Tourist Tank Tops

We don’t typically do this, but for this particular post you’ll see no pictures. In the moments described in the last few paragraphs, there was no time for photos.

After deciding that El Salvador wasn’t really for us because of a few crowed surf breaks, both of us getting sick, and an empty lake, we set our sights on Nicaragua. I’m sure there are a number of wonderful things about El Salvador, but our exploration didn’t unearth any of them. We crossed in and out of Honduras in a day without incident and although long and hot it was a fairly pleasant day of travel.

We arrived in Leon, Nicaragua in the heat of the afternoon and after checking out a few different places to stay we found ourselves parked in front of the BigFoot Hostel. Here we spent the night sweating through our first “stealth camping” experience. Other overlanders know this as boondocking, or to be completely transparent, sleeping in your car and being undetected by the outside world. Now when I say it’s hot in Leon the full effects of that statement might not fully sink in. It’s feeling parts of your body sweat that you didn’t know could sweat, watching your shins sweat, mind numbing, even cold beer doesn’t help, hot. During this heat we slept in the van with all the windows and doors closed with our little 5in fan blowing on us. To say it was the hottest night of my life would be an understatement. It made the hottest night of my life to date seem like a dream.

The next morning feeling “refreshed/refried” we watched the crowds of people return from volcano boarding. For those of you not familiar with the sport, you hike to the top of a volcano and ride the pumice or sand down on a sort of toboggan. You are dressed in a fashionable orange jumpsuit and science class like goggles for the ride down. Having not done a single organized tourist event during this trip, we decided it was time to indulge a little.

Because of brilliant marketing we received tank tops when signing up for this adventure that would take place the following day. Yes, that’s right awesome black tank tops that taut the awesome volcano boarding experience. For George receiving the tank top was a pretty big deal as it was the first one he’d ever owned. In all honesty the tank top was nothing George would wear – it was too big, with flashy fonts and colors and footprints all over it. He made me laugh when he wore it.

That night we received news that we needed to be in San Jose, Costa Rica the following day. We stopped by the hostal in the morning to see if we could return the tank tops and get a refund. Unfortunately, it was too early for the safe to be opened so they couldn’t refund our money. So we didn’t feel too slighted, we decided that George was wearing his tank top during the long drive that we had that day.

We pulled into Managua, the capitol of Nicaragua about 9am feeling pretty good about the time we made from Leon. We both commented about how after 5 months on the road we’d become pretty relaxed about driving in Latin America cities with their organized chaos. Not five minutes after saying this we encountered a merge lane where in most places cars would trade off entering the lane. When it was our turn George made his way into the lane of traffic. The taxi driver entering from the left looked up at our car and from a full stop accelerated and drove into the drivers side of our car. Now you may be saying to yourself, that seems odd that he would accelerate from a full stop, are you sure he saw you guys? The answer, yes, I’m sure he saw us and saw gringo dollars flying out of our ears. Now back to the moment of impact; George, stunned by the horrific noise of our house being crushed by a Nicaraguan taxi, tried to get out of the van. Meanwhile the taxi driver kicked his passengers out of the car and got out of his vehicle. George was not able to get out because the taxi was pinning the drivers side door closed so instead he was leaning out the window trying to make sense of the situation with phrases in English, Spanish and Spanglish. All amounting to, WHAT THE HELL? YOU JUST DROVE INTO OUR CAR? The driver’s response? A shoulder shrug and hands in the air like, what’s the big deal? Simultaneously, his car rolled backwards and revealed the minimal damage that had been done to Dolores. His car, which was far from being pristine before the impact, including the bumper being tied on was not damaged.

Seeing this and hearing the mounting orchestra of horns from behind us prompted George to decide that driving away was probably the best way to deal with someone who intentionally drives into your car. However, little did we realize that only made him want to cause a full-blown accident. Yes, this crazy man started to chase us at full van speed through the mean streets of Managua. At one point he was parallel with us on the shoulder and pulled so sharply into the passengers side that George had to pull into oncoming traffic to keep him from sideswiping us. It was Fast & Furious meets Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Maybe…? Either way it was fast and had us a little more than on edge.

