Falling in Love with El Salvador

Historically El Salvador has been a country that has had issues with gangs and safety; however the country is beaming with optimism and it is contagious.  Although the actions of their President are controversial (imprisoning over 60,000 people) most citizen's couldn't be happier and are so excited to be able to safely see their own country and be able to show their country off to visitors.  During our time in El Salvador we fell in love with this small central american nation and it's people.  So often we received a wave or a friendly honk with a thumbs up.  Any issue or question was quickly answered with people routinely dropping everything to help us or show us how to get somewhere.  We do wonder what will happen in a few years when people start being released, but in the meantime we would recommend everyone to start looking at buying flights and exploring.

April 6th – Quiet towns

We couldn’t leave our campground without going back and enjoying the hot springs for another few hours.  We couldn’t believe how beautiful and relaxing the hot springs were.  Alas all good things have to come to an end so we packed up the vehicle to explore the western area of the Ruta de las Floras, a mountain road known for flowers.

The route started at the community of Ahuachapan where we saw the source of the hot springs for the area, a location known as Los Ausoles which almost looked like a micro Yellowstone.  Next we explored the center of Ahuachapan which surprisingly was very quiet.  We assumed for Santa Semana people would be in the streets but it seems that the people of El Salvador choose certain communities to celebrate in, and this was not one of them. Paul tried to get a smoothie at 11:30am but was told he was too early.

We had read of a cute mountain town close to Ahuachapan called Tacuba so we headed there next only to find another quiet town.  There were some beautiful ruins of an old church but they were all locked up meaning it was impossible for us to truly appreciate them. 

Our next stop was the community of Concepcion de Ataco which was the opposite of quiet.  It seemed that everyone from the  surrounding communities had come here to celebrate the Holy Thursday portion of Santa Semana.  After finding parking we wandered the street, had a cold coffee and admired some other floral carpets created on the roads. We even watched the Santa Semana procession and a funeral procession face off in the street, someone somewhere is having a laugh about that.  Sadly, it was getting late and we had to find camping, which we decided would be a volcano crater.

We drove up some ridiculously steep roads following some side by sides and quads/4-wheelers but us and our van eventually made it to the crater; a spot we could camp for $5!  The place was very busy with locals relaxing in the cooler weather, having fires, taking hikes and rowing boats but by 7pm we had the place practically to ourselves for a nice quiet and cool night.

 

April 7^th – EXTREME GAMES

Yesterday, as we drove to the campsite we had noticed a very busy place with a labyrinth.  We enjoy doing labyrinths but hadn’t done one in years so we decided to backtrack a bit to test our navigation skills.  With it being Good Friday the place was already getting busy by the time we pulled into the parking lot, but we knew, based on the traffic we saw yesterday it was going to get way busier so we purchased our tickets and headed to the entrance of the maze.

The maze was tough and way larger than anything we had experienced before, we actually started to feel anxious about finding our way to the center and back.  According to online, anyone who knows the route can get from the entrance to the middle and back in less than 15 minutes, well it took us an hour and a half.  The amount of people also doing the maze actually made it more fun as you would see the same people again and again and greet them with a laugh, both knowing that you had been turned around. Kendra also didn’t do the proper research for this maze and thought there was an exit different from the entrance.  Once we rang the bell to announce that we made it to the centre we did a lap around the entire maze looking for the exit.  Just as we were about to use the emergency exit since we had seen many others use it, we were back at the entrance where the ticket checker made sure we rang the bell, or else we couldn’t leave the maze.

This adventure park had other things to do that they classify as “EXTREME GAMES”, which in general all involve zip lines or swinging over the edge.  The two “games” we couldn’t stop watching people do were riding a bicycle over a wire and surfing down a zip line.  Paul choose to ride the bicycle and Kendra decided to surf down the zip line.  We purchased our tickets, waited in line and before we knew it we were far above the ground.  Paul was first on the bike, he jumped on and the guy told him to bike slow, which Paul thought he did, until all of a sudden he had passed everyone else and had no real way to slow down.  The speed wasn’t his concern, rather the slight wobble from the wind that kept him concerned about the tire jumping off the wire. He survived.  Kendra was far less scared during her ‘game’, she jumped on the surf board with confidence and surfed her way down to ground level.

We drove to the community of Juayua in the heart of the Ruta de las floras where there were more flower carpets for Santa Semena and a large food market.  It was time for lunch/dinner (3:00pm) so for less then $10 we ate delicious “street food” that resembled something you’d get at a good restaurant.  Each vendor had their food on display so we picked what looked good. We both choose a food stall that had food we wanted, ordered and they brought it to our table in the middle of the park. Kendra had chicken stuffed with cheese and tortillas and rice and Paul had a seafood feast with shrimp and fish fillets.  A random guy even came by selling beer.  It was the perfect way to celebrate surviving EXTREME GAMES.

Just outside of Juayua is a relatively famous overlanding campsite, it’s a free spot in a farmers field.  We arrived met the farmer and his family and set up for the night beside a few other overlanders.  We spent the evening watching the animals and playing some games.

 

April 8^th – Surrounded by Volcanos

We woke up and met our overlanding neighbours who all had different goals and ambitions. Some were going to live in Belize, others were going to continue traveling, and one family was going to teach in El Salvador and open a French café/restaurant. Next we returned to Juayua; we had missed the procession for today but the market was busy and we wanted to purchase some coffee to drink and coffee grounds for future mornings as this area is known for its coffee.  I don’t know how we will survive Canada again  since after going to southern Mexico we have been spoiled with amazing coffees for relatively cheep prices.  Even the coffee we make in the morning with purchased coffee grounds from local producers have been out of this world. The only thing missing from our morning coffee is dairy/creamer, but the coffee still tastes amazing even with coffeemate powder in it.

El Salvador has a negative history with gang violence and murders but their current President went through the entire country and has purportedly arrested 60,000 people and threw them into jails that could only accommodate 10,000 people.  In general the people of El Salvador love their president but many dislike him for putting their loved ones into prisons with little to no trials or due process.  There are many who believe their loved one was innocent.  The president disagrees with these allegations stating that anyone put into jail either had known ties to gangs or had gang tattoos, determined when the police went into communities and searched the bodies of young men. We often wonder what will happen when people start being released as our understanding of the history of incarceration without rehabilitation is typically a recipe for worse future crime, but right now places that historically a tourist could not go are welcoming and safe. Once such place is Sonsonate, the last community on the Ruta de las Floras which was the murder capital of El Salvador.  This community still bares a lot of emotional scars from its past so we didn’t stay too long, but it definitely felt different then the other communities in El Salvador we had visited; a bit more grungy and real, but people were still friendly and curious and talked with us about Rupert.

