February 12th: We take a walk around Metapan, get breakfast and then head out of town. We head south and get on the CA1 then head towards San Salvador. As we come into the city we miss the Auto-piste/toll road/bypass and get dumped right into downtown. We quickly get lost with all the one-way streets and no good map of the city plus our bad Spanish doesn‘t help. As we are getting even more lost I decide to make an illegal turn across a double yellow line and enter into a gas station where we can get directions and try to get back on the right roads. I saw a number of people do u-turns on this road and also a few cross the yellow lines and enter the gas station. As we are sitting in the street with blinker on ready to turn all of the sudden be get nailed from behind! A car rear ends us at a decent speed, I guess around 20-25mph, we don't here any skidding so it seems she just plowed into the back of us. I yell out some cuss words and pull into the gas station. I get out to look at my truck, expecting to see some really bad damage. As I walk around the back of my truck I am like HOLY ********! No damage at all to my truck can be seen!! We look over into the street and there is a small sedan just sitting there smashed up badly. A big traffic jam is forming but we don't see the driver of the car. Worried the person may be hurt we head towards the car, just then she steps out of the car. A big sigh of relief to see she is not badly injured. We get her sat down in some grass at the gas station and make sure she is ok. She is very nice, hot and speaks good English. She wasn't wearing her seat belt so she did impact the steering wheel but it doesn't seem to be to serious. By now there is a huge traffic jam because her car is still sitting in the street and a small crowd has gathered. Some lady who I think owns the gas station comes over and in broken English tells me I screwed up real bad. Some nice locals who saw the accident come over and tell us the girl was talking on her cell phone and not paying attention. By now the girl has called her boyfriend, her mechanic and the police. Some federal police show up but only hang around for about 10mins until the traffic cops show up. We get her car pushed out of the road and I inspect my truck very closely, I still can't find any damage to the Taco besides some scratches in the powder coating on my bumper. Her car looks really bad and I think this is it for me, trip is likely over. Jaime has to be in Panama in just a few days and can't be delayed with problems that I expect are coming for me. We do not have insurance because few countries in Central America require it, El Salvador is not one of them. We end up chatting with the cops a lot, they are very very cool and one speaks pretty good English. Honestly they really made me feel better, calmed me just being friendly and talking to me and saying things like your truck is very strong! The cop who speaks English tells us his cousin married a pro surfer so he wants to talk about surfing for awhile. Eventually the girls mechanic shows up and he says it will cost over $1,000 to fix her car. She is being really cool about all this and just asks us to give her $500 to help fix her car. Even though it was not my fault and I had not yet broken the law by making the turn we don't want to argue this. I could get stuck in El Salvador for a long time if I do protest and all things considered $500 seems pretty reasonable, especially looking at her car! Jaime says he will split the cost with me, very cool of him. The cops tell us if we settle this with the girl there will be no ticket, no record and no problems for us in El Salvador. So we hand over the $500 and then ask the cops how to get back on the CA1. One cop pulls out his iPhone and brings up a map, not so third world eh!? It helps but we are still confused so the cop says hey no worries….I will escort you to the right road! We are like…uhhh awesome! He pulls out in traffic, stops cars and lets us go. Once at the right road he tells us to do an illegal u-turn across a double yellow line while he stops traffic! It was pretty amazing to go from thinking my trip was over and I am screwed to having a police escort to the right road!
From San Salvador we drive to the worst border in Central America, El Amatillo. The reputation of this border crossing as we find out is well deserved! It is nasty, dirty, hot, scams everywhere, corrupt offices everywhere and just not a fun experience. As we come up to the border we get mobbed by like 6 porters. I don't stop but have to slow down and some of them jump on my truck holding onto the sides and yelling $1 senior, pick me pick me! I dump all but one guy by swerving and hitting the brakes. We are still 5k or so from the actual border crossing so I do 50mph down the HWY with some crazy guy hanging off the side of the truck! It costs us $200 to get across and takes over 4hrs! This was the most expensive border crossing I had on the trip. Nearly half of the $200 went to a bribe in the end to a cop who said I couldn't pass since I didn't have my trucks title. This was the only time in CA I had a problem for not having the title. I didn't bring my title on the trip only my registration. When we had to bribe the cop was the last check point at the border, we had all docs in hand and were clear to go but he would not let us pass. It seems to me they are just looking for some reason to bribe people. I learned that my documents, my paperwork and all that was my suit of armor. If there was a flaw in my armor these guys would find it and I would have to pay a bribe. I am pretty sure the porter who helped us across the border got his fair share of the bribe too. He claimed not to though and was making a big fuss so I ended up giving him a super cheap little 24” spear gun. He said he was a fisherman so was very happy with the $15 spear gun!
Here is a video of our border crossing experience...
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gq9QVWAAdEw"]YouTube- The Ultimate Road Trip - El Salvador to Honduras border crossing[/ame]
We get into Honduras late, it is dark now. Unsure of where we can sleep for the night we go to the first place we find about 30k from the border. It is really seedy looking and is an “auto-hotel”. It is pretty sketchy and they have a big gate with a chain. A teen about 14yrs old lets us in and we drive back to the main complex. We are greeted by some more teenagers. The owner comes out and he must not be over 17yrs old! Then we notice 4-5 of these teenagers have pistols on their hips! We look at a room and it is safe but not really a place we want to stay. We are beat tired though and it is only $12 a night. We don't have change and neither does anyone there. By the way nobody was staying there, it was empty. The owner will only take exact change so he tells us we can go to a gas station down the road and get change. Once out of there we decide screw that place we are not staying there! Luckily we find a nice place a few Ks down the road on the outskirts of the town of Nacaome which is right on the CA1. It is run by a family, very secure with a big fence and gate and has really nice rooms with A/C. The hotel is called The Sunset Hotel, you can't miss it. A room is $25 for the night for the two of us, it is now like 930pm so we take it. They let us make our own dinner in the parking lot on our stove. We cook dinner, drink some beers, Jaime plays guitar which brings over a local staying in the hotel who wants to play too! We sit around outside the room till after mid-night drinking beers and chatting with the locals. The owners son fries up some banana chips and shares them with us, they are very good! It is super hot here even late at night, we get a good night sleep after a super long day, A/C cranking all night!
A video from around Metapan and on the road in El Salvador....
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qd3FenXSiNo"]YouTube- The Ultimate Road Trip: El Salvador[/ame]
breakfast....
A video of the accident in San Salvador....
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pUeAfItQm8"]YouTube- Ultimate Road Trip: San Salvador, El Salvador accident[/ame]
and pictures....
A bigger image so you can see the look on the girls face....it says it all!
El Salvador beer...
Jaime entertaining...
Me cooking dinner at the hotel...
