After leaving Xela I spent a night in Antigua, then headed to the El Salvador border at La Hachadura, the southernmost crossing near the pacific coast. It was a bit of a sad day to leave Xela as I had spent quite a bit of time there and had made some good friends, but it was time to move on and cross another border.
The basic process is that when you come to a border, or ‘frontera’ in Spanish, you must check yourself and your vehicle out of one country, then drive a few kilometers to the next checkpoint, and check yourself and your vehicle into the next country. Sounds simple right? Its anything but simple.
Central American overland border crossings are notorious for corrupt officials trying to fleece money out of you while you undergo a draconian process of navigating red tape and jumping through bureaucratic hoops. Numerous copies of passports, visas, drivers license, and vehicle registrations must be made. After the copies are made, some of them must get a certain stamp, then copied yet again with the stamp to be turned in at yet another window so you can receive yet another piece of paper to copy and stamp. Not to mention the whole time you are waiting in long lines in stifling heat and humidity. Its a horribly frustrating process, even when everything goes smoothly.
If the officials in Migracion and Aduana (Immigration and Customs) are honest, it generally takes a couple of hours to check out of one country and another couple of hours to check into the next country. Bribes are part of the game to expedite things and can be anywhere from an easy 5 bucks to a whopping $100+ depending on what you are trying to do or how bad your paperwork got screwed up at the last crossing.
In addition, at every border crossing are numerous ‘tramitadores’ or helpers. These guys are part of that corrupt system. They follow you around like beggars, and insist that you will need their help to navigate the process. For the most part 5 or 10 bucks to helper would be fine if they were honest and actually helped to speed up the process. However, many of them can make the process excruciatingly painful, time consuming, and expensive. Use a helper with caution, because you never know what your going to get.
As far as the notorious Central American border crossings go, the one between Guatemala and El Salvador is actually a very straightforward crossing. However when I arrived they had a problem on the Guatemala side, no electricity. Uh oh, this could be painful.
A couple of helpers were following me around giving advice. These guys are persistent. I kept telling them that I really didn’t need any help but they still hung around. The problem came when I tried to get the bike’s customs exit stamp from Guatemala. There was a huge line, and stack of papers a mile high. The aduana (customs) guy explained that he couldn’t do anything until his computers came back on, and for that, they needed electricity.
OK, no problem, I can wait. Then one of the helpers tells me that for 40 bucks, he can get me checked out of the country ‘in five minutes.’ Naw, thats OK, I have all day long to do this, and its still early. I can wait. Then about a hour later he comes back and says, “hey, I can get your stamp and get you out of here for 10 bucks.” Well that tipped the scales. I countered with 5 bucks, but he laughed at that. He said no way in hell would the customs guy do it for 5 bucks. OK, 10 bucks it is then. Basically the 10 bucks was a bribe to the Customs guy to give me my vehicle exit stamp before the electricity and computers came back up. What the hell, I’ll give it shot. It told the helper that if he got my stamp, I would give him 10 bucks. Sure enough, 5 minutes later he came back with my aduana vehicle exit stamp, no computer or electricity necessary. See, these helpers aren’t all bad guys. 🙂
Normally, they feed on your worry about how long the process will take. I had all day, so I didn’t really care. But with the electricity out, this was a new ball game. I figured that 10 bucks not to sit in the heat for God knows how many more hours was worth it. It turned out to be the best 10 bucks I have spent on the trip as you will soon see.
While at the border I ran into these folks from Canada: Brian and Marie. Really cool people. Brian and Marie have ridden around the world on a BMW 1100 GS and are returning north to Canada after almost 3 years on the road. They have been everywhere on that bike. I wish I could have sat down with them over beers and listened to stories about their adventures, but unfortunately we were headed in opposite directions.
They warned me that in El Salvador there are traffic laws that are actually enforced. Very strange. Don’t screw around, don’t ride on sidewalks, don’t pass on a solid yellow line etc, etc. Cool. Good to know because doing all that stuff and riding like a complete hooligan is normal in Mexico and Guatemala, and actually essential for survival. However, after 7 months of riding like that its going to be a challenge to change my driving habits in El Salvador. In Mexico and Guatemala you could ride 80 miles an hour doing a wheelie down a sidewalk while holding a beer in your hand and the cops would’nt even give you a second look.