Our final stop for the day was Cerro Verde National Park.  This national park historically was controlled by gangs with the police offering armed escort (for a small donation) for anyone wanting to hike to any of the three volcanos within the park.  On our camping app, iOverlander, there are numerous warnings about robberies and armed violence at viewpoints and on roadways, but this was all before the mass incarceration of people.  Salvadorians are exploring their own country for the first time in years and seeing Cerro Verde is one of those spots that they wanted to go to.  We couldn’t even get to the parking lot it was so busy! They had the equivalent of the Ministry of Tourism on the road to Cerro Verde explaining to people that the parking lot was full, so you didn’t have to pay to park if you were on the road, so we parked on the road and hiked up into the park. (NOTE: it was extremely busy due to Easter/Santa Semana, not because it was finally safe, its been relatively safe for a couple years now).

There are three volcanos viewable in Cerro Verde National Park, Cerro Verde, which isn’t that impressive and has been dominant for hundreds of years. Santa Ana, which you can, and we will, hike up, it is quasi dormant, it hasn’t erupted in about 18 years or so and last time it did it caused the evacuation of a community.  The final one is called Izalco which is mesmerizing to look at as steam still comes out the top and it looks like a stereotypical volcano and has caused monumental changes to the landscape of El Salvador with a peninsula 50 kilometer away made completely from volcanic rock from this volcano. 

We viewed all the viewpoints in Cerro Verde National Park and even did a small circular hike with a guide, but by 3pm the clouds were rolling in and the views were disappearing so we decided to camp in a hotel parking lot where many people hire a guide to take them up Santa Ana Volcano. 

We had a pretty low key evening of movies in the van and beers and the BEST Michelada (passionfruit and tajin flavoured) at the hotel restaurant, excited to hike up Santa Ana in the morning.

 

 

April 9^th – Hiking up Santa Ana

We  woke up at 6:30 am which is the earliest time you can hike up the volcano and learned there are two options to hike up.  The first option is to spend $35 usd for a private group; the second option is $3 usd per person for a public group that will leave whenever the minimum amount of people is reached (15).   We originally thought to do option 2 but a couple from the Cayman Islands was going to do Option 1 regardless and wanted to make sure they were on top of the Volcano before the large groups of people start hiking.  We decided to also do the first option because it cut both our costs in half as we would share the group cost and we could leave immediately.

The hike was beautiful with sweeping views of Lago de Coatepeque and the other Volcanos.  We didn’t know what to expect when we arrived to the top of Santa Ana Volcano but were happy with what we found.  It was a barren landscape up to the crater.  The crater itself was dynamic with multicolour lines all the way down to the bottom which contained boiling water that was a beautiful blue colour.  We could have stayed here for hours but the wind was wild and would occasionally pelt us with rocks and sand to remind us who was in charge.

As some may know Bitcoin is an official currency of El Salvador and pretty much all businesses accept it (Unfortunately Paul only has Ethereum and alt coins so we never attempted to pay with cryptocurrency).  Samuel, the guy from the Cayman Islands who is originally from Canada said it was a must do to tip his guide on top of a volcano in bitcoin and so we got to watch this crazy interaction where bitcoin, a legal tender, was transferred from one digital wallet to another on top of a volcano. We are glad we checked that item off of our bucket list, even though it had only been on our bucket list for about an hour.

During the course of our hike down Paul tried to practice his Spanish with the guide, which went pretty well, having conversations about our trip, El Salvador and of course the weather.  Paul did have an awkward incident with some Police as we hike down when they said to him “Diez Fruitas” at least that is what Paul heard, where he instinctually said “No Tengo Fruitas” or I have no fruit and opened up his bag.  Turns out what they has actually said was enjoy your trip, meaning Paul’s response made no sense, especially since there were apples in his backpack…  The Police burst into laughter and everyone around us had a good chuckle too.

Samuel and Jo were the interesting couple we shared the hike/guide with, both living on the Cayman Islands, but neither were citizen, Samuel is Canadian and Jo is English, they just applied for jobs, and after successfully interviewing were offered jobs with the government of the Cayman Islands.  It really made us think maybe we should think about applying for jobs in the Cayman Islands as we are getting used to warm weather and being so close to the ocean.

After saying goodbye to our new friends we drove Lago Coatepeque, the location where the rich El Salvadorians own property.  Unfortunately, most of the lake is privately owned or the location of restaurants/nightclubs makes a quiet day on the lake a challenge.  Samuel and Jo had been to the lake and found it underwhelming, we took their advice and avoided the touristy areas but there was one cooperative that allowed camping for $5 in a rural part of the lake.  We drove over and set up camp, taking a swim in the lake to wash away our sweat and then spent the rest of the day relaxing by the beach and looking out to the volcano we had just climbed, which just happened the highest volcano in El Salvador.

 

April 10^th – Pupusas with a view

We had hoped to go to the Pompaii of Central America, Joya de Ceren, but after driving from the lake to the Archaeological Site we learned it was closed on Mondays.  Usually we would have googled when it was open however we ran out of cell phone data and learned we could not recharge our Guatamala cell account in El Salvador.  We thought we could pay by credit card, but their app only accepted Guatemalan credit cards. 

Joya de Ceren was a small Mayan village covered in volcanic ash and perfectly preserved.  It sounded interesting but unfortunately due to our timeline we had to skip it. 

Our next stop was groceries in the community of Quezaltepeque, Kendra successfully navigated us to a grocery story without internet, but the grocery store was in the middle of town near a huge market, the roads were wildly busy and the drive was an adventure.  The benefit of a grocery store so close to the market is while Kendra was waiting in line to pay for our groceries Paul went to the market and purchased eggs and cheese at a fraction of a cost of those in the grocery store.  Paul also had to run around the grocery store once we realized that they weigh the vegetables and put a price on them in the produce department, not at the cashier.  This system works extremely well and we are surprised we haven’t seen it in any other country. 

We decided to go to another national park just south of Guezaltepeque, Boqueron National Park.  This National Park is probably the smallest one we have ever done which means that very quickly we arrived at the main view point overlooking a volcano crater, we took a few photos, but spent most of our time reminiscing about Cerro Verde.  We had been told that there was a good restaurant with a view of San Salvador near the national park, so we decided to try the national dish of El Salvador, Pupusas.  They are tortillas filled with cheese and other ingredients eaten with fermented coleslaw and hot sauce on top.  You are supposed to eat it with your hands and not eat it like a taco, but we really struggled to eat it correctly.  Regardless, it was delicious and the views of San Salvador complimented the meal perfectly.

We decided to go into San Salvador as there was a microbrewery close to where we would be camping and we wanted to get a new SIM card so we would have data on our phone again.  After our errands we tried to go to a camping area within an eco park but the road was in very bad shape so we eventually abandoned our plan and camped in the parking lot of the eco park.