During our high-speed chase we decide two things. 1) This guy was not going to just give up & he’s a taxi driver so he knows the roads. 2) A public spot to pull over is probably our best option.

Low and behold ahead we saw a Pizza Hut with a few people sitting in front of it. We pull in and he screeched to a stop close behind us preventing us from leaving if we wanted.

Now keep in mind George is wearing his awesome, fully gringo, tank top. As soon as all vehicles are stopped the guy casually gets out of his car, looks at us and smirks. At that George for lack of a better term, chest bumps him. Yes that’s right, George chest bumped a large 250lb taxi driver in Managua while he was wearing an awesome tank top.

In that moment, the driver realized that he may have messed with the wrong gringo and he took a step back. Hands started flying in the air with Spanglish accounts of what had just happened and whose falto it was. Then there was mention of the police which we were more than obliged to entertain, until of course we realized we still had about 7 hours of driving to do to reach San Jose before dark. These shenanigans continued for what felt like way too long and the police didn’t show up. He waited us out and we paid him $20 for hitting our car and to move his car so we could all go on with our day. The finest of gringo taxes.

During our time at the Pizza Hut we made friends with the guys working there. We all agreed that the guy was simply trying to get a bribe out of us, not actually trying to hurt us and further more that he was likely not sober. All in all, we made it Costa Rica before nightfall in one piece with a pretty good $20 story and a memory of George’s first tank top that will always make me laugh.

Spanish School and El Salvador Surprises

From Sumac Champey we made our way to Lake Atitlan where we spent a few relaxing days around the lake enjoying the cooler weather and the vista of the two volcanoes across the way.

Here we learned about a Spanish School, Corazon Maya in San Pedro la Laguna, across the lake that sounded like it was the kind of place we were looking for to improve our Spanish skills. We moved into a cabana for the week and had 4 hours a day of private Spanish lessons. Our teachers were fantastic and it was amazing to learn what the family that ran the school was doing with the proceeds from our classes. They were doing their best to better the future of the girls in the village that would not have the opportunity to go to school without their funding. Here we also met Kenny and Jenn of NorthSouthEastWesty. They are also on a journey south with a VW Syncro, which is a 4-wheel drive version of our van and the only vehicle that we’d rather have than ours! They were a wonderful couple to eat our way through San Pedro with, and an inspiration for running faster miles and learning more Spanish!
After brushing up on our Spanish skills we went to check out Antigua, a wonderful colonial town where we enjoyed wandering the streets lost for hours. Although we’d heard that they were turning young people away at the Tourist Police Station, we were left with no choice but to try since the van wouldn’t fit anywhere else in town. Something about George’s smile made the guy let us in and just like that we had a safe place to park for two nights. We were lucky as we saw them turn away other folks while we were there.
From Antigua, we decided it was time to head back to the beach so we booked it to El Salvador. We arrived at El Tunco in the afternoon and went to check out the surf. Here George did his best to beat the crowds of surfers by heading out before sunrise every morning and enjoyed a nice swell at Sunzal. Our attempt to explore some of the other beaches in the area was thwarted by deteriorating roads and my persistent sickness that required frequent access to a bathroom.
After the front grill of the van was melted by a fire our camp host started, our camp was turned into a massive parking lot for the weekend party, a couple made love on the ground next to the van, and at 4 am a car about 20 feet from us decided to have a full on dance party we decided it was time to press on.

We learned about a lake that was in the crater of a volcano that was supposed to be in the cooler mountains so we set our sights on Allegria. After a good day of driving we pulled into town and found our home for the night outside a beautiful restaurant set on the hillside, complete with an orchid farm, an illegal animal collection and a least 100 cocks for fighting. After securing our place to stay, we grabbed the Swiss couple that was staying at the same spot and made our way up to the lake.

