed to Aeropuerto International Oscar some 40 mins away which was a ridiculous place for an airport as it is in the Tsunami warning area! – I guess ok for sea planes with floats every so often.

Here we had an inquisitive police dog which investigated our bags searching for excessive ‘green backs’ . He sniffed, stopped and sat by John’s bag and also showed interest in the others. He was delighted to receive a tennis ball from his handler which was laced [the ball not than handler, but who knows] with something that made him addictive to green back dollars – not sure what it was but we are trying to buy a bottle of it.

At border control we had to explain why we didn’t have an entry stamp into El Salvador in our passports, that should be counter-stamped with an exit one. English is not widely spoken in the El Salvador customs authorities but various mumblings accompanied by arm movements resembling the turning of a steering wheel with appropriate engine sounds provided, we convinced them that we had come in by car but we were unable to communicate the name of the crossing we had used.

The solution was obvious to my customs officer.

If there was no entry stamp, there is no need for an exit one, so they didn’t stamp the passport and quickly hurried us away from their kiosks.

So officially we haven’t been to El Salvador.

We decided we needed a coffee and had only been seated for about 30 seconds in the cafeteria when the floor starting shaking violently and everything around started vibrating. One of the bar staff started to hold glass shelving as everything rattled and shook.

We looked at each other as 10 seconds turned slowly to fifteen and it continued and we were considering diving under the flimsy table we were sitting at as it was obviously an earthquake, but realised no one had else blinked an eyelid.

When it stopped and we questioned the waiter as to what it was he pointed out of the window to a large steam roller that was flattening concrete blocks. Slightly embarrassed we ate our sandwiches.

Time to reflect on El Salvador. Interesting country, pleasant people, although a very low GDP resulting in significant poverty in many areas, reasonable roads, stunning scenery, and an undeveloped and amazing Pacific coastline, but certainly not one that caters adequately for travellers who don’t have long hair, bronzed lean physiques, normally with secretive tattoo’s and who carry surfboards regardless of the time of day.

For those that can live on more than $10 per day there is definitely a lack of resort style facilities that both Costa Rica and Guatemala offer from what have seen.

That said we enjoyed it.

We have now seen four countries, have clocked up nearly 3000 kms in a range of cars and a couple of boats, are still within budget, and are heading towards Panama.

Here we meet up with Lois as he resides there, and it’s a chance to get to know him better before he joins us in Bariloche for the 11-day’s journey to the ‘End of the World’ and ‘The Land of Fire – Tierra Del Fuego’ on December 9th.

More of our Panama adventure tomorrow but the first sights as we drive into the city are really impressive.

Remember you can catch up on blogs from prior days or read about the team or see how this all came about, or  see the next steps of the route, elsewhere on this site.

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Thanks for the comments and keep them coming!