 

April 11^th – Back to the heat

Our first stop today was to visit San Salvador.  This city was also previously known as a dangerous place due to gangs but has begun to change since the arrests.  After getting caught in an infitinite  loop of one way roads on the opposite side of the highway we wanted to be on, Paul informed Kendra that there is a different navigation app that Salvadorians use, but he couldn’t remember the name of it.  We eventually found the beloved retorno and ended up where we needed to be, a parking lot on the edge of the historical central district. We saw the cathedral and national theatre and met some very friendly people wondering where we were from and checking in to see where we had been in El Salvador and making sure we were enjoying the country. After wandering we went shopping at the market.

One thing that we may not have shared before is that we have 10 +/- days of clothes each. We have had to dispose of some clothes along the way, have bought new clothes and touristy shirts, and had some clothes go missing when we have gotten laundry done (we also still have a random pair of socks we use for rags and did end up with a new pair of sweatpants in Mexico).  Kendra has regularly lost 1 pair of underwear the past few times we had laundry done.  Of course it’s her favourite pairs, which are also the expensive quick dry, smooth material, hiking ones. So with her underwear count below 10, she noticed a lot of booths selling underwear and was able to buy two new pairs in the market (for those wondering it was $5 for 2 pairs)! We also bought some grapes, avocados, and green mangoes- an El Salvadorian specialty at the market.  As we were walking back to the care we picked up one last “essential” item for the van, a pop up reflective pylon.  We have heard stories of people having trouble at some borders or when interacting with police because they don’t have a fire extinguisher or reflective pylon to put out in case of emergency, so we now have our pylon and we hope we don’t need to use it.

Next we decided to drive to Suchitoto because we had read that it is a beautiful colonial town on a lake.  We didn’t realize how hot Suchitoto would be as when we arrived it was close to 40 degrees.  The town was very quiet and our best guess as to why was today is the first day after Santa Semana and Suchitoto is where many people go to experience Santa Semana.  We think that the town was having an official day of rest from all the activities.  It was a colourful community but no different from other colonial cities we had been to in Central America.  We had hoped to people watch in the town square but only found a touristy restaurant with subpar food; however, their beer was very cold and delicious.

We ended up meeting a family originally from England but the parents had moved to Georgia and the daughter her partner had moved from Malawi to El Salvador to teach at an English school.  It was nice chatting with them and it made the decision to go to a restaurant with subpar food and food decision for us. We didn’t’ end up catching their names, but we are sure they will read this and say to themselves ”thank goodness they didn’t mention our dogs”.  They had two terriers that were curious about Rupert and tried to get his attention, but Rupert’s deafness and daftness meant that he slept through this interaction; he was too busy focussing on getting acclimatized to the heat that he didn’t have time to make friends.

After leaving the restaurant and a bit more exploring we headed to a campground near the Suchitoto Lake where we tried to avoid the heat by distracting ourselves with games in the shade of our awning.

Our evening was spent visiting and sharing beer with a German couple who rode their motorcycles from Ushuaia Argentina all the way north to their current location in Suchitoto.  We swapped stories and got a new appreciation for the roads ahead and what it takes to do this trip on a motorcycle.  Before we knew it, it was almost midnight and time to sleep.

 

April 12^th -  Doing our own Laundry again

By 8am it was sweltering hot in Suchitoto so we decided to pack up the van and do a bit more exploring of the area.  We said goodbye to our new German friends, Thom and Andrea-and swapped old SIM cards and currencies that we had for each other’s future countries and made our way to a Basalt Column waterfall.  Unfortunately, it is almost the end of the Dry season meaning everything is very dry and there was no water in the waterfall.  The views of the lake and the Basalt Columns was still worth the price of admission as we spent our morning sweating out the beer consumed yesterday.

We returned to a much busier Suchitoto and ran into the family from England again.  After a quick hello we had lunch at a Pupuseria and grabbed some ice cream for the drive.

We were in desperate need to do laundry and found and laundromat in a small community called Berlin.  We expected to drop our laundry off and pick it up tomorrow as we had done since leaving the US, but this was a laundromat that we would have seen anywhere in the US or Canada meaning we had to do our own laundry.  I don’t know why this seemed to be a stressful endeavour for us, but it was and with some help from the woman who owned the laundromat and a lady visiting her family from LA, we cleaned, dried and folded our own clothes. Nothing went missing this time!

Our final stop for the day was another volcanic crater called Laguna de Alegria a peaceful place with emerald water surrounded by the rim of a volcano.  It was cool in temperature and generally a cool place to be.  Being in nature camping beside a lake really made us want to relax for a day, but alas we applied to be in Nicaragua in one weeks time, and there was still lots to see in El Salvador and Honduras.

 

April 13^th – Preparations for future borders

We debated for hours whether or not to stay at the lake, but in the end decided to leave.  We were in no rush because we paid the camping fee plus the next day’s day use fee for the park, so Paul spent the morning writing the blog lakeside with a couple delicious cups of El Salvadorian coffee.  It never feels like we have slow starts to the day, normally the start of our days always consist of waking up, packing up, cooking breakfast then immediately leaving, but we could get used to these slower starts.

We also read about a cenote en route to San Miguel in the community of Moncagua so decided to spend the late morning/early afternoon relaxing in the water.  When we first arrived at the “cenote” we debated turning around as it appeared to just be an outdoor swimming pool but decided to spend the $2 and check it out, besides it was dog friendly!  Well, it definitely was a cenote but they had expanded it so more people could enjoy it giving some areas a outdoor swimming pool feel.  We still enjoyed it immensely, well Paul did.  There were tonnes of fish in the pools who loved to eat the dead skin off your body and Kendra was having none of that.  Paul was a little unsure after the nipple biting incident in Belize but felt better after a few minutes without feeling pain or seeing his own blood.

Before we knew it the temperature outside was nearing the mid 30’s so it was time to go to San Miguel and get some errands done.  We had made a decision to leave El Salvador on Sunday (2 days from now) so we needed to get our paperwork in order, specifically a couple vet certificates for Rupert (one for Honduras and one for Nicaragua) and various photocopies required for leaving and entering countries.  We thought we had enough for the entirety of Central America, but we were wrong. We made copies for entering countries, but it seems we’ve needed copies of drivers licenses and passports to leave with our van. Borders officials seem to want to keep a lot of mementos of us and our journey, and we are not going to argue with any official. 

After sitting in a lot of traffic we finally found a vet that was open and was willing to see Rupert right away.  After some discussion and a good examination Rupert had his clean bill of health.  We looked at google and were surprised to see that a place that does photocopies was only a couple blocks aways meaning within short order we had all our preparations done for future borders (well almost, but I’ll get to that later).