After a bumpy ride and paying the $1.50 fee for all of us and the car to enter, we were excited to see what was around the bend. The van echoed with laughter as we saw the sight ahead of us. The lake was empty. In that moment, our Swiss friend connected the dots and remembered a friend had told her about a lake that drained a few years ago following an earthquake in the area. We all laughed at our luck took a few photos and did the quick drive around the small stinky puddle that was left.

The Mountains of Guatemala

We said good bye to our fun friends Straight Six Straight South, in the FJ, but not before we had a big ol’ blow out of a time. And by “blow-out-of-a-time” I mean the most challenging day of driving to date. You may be wondering if we already told you about our challenging time here, but really that was just a warm up for what was ahead. So yes, that means that we tried twice to get to Sumac Champey and honestly, we just weren’t willing to give up the second time around. The story goes something like this:
Our confidence in the map at this point was a little shot, based on how our previous drive had rounded out so we put a little extra time and effort into our second round of research. Which means we asked around, double and triple checked different GPS’ and looked at Google Earth. With all systems go, we set out first thing in the morning. At first the road was great, it was wide, paved and comfortable. Then as we started to climb a little bit Emma, the FJ, was a little upset and pitched her throttle cable. No worries, easy fix. In the time it took me to make a cup of coffee, we were back on the road.
About that time, the road went down to be paved on only one side – pretty typical around these parts so no big deal. Then the time came to turn onto the smaller road on the map… Straight out of the gates we climbed about 2000ft in less than 3 miles. Delores was pissed, likely still upset from the hose we’d torn on her during our previous excursion. She started to get pretty hot so we looked for a place to pull over and bleed the radiator. Something that we were doing so frequently after ripping a coolant line that we keep the tools for this little exercise in the pocket of the driver’s side door. After a little burping, she was ready to go again. With each of our stops for mechanicals for the drive out of the way we were ready to rock-and-roll. Beautiful vistas of vibrant green hills and vivid blue skies made it hard for George to keep his eyes on the windy, steep road. Our car was full of laughs of astonishment and yewws at the awesome views.

In the first couple towns that we rolled through our similes and waves were returned. As we pressed on, up and down mountain passes at a racy 13 MPH and finding ourselves deeper in the mountains, the temperament of the people we saw shifted. First we rolled up on a roadblock of tall rocks covered with a huge log and about seven 10 year olds in front of the roadblock. On the other side of the roadblock was a hand full of men with shovels and pick axes. Half of the men were working on a large patch in road and the other half were on bikes. George being the calm and amazing husband that he is greeted all of the boys with a huge, “Hola, mi amigos, que tal?” All the boys smiled and could barely say with a straight face, “20 quetzales to pass.” He told them with a huge smile that since it was to make the road better he would pay 10Q ($1.30) for both cars. This seemed agreeable so they moved the rocks and logs and we passed with smiles and waves. When we passed the guy with a pistol on his belt we were glad everyone in the review mirror was still smiling and waving.
As we pressed further into the village, there were no more smiles or waves. One group of younger boys yelled at us and then the smallest of the group chased us with his slingshot and a hand full of rocks. Needless to say we were committed to exiting this little pueblo quickly. On the other side of town we found the way out meant a big huge, steep, long gravel hill.
Now to fully understand what the next few minutes were like you need to understand a few things about our beloved Dolores. She has a Subaru engine in her. Which means that she has more power, but it means that first gear is NOT slow. Which also means we have to go up big huge, steep long gravel hills way faster than we’d like. So for about 7 minutes we went extraordinarily too fast up a big huge, steep gravel hill, throwing rocks, dust and dirt and bumping over the road. And THEN we screeched to a stop for a truckload of people that were coming DOWN the hill. We rolled backwards to a switchback where they had enough room to get around us. Still no smiles or waves just a thank you honk from the driver. Now George was faced with clutch starting up this extremely big huge, steep hill. He of course did this gracefully while only shortening our clutches life by about 5000 miles.
After another 10 minutes of throwing gravel dirt and dust we crested the top of the hill and waited for Spencer and Breena for what seemed like forever (they have really low wonderful gears and could cruise at a safer speed). They jumped out of the car and said, “At one point you guys were on TWO wheels! That was awesome!” Sure for them, my knees were still shaking.
From the top of the big hill you could see a huge mine of some sort across the valley. We later learned that it was the source of the discontentment that we experienced from the locals. They thought we were the Canadian miners that stole their land. The rest of the drive was bumpy dirt roads, which left the van interior and exterior covered in approximately one inch of the finest red dust.