Of course, not 15 minutes after I crossed the border I had a brain fart and found myself passing a truck on a solid yellow line while I was doing a little wheelie , right in front of a cop. Shit. I got pulled over but the cops were actually pretty cool. They said that in El Salvador, there are traffic laws. OK, sorry about that. After some smiles and apologies they let me go and told me to be careful. Of course it probably helped that when they saw me open my wallet I had all of 2 Quetzales (about 20 cents) inside, and not one single dollar bill. 🙂
OK, back to the border. With my 10 dollar bribe I got out of Guatemala quickly. Very quickly in light of the fact that there was no electricity. I had emailed Brian and Marie a couple of days later and found out that they waited at the border for 7 hours before they finally got through. They were entering Guatemala which is a much more complex process than leaving, so the bribes would have been substantially more. I guess my 10 bucks was well spent huh?
Although the process is ridiculous with numerous stamps and copies needed, the El Salvador side is straightforward as it gets, and costs almost nothing. No fees, no banks to go to and pay, nada. The only thing is that you have to make some copies of stuff which will cost you about a buck at the most. There are signs everywhere in Migracion and Aduana saying that you do NOT need to hire helpers, and don’t pay attention to anyone that is trying to charge you money for anything. In addition, there are signs reminding you that entry into El Salvador is FREE. The border officials were honest and very helpful even though the process still sucked. But I like this country already. 🙂
All said and done including the little electricity problem on the Guatemala side it took me about 2 hours to exit Guatemala and enter El Salvador. Hey, these Central American borders aren’t so bad right? Apparently that’s what everyone says until they experience Honduras. 🙂
And finally, I’m in El Salvador.
I’m pretty happy to be here.
Once you hit the coast, there are some great views. Try to keep your eyes on the road.
An hour or so after the border, I pulled into the little beach town of El Tunco, got a room and kicked back with an ice cold frosty.
Not a bad view from the room either.
It feels good to be on the move once again, but I could see getting stuck here for a while as the surf is good, the people are friendly, and the women are beautiful. I can’t really ask for much more than that.
The next day I hit San Salvador for a badly needed oil change and some other routine maintenance. A guy on one of the internet motorcycle sites that I frequent had offered his help to me a couple of weeks prior. Mario graciously offered the use of his garage and he actually went two the KTM dealer, bought filters and oil and had them waiting for me when I arrived. How cool is that? The hospitality of fellow motorcyclists around the world never ceases to amaze me. So Mario and I kicked around most of Saturday drinking beer and spilling oil on his garage floor. Actually I think we spilled oil first, then drank beer, despite what you are thinking. We also met his buddy Juan Carlos and drank more beer on Sunday. Sorry, but after all that beer ,I forgot how to operate a camera so I don’t have any pictures of that. 🙂
View from Mario’s above San Salvador
Monday we went for a little ride out near the northeastern border, and this time we both brought cameras. We stopped at a huge bridge that was blown up by the guerrilla during the civil war. If you go over that edge, its a long way down. That one dude standing in the background by himself looked a bit sketchy as he was eyeballing us.
You know how you can feel when someone is sizing you up. I figured that between the two of us we c0uld have schooled him if it came to that, but we didn’t want any trouble, so we took off down the road.
A bridge was washed out here few months back and this was the detour. Here comes some clown that looks like a spaceman on a big orange bike riding right through the village laundry and bathing area. Oh wait, that clown would be me. 🙂
And down the road we went.
We made our way north near the Honduras border and came upon this river. I’m pretty happy to be here.
Mario is pretty happy to be here too. He took a half day off work to show me around. This is what he thinks about going back to work.
A little further down the river the road just ended. This is a typical sight on dirt roads in Central America, the road simply ends into a river.
Mario told me that the guys that run this ferry will soon be out of business as the road is going to be paved, and a bridge will be built in the near future. Progress is not good for El Salvador ferry operators or adventure bikers.
But nevertheless, we are still pretty happy to be here.
The shadows are starting to get long and the sticky heat is subsiding a bit.
It was an enjoyable afternoon of dirt roads and water crossings near the border of Honduras. I would have never found this place on my own and got here only because of Mario’s local knowledge.
As it started to get dark, we found the pavement, headed back toward San Salvador, and Mario had some words of wisdom for me. He said that if we get separated going back home, do not get off the highway until you’re completely out of the city. He said on the east side of town if you get off the highway, you will be really screwed. I did’nt have to ask why, but its probably like getting off the freeway in south central L.A., at night, and wandering around lost with $100 bills falling out of your pocket, only worse. 🙂
I was a fantastic afternoon of riding in El Salvador. Muchas gracias Mario!!!
Saludos, Vicente