To celebrate Kendra wanted to get some pupusas and for some reason no restaurants in San Miguel near where we were located sold them meaning we spent an hour wandering the hot streets of San Miguel in search of food.  Kendra was lucky that the pupusa place she did find had the best Pupusa’s we had had in El Salvador; better yet they were the cheapest.  A full meal of pupusas with smoothies cost just over $6!! (65 cents/pupusa x3/person, plus $1-$2 for drinks).

It was still a few hours until sunset so we decided to drive to the coast.  We hadn’t seen the Pacific Ocean since Mexico so we felt it was time to be near the water.  The drive was uneventful but ended at a campground 100 meters from the ocean.  We took our chairs to the water and just sat staring at the water (and occasionally our phones or the iPad- we are currently watching El Chapo) until it was too dark to see anything.  Before going to bed we did the final thing we needed to do to enter Honduras, our Prechequeo.  The Prechequeo is a document that tells the government of Honduras all the questions the border guards typically ask you and is required to be filled out before arriving at the borders.  We were told it must be filled out 3 days before entrance to the country but we were undecided when we would actually enter the country.  Today we had made that decisions and now we truly were done all our preparations!

 

April 14^th – We got WIFI!!

Paul wanted a beach day!  He had a vision in his mind and he wanted to stop at nothing to find it.  He had been reminiscing about Baja and camping right on the beach and wanted to recreate on of those days. 

We drove down the coast as far as Punta Mango, known for it’s black sand and volcanic rock beaches, but nothing was fitting the bill.  Either there was no view, or no access to the water or it was a rocky beach.  After about an hour and a half of driving small roads where the minivan had no business in driving he finally gave up and went to the beach that many El Salvadorians say is their favourite, Playa Las Flores near El Cuco. 

We had heard that there was camping available but it wasn’t directly on the beach, we compromised.  We would camp away from the beach but would spend a lot of time at a beachside restaurant/bar enjoying the view of the beach.

After a fair bit of time, we eventually decided to go to the campground, set up camp then wander back to the ocean.  Well, that was the plan.

We had been debating about having a hotel day for a long time, mostly to have wifi and get caught up in the world and other tasks (including updating this blog on the internet).  Well, this campground had amazing wifi.  Before we knew it we were updating everything, downloading Netflix, video calling family, etc.  We ended up going to bed after midnight.  It seemed it had been too long since we had wifi and couldn’t seem to shut off our supply to the internet and go to bed. A fun fact is that we hadn’t had wifi since San Pedro on Lake Atitilan, and the wifi stopped working because the power was out, and the time we had wifi before that was outside of Tikal, and again the power went out at 8 pm and didn’t return before hotel check out time, so we had some unfinished business when it came to uploading and posting things.

 

April 15^th – Reminiscing about El Salvador

After another slow and hot (+32 at 9:30 am) start to the day we left the beach towards La Union, a community known for its heat.  It wasn’t really what we wanted but it was the last community before Honduras and there was a volcano that you could drive to the top of which gave you views of three different countries: El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua. 

During the drive to La Union (less than 50 kms set to take over an hour), we couldn’t stop thinking about our time in this country.  We have thoroughly enjoyed the sites and the people.  They are so genuine and willing to help you.  They are genuinely excited to see tourists and want to strike up a conversation about what you have seen and what you enjoyed.  It was common for us to drive and get a honk or two and a wave when people saw our license plate.  It really made us feel special and that we have accomplished something. 

We are at the point in the trip that we are running into people (or learning through Instagram) that people who had hoped to do the Pan-American highway have decided the journey in their mind was not the one their heart wanted and have stopped and turned around or are planning to turn around.  We often would talk about people “only” going to Panama or “just” to Mexico.  But really these are massive accomplishments that really take you out of your comfort zone.  No matter how far someone goes, it is an accomplishment; however, we still have our sights set on south.

We picked up our groceries and some water from La Union and headed up the volcano and a road where some people said high clearance and 4x4 is recommended and other said any vehicle can go up it.  Well, we made it up but it was a difficult 6 kilometers.  It was worth the drive, but maybe just barely.

On top of the volcano was our viewpoint but due to pollution and fog we could only see two countries.  We had a similar let down at our view point for sunset, the weather was just not cooperating with us.  We did have another very positive experience with the El Salvadorian people though.  A man went out of his way to take us to the Mirador for sunset and help Paul practice Spanish.  We half assumed that he would want money for helping us but after all the help he just wished us well and said he was glad we enjoyed his country.  We truly will miss this country.

Go Go Guatemala

Guatemala will probably not make our top 10 countries we have visited, but that will probably be our own fault.  We fell into the Backpacker route and didn't ever get an experiences things that were off the beaten path, something that normally having our own vehicle allows us to do.  We did the things we were told we had to do, i.e go to Tikal, Lake Atitlan and Antigua but were persuaded by others to skip Semuc Champey and the hike to view Volcan Fuego.  We did enjoy Guatemala and definitely have the stories and pictures to prove it.

March 25- A day for Wake Up Calls

Today started bright and early at 5:00am. We could not remember the last time we set an alarm (probably November when we were in Arches National Park). We wanted to reach Tikal for 6:00 am and be some of the first people in to hopefully avoid the heat and the crowds; both of which the area is known for. . At 6 am it would be 20 degrees Celsius, but by 10 am it was set to be 30 degrees, so we wanted to explore in the cooler part of the day. There is the option of a sunrise tour but we had read online it’s often misty and cloudy, so sunrise tours aren’t worth the extra $100 qzt ($20 cad). We woke up, took Rupert out for his morning business, right after he put himself back to bed and we jumped in the van to drive the entrance.

To our benefit we had went to Tikal yesterday to buy tickets as after 3pm they start selling them for the next day, by doing so we avoid massive lines of tourists waiting for the ticket office to open at 6am. At 6:00 a tour guide asked if we needed a tour and let us know we needed tickets. When we showed him our tickets we had purchased yesterday he told us to drive to the gate as all the vehicles in front of us needed to buy tickets, so we were the first tourist vehicle to drive into the park today!

Tikal is known for its temples and wildlife.  We saw ocellated turkeys (very colourful turkeys), howler monkeys (we saw and heard them), green parrots, toucans, and some sort of mystery cat (maybe it was a baby jaguar or a tigrillo or margay). We also saw a ton of temples!  We had the Gran Plaza and most of the temples to ourselves for the first 3 hours of exploring! You can climb most of the temples, but others you are required to take stairs to get a bird’s eye view. It was amazing to see the Gran Plaza empty and cloudy at 6 am and full of people and sunshine at 10 am. We took 5 hours to explore all around Tikal (21,000 steps or 13.5 kms on the fitbit). After all that walking it was time to head back to the van, rehydrate and go visit our dog in the air conditioned hotel room!