After about 8 total hours of driving roughly 80 miles we arrived in Lanquin, found a place to park for the night, ate dinner and went to bed.
Over the next few days in Lanquin we floated the river with tubes and beers, played cards during the heat of the afternoon, ate Spencer’s fabulous curried lentils with chicken and the day before we left for Sumac Champey, we poisoned ourselves with water from Rio Dulce. It was awesome.
Although we were sick, weak and afraid of the brightness of the outdoors we drove yet another terrible road to Sumac Champey. This road however, was legendary so we knew exactly what we were getting ourselves into. After surviving the drive we parked the cars and ventured to the falls. We felt unbelievably refreshed after a swim in the stunning pools.

That night we were excited to be out of town and in the jungle under cacao trees where it would be quiet and we could get some much needed rest. However, this jungle was not like the jungle we’d become accustom to. Within 10 feet of the van, there were collectivos arriving and departing with hostal guests, two dogs barking at each arrival and departure, a pig that was upset about being tied up for the night, a rooster that wanted to break the silence when the dogs weren’t barking and after it finally settled down for about 30 minutes at 3 am, everyone got up for work and started jamming tunes at 4 am. It was the perfect night sleep for 3 people with food poisoning and one with a cold. Needless to say we were up and ready to hit the road at the first hint of daylight.

Running from the Rain and Other Things...

In San Ignacio, we spent two whole days drying out different parts of the van from the rain storm at the school which you might remember from here.  We scrubbed instant mildew spots that appeared from the rain and prepared for our border crossing into Guatemala.  Although we’d planned to cross after two days, the protesters blocking the road in Guatemala had other plans for us.  The border stayed closed for two days, but we weren’t upset about spending more time in San Ignacio. We met up with a few old friends, The Brits, Stephen and Jonni, and made new friends, Breena and Spencer of Straight Six Straight South.

Note the large patch of hair missing above his side-burn - one of many hysterical details

San Ignacio seemed like the perfect place for George to get his much wanted haircut.  The above pictures should tell most of the story, but the best part was when they guy at camp said, “it looks like Mr. T cut the Bay of Honduras on the side of your head!” It should speak volumes when you ask a sleeping old man with two cataracts and an empty barbershop what type of haircut you should get and he replies, “one that suits you.” Perhaps sometimes you should do a little self reflection and walk away content with the haircut your loving wife gave you with dull scissors in the jungle.  Sometimes you get a slice of culture and sometimes you simply get a bad haircut!

Once we received word that the border crossing was clear we caravanned to Tikal and enjoyed a few days deep in the jungle.

Tikal was huge and still deep in the jungle.  Exploring the ruins was just as much about the history as it was about the wildlife.  We saw spider and howler monkeys, tucans, pacas, and tons of flora and fauna.  From Tikal we jetted to Rio Dulce where we checked out the sailing lifestyle.

 
Guatemala overall has blown our minds.  The landscape is unbelievable and the people are friendly and kind.  Yesterday we set out for Sumac Champey and discovered a number of things:
#1. Maps are not always correct.
#2. GPS’s can’t always tell you where you are.
#3. Villagers may or may not be able to tell you where you’re all at on a map.
#4. Dolores can go up ANYTHING it may however result in a dented oil pan and a slice in the coolant line, which further results in roadside repairs in the jungle.  Good thing we’re traveling with awesome people that have a shower so we could wash up before carrying on.
#5. Sometimes the best adventures land you right back where you started.