Out of Guatamala

Well, how to begin...Reccardo on the second day became Roberto.  After accompaning us to the border, we unknowingly hired another Coyote, Victor.  It seems that Roberto is not very assertive and somewhat incompetent, allowing Victor to edge in on his territory...all this meant to us was another mouth to feed....2.5 hours of confusion and mistrust later, we succeeded in getting on our way.  We paid $260 for a vehicle permit that is supposed to be good throughout Central America, and various smaller fees to get our sad butts into Guatamala.  Victor tried to lure us down an alley, claiming the permit was $450 and he would pay it for us if we just gave him the cash.  Midway down the alley, we smelled the rat and insisted that we pay the fee in person and directly at the immigration window.  Back on the main drag, we were decended upon by hoards of money changers with big wads of cash in their pocket offering between 6.7 and 7.5 Quetzels to the dollar.  I won't tell you who got the 6.7 rate, but his name rhymes with "Rim".

On down the road we go, between the Pacific Coast to the south and the volcanoes to the North, in lush farm land.  The main crop is sugar cane, and the fields go on seemingly for ever.  Numerous cane processing plans spew clouds of brown smoke into the sky, partially blocking views of the high dormant volcanoes. Still, they are spectacular.

At dusk, we stumble into the town of Esquentla looking for habitacion.  As we drive down the dark and dreary street, I wonder how I'm going to describe this place in the blog without using the redundant words, dump or shitty.  I resolve to merely lower the bar and reevaluate my relative rating scale.  Just suffice it to say, Tapachula is looking pretty good.

Wednesday along the road we encountered roadblocks (2) where the local population spread tree branches and rocks across intersections, stopping taffic in every direction...por que?  A protest to demonstrate displeasure at high electricity rates.  Two hours later, they made their point and we were all on our way.

Thursday we were excited to cross the border to El Salvador, and determined to retain our dignity by not to succumbing to the Coyote's offer of services.  Get this...over two miles of semi-trailor trucks stopped dead in their tracks waiting to cross the boarder.  We negotiateed a route around and between them until we reached the boarder...Darwin's theory put to the test!  As to our our self service boarder crossing plan, 4.5 hours later we limped south, licking out wouned egos into El Salvador...but with all our money still in our pockets.

Of course, this put us seriously behind in our quest to reach the capitol city San Salvador, a city of several million people before dusk.  We, therefore, were forced to break all the rules of Central American travel...don't drive at night, don't drive in a large metro area at night, don't stop if you are driving in a large metro area at night, etc.  With the deft navigational skills of the person whos name rhymes with "rim", we suceeded in arriving at our prearranged hotel in the civico central.