Rupert was excited to see us upon our return and as we lounged in the bliss of A/C.  By the time we arrived back to our hotel the temperatures felt like 41 degrees. We enjoy our van, but in heat like this we do not know how we would survive. We spent the afternoon lounging in the air conditioned bliss of our hotel room and went out for pizza and to watch the sunset on the lake. Unfortunately, the adventures of the day were catching up to us so we returned to the hotel room and enjoyed the air-conditioning and wifi...until the power went out. So we are currently sitting here typing by candlelight waiting for the fan or air conditioner to turn on again.         

March 26- hotter than...

We woke up this morning to no power which also meant no air conditioning and no fan or airflow in our hotel room.  It was hot throughout the night (but still glad Rupert got to enjoy the A/C yesterday while we explored Tikal).  It’s moments like this where we appreciate the work Paul put into the van before we started this trip (a vent fan that moves air in or out of the van powered by our solar panel which charges a battery so the fan can run throughout the night). We started the day with a refreshingly cool shower and loaded up the van to head towards our next destination.

We had gone to Flores when we first arrived into Guatemala, but didn’t explore it like tourists because we needed a sim card, gas and groceries.  Today we got to be like tourists and walked around Flores Island.  This island is full of hostels, restaurants, shops selling tours and lots of neat souvenir shops.  The amount of backpackers and general feel really reminded us of southeast Asia, regardless we enjoyed chill relaxing and enjoy the breeze off the lake. We bought a Guatemala sticker for the van and had some cold coffees while we sat and people watched

Our next big destination to see is Semuc Champey, known for its pools. but the road between Flores and Lanquin (the town before Semuc Champey) is known for roadblocks where people are forced to pay 300 qzt ($60 CAD) at least three times with potential threats of violence if you do not pay their tariff. We thought it best to take the long way around and head towards Rio Dulce. The town of Rio Dulce is known for its pirate history and as a backpacker’s hot spot between Lago Atitlan and Flores.

After what seemed like a long day of driving we arrived in Rio Dulce.  The highway goes right through this town and the road is full of people, tuktuks and transport trucks.. It was crowded and chaotic where the traffic only calmed after we were on the outskirts of town, which is where we spent the night.  We decided to stay at RAM Marina, surrounded by luxury boats (mostly sailboats and yachts) that we were not allowed to take any pictures of. We spent the night enjoying the cool breeze off the water and playing some board games.

 

March 27- Castles, Camiones, Cack’ik

We started the morning with wifi and a hot shower; although we both admitted we hadn’t used to hot water due to the heat from the sun. The temperature was beginning to rise again as sat sweating while eating breakfast. Today’s plan was to check out a castle and drive!  

We arrived at the castle, which was located in a park where dogs were welcome; however, once we got to the bridge to enter the castle we were told he wasn’t allowed in.. That was fine as there were lots of places to tie Rupert up in the shade. The temperature difference between the sun and shade is noticeable and we knew he would be fine. As we got our tickets punched and wrote in the visitor book the man asked us in English where in Canada we were from.. It turned out he had spent some years in Calgary! Then the girl at the desk told us in perfect English to watch our heads and duck through doorways and also watch out for uneven floors!. It has been a long time since we’ve been given instructions in such perfect English.. Paul had read a fact that the further south we go, the more English we may hear. So far (other than Belize- since they learn Spanish and English at school), Guatemala seems to have significantly more English speakers per capita than we encountered in Mexico.

After exploring the castle, we wandered through the park and then hit the road. Next stop... who knows.  One thing we know about this trip so far is that we can’t trust Google Maps. Everything takes a bit longer to get to. Need to travel 10kms? That could take 6 minutes or it could take 45! We (Paul) drove and drove and drove some more until we arrived at a hotel that allowed camping. The road was windy and full of collectivos and camiones (trucks). There were 3 passing lanes in the 300+kms we drove and maximum speed was 80 kms/h, but we’d have to slow down to 40, or sometimes 25 km/h through towns.  The hotel was empty so we had the campsite and pool to ourselves. Our plan going North was to get away from some of the heat.  The dashboard in the van reached +42 today, and when we opened the windows it felt like a convection oven.

After settling in at our campsite we treated ourselves to dinner at the restaurant at the campsite. Kendra ordered Chile Rellenos (stuffed pepper). This chile relleno was nothing like the cheese filled Mexican version.  This one had minced meat, and vegetables stuffed inside a bell pepper. Paul ordered traditional Guatemalan soup known as Cack’ik.  It was served with a turkey leg and some dough cooked like a tamale. The soup didn’t look like much but the flavours in the broth were divine!  We were unable to finish our meals because there was so much food and the total cost was only $30cad. We waddled back to the van where Kendra rested and relaxed while Paul worked a little.  He now has a new client for his e-learning business, and although he was enjoying not working for a few weeks, he doesn’t mind the money; we have also have some major expenses to think about such as flights home for weddings, vet checks for Rupert for future border crossings, and the big expense, shipping the van across the Darien Gap!  Speaking of the later, we did contact a shipping company to start planning to ship our van from Panama to Colombia.  A few years ago the cost was around $1500 CAD but we had heard that it has more than doubled since COVID.

 

March 28- What should we do, what should we do?

We woke up this morning to hear from fellow travellers about roadblocks in Guatemala. An indigenous group is protesting and encouraging other indigenous groups to join in as well and set up other road blocks.  There was very limited information about which roads were blocked so we had to make a few decisions.  Our next place was going to be Semuc Champey, but we had heard from others that it is not dog friendly, the road in is extremely rough and may require 4x4, and it is a long detour.  What is worse is many people had been disappointed with Semuc Champey saying it was too busy and a worse Agua Azul or Roberto Barrios, two locations in Chiapas Mexico. Visiting Semuc Champey would be about a 4 hour detour from our route, a route that we currently do not know if there are roadblocks.. There was a google map from February where roadblocks had been set up, but we couldn’t find any current information.

It was Kendra’s decision day, and although we drove this direction to head towards Semuc Champey, she decided it was not worth the time or the hassle.  We had visited many beautiful waterfalls and pools in Mexico, so figured we would skip this one and cut it from our to-do list. We explored our hotel area, visited the fish ponds and the waterfall on the property and then hit the road but not before getting “road snacks” just in case we were stuck in a roadblock.  The road stack of choose Fruit Loops which happened to also have marshmallows in them.. We travelled Hwy 14 towards Hwy 7. Hwy 7 had a major washout in 2008, and while the road is a winding mountain road with lots of switchbacks and uphills and downhills, there are a few areas that have either recently washed out or not been fixed yet.  After a slow drive and many handfuls of fruit loops stuffed in our faces, we made it to our stop for the night, another hotel.  Unfortunately, this was not as luxurious as our last hotel and it ended up being a parking lot right off of the highway. We have slept beside many roads, but this one was probably the worst!  It was on a downhill corner, so all the trucks were using their engine brakes to slow themselves down.  It was not a restful night sleep. We could have travelled further down the road, but we were hesitant because that would put us closer to where confirmed roadblocks had been and we wanted to be sure we could continue travelling without getting stuck on the road.

 

March 29- Making Gains

We woke up not feeling rested but knew where our first stop would be in the morning: McDonald’s! We used the free wifi to get some more modules for Paul’s work downloaded and for Kendra to book plane tickets for a wedding in Edmonton (blowing through 10 days budget with the click of a mouse!) After some breakfast burritos we went grocery shopping. Today would be another day of driving and we are becoming more cognizant that Santa Semana (Holy Week) is quickly approaching. We need to decide if we want to be in the thick of celebrations with processions and parades or lay low.  We’ve decided to lay low and try to navigate our way around Guatemala and the Lake Atitlan area avoiding some of the largest centres in the area. We will see if our idea works out.

We had been told the town of Chichi (officially Chichicastenango) is known for its market on Thursdays and Sundays. With today being Wednesday we thought we would just drive through the town, but then there was a market! We drove around, found a parking spot and checked out the market.  There was so much going on and we realized that we could have bought everything we bought at the grocery store here! They sold everything at this market! Candles for church, flowers, clothing, Bluetooth speakers, Bluetooth speakers with fans, freshly butchered meat, usb cords, fruits, vegetables, you name it, someone was selling it.

Two things to note about this market were our size and the sounds.  So many women are making tortillas there is a constant clapping sound of them slapping the ball of dough into a tortilla and the sound of it hitting the hot griddle. The clapping/dough slapping sound is something to hear.  The second thing to note was our size. Paul is tall, Kendra is average height. We were both towering over the local people in the market! We had heard the people in the state of Chiapas, Mexico were short, but Guatemalans have them beat! Kendra has never felt so tall in her life!  Once we picked up some mangos, avocados (that were the size of Rupert’s head), and a cup of freshly cut fruit we were ready to hit the road again. Next stop: Lake Atitlan. 

Lake Atitlan is one of the must do items in Guatemala for any tourist.  It is a massive lake surrounded by mountainous volcanoes. Paul chose to drive a road known to blow motors and overheat brakes. With the van in 1^st gear and the brakes squealing we made it half way down one of the most insane roads we have driven on this trip. The grade of the road and the hairpin turns are not for the faint of heart or those who do not trust their brakes!  We stopped at a mirador overlooking the lake and the volcanos and what a sight it was to behold! Blue waters, mountains rising all around it, just look at this picture!

Next, we headed further down the steep road full of hairpin turns (still in 1^st gear) in search of a campspot. The first spot was full, the second spot was non-existent, so we settled on the local dock beside a hotel. After driving down the dead end road, Paul did a 50 point turn (this is not an exaggeration, we are surprised we were able to turn around at all on such a narrow road) to turn the van around and then we parked for the night. We sat by the lake taking in the view. The man from the hotel even said we were good to stay for one night, which was all we intended to stay for. We are hopeful that tonight will be a quieter night.

 

March 30- A Spiritual Awakening

We awoke well rested to the police outside of our van.  Don’t worry, they were just standing by their motorcycles taking a break on their phones, nothing to do with us. We next headed into the town of San Marcos de Laguna- a place known for backpackers and spiritual awakening/healing.  We found a cute café and had breakfast and enjoyed some wifi.  This town is definitely geared towards those looking to have an awakening because every door and bulletin board had a poster advertising places to get your chakra’s aligned and to find happiness and inner peace. Most people visiting Guatemala do not drive this part of the lake, instead they park near Panajachel and take a boat/water taxi to this side. There are mostly one way roads with the police controlling a few key intersections when bigger vehicles (like our van I guess) try to enter the area because the local tuktuks and motorcycles can make it through at the same time). After breakfast we headed to the next town over.

San Juan de Laguna is another beautiful town located right on the shores of Lake Atitlan. We really enjoyed this town.  There were significantly fewer people looking for a spiritual awakening but still lots of tourists and backpackers.  After wandering around town and getting some more quetzals at an atm, we decided it was time to try some Guatemalan chocolate.  We found a “chocolate factory” where they make chocolates and hot chocolate drink mixes all by hand.  The cacao is grown in Eastern Guatemala where they can produce 5 colours of the cacao pod.  Then they roast the cacao beans and the husk pops right off when you press it.  The husks are saved to make cacao tea (we tried it and although it has amazing health benefits [so we are told], there are other things we would prefer to drink regularly). Next they take the beans and using a warmed up stone platform and stone rolling pin they crush the beans.  This makes for a chocolate paste that tastes like cacao powder. They do not separate the cacao fats/cocoa butter from the beans like other places do meaning that eating this chocolate is supposed to improve your skin.

After learning about the Mayan chocolate making process, we bought a few treats to enjoy later and even found a cacao infused beer. Next we wandered towards the dock and literally stumbled upon the craft brewery that made the cacao infused beer. It must have been the universe telling us that we were thirsty, so we grabbed a beer and enjoyed watching all the visitors come and go.

Our final stop for the day was a campsite in another town just up/down/zig zagging along the road. San Pedro de Laguna was a small enough looking town, but a nightmare to drive and navigate in.  This was probably the most technical and nail-biting drive we had ever done.  The campsite we chose had us winding through town, up and down steep hills on one way roads with tuktuks that didn’t care which way was supposed to be one way. Once we got to our campsite we settled in for the night.  It is nice to be able to slow down, have a bit of wifi and enjoy the scenery around us.

 

March 31- We thought we were smart...

We awoke to no wifi (turns out there was a scheduled power outage for the communities on the lake today) so we dropped off some laundry and headed into town.  We wandered town and met up for lunch with another couple who we met in January in Mexico.  They were in the area so it was nice to talk to other people going through and doing the same thing we are doing.  We were all surprised that there weren’t many overlanding vehicles in these towns, but knowing how short our vehicles were and how tricky these roads are, we could only imagine how tricky it would be driving a larger or longer vehicle

This was when we were informed that we had thought Easter was a week earlier than it actually is. Santa Semana (Holy Week) was next week, we had not missed it, or avoided crowds, at least not yet.  Shoot.  Once again we had to decide if we wanted to try and avoid Santa Semana and the excitement it brings.  During Santa Semana streets are either closed or crowed with people and which are which changes daily.  After lunch we parted ways and we returned to our campsite to have a chocolate and wine pairing (because we are classy).  As the sunset and the air around us cooled we headed to bed.

 

April 1- Are we the fools?

We went to pick up our laundry this morning, but it was still drying on the roof, so grabbed a coffee and watched the world go by.  Our next destination was Antigua, Guatemala, which is known for its Holy Week processions.  People travel from all over Guatemala and El Salvador to Antigua just for Semana Santa.  If you can’t avoid it, I guess we just join it.  We left San Pedro with about 150 kms between us and Antigua, a 3 ½ hour drive according to Google.  After grabbing laundry, we hit the road.

As we were driving we were reminiscing about how fortunate we have been to avoid roadblocks in southern Mexico and Guatemala, and then it happened.  We were stopped on a corner an hour in to our drive; the road was blocked.

Turns out it wasn’t due to a protest, which is typical in Mexico and Guatemala, rather a Gallo Truck (a beer delivery truck) had flipped over, spilled its load and was blocking both lanes of traffic.  Paul went to check out what was going on and figured everything was handled seeing how many other people left their vehicle to give advice on what to do.  We were told 1 ½ hours to reopen the road, but figured it may be a longer wait. We decided now was a great time to sort through our laundry and put it in its proper spot. Next thing we knew a front end loader was being escorted down the road by a truck with it’s horn honking, and 45 minutes later we were moving again. No one was hurt in this accident, except for a significant number of cans of beer and a few cases that seemed to be looted.

After driving for another 30 minutes, we were at another stand still.  We’re not sure what was going on this time, but after another 45 minutes of waiting we were moving again (with some doughnuts from a bakery we were stopped by)

Next stop was for water and groceries.  Although we tried to go to a grocery store, we couldn’t seem to find a road to the store, there was a market in the way.  That is when we thought, why don’t we just buy all our groceries here?! We found a parking spot and bought all the fruits, veggies, and meat we would need for the coming days. While trying to leave town (with roads being blocked by the market) and backing up a few steep roads, we stumbled upon a place to fill our water and then were headed out of the town of Patzicia. Somewhere in this town we either hit something (a gate while perfectly executing a 7 point turn), or someone hit our vehicle while at the market because we now have a sliver of our back brake light missing (nothing some clear gorilla tape won’t fix).

After leaving our campsite at 10 am for a 3 ½ hour drive, we arrived to our next spot at 5:00 pm! You could already feel the excitement (and congestion) of Holy Week in the streets as we made our way to our campground.  When we arrived we were excited to see other overlanders, some we had only friended on Instragram or watched on YouTube.  It was great to finally meet these people in person!  We can not explain how nice it is for us to talk to other people rather than just each other!

 

April 2- I hope we see Jesus on a donkey

We woke this morning to say goodbye to our new overlanding friends who were getting ready to hit the road before the procession began.  Our campsite is an event centre with beautiful gardens which became a parking lot for many people today. At 7 am people began arriving to park, and it was a constant flow of cars coming and going throughout the day. Luckily we had parked and set up our awning so we had a shaded area to rest, our neighbours did not set up their awning yesterday and someone squeezed in between our vehicles this morning before either of us was awake.

If we were to write the Bible with stories we remember it would most likely involve Jesus flipping tables at the market and Jesus riding into town on a donkey. With Palm Sunday here, we wandered into the city centre of Antigua to hopefully see Jesus on a donkey.  We first encountered “carpets” lining streets that the procession would pass over.  These carpets were created from coloured saw dust, pine needles, plants, and even some vegetables.  We have read that these would be destroyed by the procession, but don’t understand how they could destroy something so beautiful.  After getting to the main church at 9:30 we finally found Jesus! Guatemalan Jesus was very handsome and claiming to be the master and King of the Jews. Unfortunately, there was no donkey nor did we ever see one.

Now we were on a mission: Paul needs hiking boots and a rain coat!

Paul had walked a hole in his hiking boots and misplaced his raincoat somewhere between Alaska and Montana (if you’ve seen it, please let us know). Paul had been looking for new hiking boots all across Mexico, but having big feet meant that when he asked for his size he was usually met with a bit of a giggle and a no (size 12 doesn’t really exist in Mexican markets or your average store). While the price wasn’t right, it was necessary that he get new boots and since they were in his size it was time to blow the budget- we’ve been in a spending mood lately.  Plus, once you’ve blown the budget on shoes, you might as well blow it on a name brand rain coat too! So now Paul is ready for rainy season!

As we were shopping and wandering we found a road where people were gathering and could hear music.  We had found the procession! There were hundreds, maybe even a thousand or more people walking through the streets of Antigua.  Men were dressed in purple robes with white sashes and are known as Cucuruchos.  Within the procession of hundreds of Cucuruchos there were: the stations of the cross on tapestries being carried by men in white and red; 104 men carrying a wooden float of Jesus; 68 women carrying a wooden float of Mary; and a large marching band following each of the floats.  There was no chance of these carpets surviving.

Believe it or not, the whole experience was nearly indescribable and these people had been walking and carrying these floats since 8:30 am and would be carrying them for 14 hours before returning them to the church. The woman beside us was in tears as the wooden platform that had angels and Jesus carrying the cross passed by. It was such a moving experience.  For those wondering, Rupert was with us for this whole time as well, and boy we were glad he is deaf.  The rumbling of the drums and crashing of the cymbals let us know he is not 100% deaf, but he didn’t respond to the rest of the loud sounds, just a few sneezes due to the amount of incense.

After the marching band for the second float passed the crowds gathered on the sidewalk dispersed.  We wandered around Antigua some more and stumbled upon Antigua Brewing Co, where we rehydrated.

After returning to our campsite and having dinner, we attempted to find the procession at night so we could see it all lit up.   It was surprisingly hard to find the procession again, even though we had a map the map showed how the procession would snake around the entire town site, which was very large. We wandered for 45 minutes and finally found a place to sit and enjoy the night time procession.  The procession was the exact same as the one this morning, just there were lights on the statues. The number of people involved is amazing and from our research the procession is made up of local parishioners from 3 of the larger churches, but local people can join in as well, you just need a purple robe and white sash. 

After watching the procession (while Rupert fell asleep in his backpack), we headed back to our campsite.  One rule that Paul said we wouldn’t do in Antigua is walk down dark alleys at night.  One of his coworkers had been robbed in Antigua and gave Paul this cautionary tale as a warning. Since the procession was still ongoing, Paul decided the fastest way to the campsite would be through the dark streets not full of people. We were lucky to not get robbed (but what heathens would rob someone on Palm Sunday?) and made it back to our campsite for a quiet and restful night.

 

April 3- Our own little Cucurucho

Paul awoke this morning and had a restless sleep thinking about future border crossings.  At this point we had done 7, (Alaska [x3], USA into the lower 48, Mexico, Belize and Guatemala) over the course of 9 months, but we have 4 to do in the next month.  Theoretically, most of these should be easy as due to the CA-4 agreement between Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua which allows easy transit for people between there borders (as long as they only stay 90 days within the CA-4 counties), but it doesn’t help anyone with a vehicle or animal. We still need to get our temporary import permits for the dog and vehicle as well, Honduras and Nicaragua require a “Precheck” to be completed at least a week before entry.   In the hope to not worry about future borders Paul decided to start filling in the paperwork for the upcoming countries.

The big decision of the day was whether or not we should leave Guatemala during Santa Semana.  We have been told the borders are extremely busy this week with people travelling to visit family. We have also been told Friday and Saturday are not busy because everyone is partaking in the processions. So we had to decided if we should stay in Guatemala until Friday (4 days from now) and cross the border when it should be less busy or if we should just plan for 8 hours at the border in case it is busy.  Another concern was banks as well as grocery stores and if they would even be open after Friday.  Many blogs said they would not be.  Also, if we drive on Friday we would need to be cognizant of what communities we travel through and when their processions are, because we don’t want to be sitting in our van in the hot sun due to our poor planning.

Other than making a decision, we had one task we had to accomplish today was to get Rupert a haircut, it was just too hot for his shaggy doo.  While he was at the groomer we wandered around Antigua.  There were still vendors and food carts selling goods for Holy Week, but it definitely was a more chill vibe than yesterday.   Since we had a few hours without Rupert we went to some non-dog friendly things.

The cathedral ruins, which were not dog friendly, had been damaged by multiple earthquakes in the 1700’s so some of the domes had collapsed, but it was neat to wander amongst what still remained.  Next we stopped for smoothies and people watched.  We saw one animated vlogger talking to his camera wander past us and debated how we could ruin his shot.  Kendra was going to pick her nose and follow him, but decided having a smoothie was more important.

On the way back to the campsite we went to the municipal market which had us feeling overwhelmed it was the largest one we had been to with countless vendors and branching paths.  Kendra bought a new sweater (since she’ll need all the warmth she can get when she heads to Edmonton in June).  Then we picked up some tortillas and meat.   It was difficult to find the exit but after finding someone that was walking like they were on a mission we found ourself outside.  To celebrate surviving the market we bought some doughnuts and a pineapple to reward ourselves.  We then headed back to our campsite, waiting for the call that Rupert was finished his spa day and to work on taxes. 

Finally, we got he call the Rupert was done and when we picked him up we saw that Rupert had become our little Cucurucho; he was returned with a purple collar, ready to celebrate Semana Santa.

We had decided to go out for pizza and beer with friends so had a much needed shower.  It was a cold shower like so many showers in central America but because it was so hot outside we loved it.

Our day ended sharing stories, pizza and drinks with friends we met on the road while still debating our plans for tomorrow.

 

April 4^th – Relaxing day in Antigua

After much discussion we decided to relax, play some games and generally hangout around the campsite.  Paul finished our taxes and submitted them and walked to the store to grab some beer and snacks that could be enjoyed over games.  He returned with a liter of ice cream, a liter of hibiscus liquor and a bottle of wine.  Over the course of the day all were consumed.

During the course of consuming junk we met more of our neighbours in the campsite and even played and learned a few new card games with new friends and tried some homemade egg and cheese bread balls.

We really should have gone to bed when the sun went down, but instead opted to go to a brewery in a forest that had a camping feel to reminisce about our time in Guatemala, for tomorrow we will go to El Salvador.

 

April 5^th – Off to El Salvador

We had decided to go to El Salvador today, we had finished our research and were confident that we could get to the border and find a nice campsite .  We just had one problem, our bodies reminding us that we are in our thirties and we don’t wake up feeling amazing after drinking for most of the previous day.

Nonetheless we left stopping only in small towns to do small tasks.  We stopped in El Cerinal for water and Barberena for food as well as having lunch in the community of Oratorio.  Fun fact about the El Salvador border, we can bring in meat, fruit and vegetables into the country from Guatemala.  We also could turn on data roaming on our phone and use the same SIM card in El Salvador as Guatemala.  We can not begin to explain how great this is as it takes all the stress away from our first days in a new country.  We didn’t need to purchase food, we didn’t need a new SIM card for our phones and we already had the currency of El Salvador, US dollars, which we had picked up in Belize.

The drive to the border was often bumper to bumper traffic and we had a lot of fear that due to it being the week of Santa Semena (Holy week) we would be stuck in lines for hours.  We were thankfully wrong.  When we were about 5 kilometres from the border all the traffic seemed to disappear and when we arrived to the border we were quickly waved to park right beside the immigration and customs building for Guatemala. 

For some reason Paul thought we had to cancel our Temporoary Import Permit (TIP) for the vehicle before we left the country.  After finding customs and trying to cancel we were informed it is impossible while we are still “IN” the country.  After a quick walk back near where we had parked and a few minutes in a line we had officially left Guatamala.  We returned to customs to cancel our TIP but was told we needed to find a place to get a photocopy of our Guatemala tip as well as our exit stamp…for reasons.

A few Quetzals later we had our photocopies we were officially in between countries. 

Entering El Salvador was a breeze, after crossing a bridge a border guard looked at our passport to ensure we had left Guatamala then asked us to park.  They seemed to know what we wanted before we even asked and started filling in the paperwork for our El Salvadorian TIP.  The TIP involved an inspection of the vehicle which went off without a hitch; however they did make us park the van in the shade as they saw Rupert and wanted to make sure he was comfortable.  We did show them that it was cool in the van thanks to our fans, but appreciated their concern for our dog.  This would be the only thing said about Rupert as El Salvador didn’t seem to care we were importing a dog into their country. 

After the paperwork was prepared we walked to the customs office with one of the men at the actual border and were told to sit and wait.  Within 10 minutes we had our TIP and we ready to go, well at least that is what we thought.  Right before leaving Kendra looked at the TIP and realized they had incorrectly documented our license plate number.  Paul debated just leaving, assuming it wouldn’t be an issue, but then we used our better judgement and Paul let them know of the mistake.  Within 10 additional minutes we had new paperwork and were driving.

The roads in El Salvador were amazing, some of the best we had driven in our entire road trip.  It was almost weird.  We went straight from the border to Santa Teresa Hot Springs which looked more like a 5 star hot spring resort than something we would have assumed to see in Central America.  The best part about this hot springs is they were cheap and we could camp at them.  We spent the evening in the hot pools laughing at how “easy” the day was and that this had become our favourite first day in a country.  Usually our first day in any country is full of running around, stress and culture shock.  This one made us feel at home and welcome.