Onto El Salvador

We left the lovely city of Antigua, Guatemala on a cool morning on January 9th and proceeded down to near sea level on a beautiful, windy new road to CA1. As we descended, the temperature climbed from 60F to 93F in short order.

Again, we were approaching the dreaded frontier process, this time between Guatemala and El Salvador. While the Guatemala side was all too familiar (countless aggressive “helpers,” money changers and others milling about, either in training to become “helpers” or money changers or just waiting around for something interesting to happen), the El Salvador side was refreshingly business-like and efficient with the use of helpers officially strongly discouraged. Nevertheless, the process took a couple of hours in 95-degree heat.

Once underway again our spirits improved quickly as we rode along the shores of the Pacific Ocean. Although we were only a few miles from the ocean in our last day in Mexico, we had never actually seen it. At this juncture, our riding priority was to stay along the coast and to bypass the unpleasantness of San Salvador at all costs.

Our goal was to get settled into a hotel as close to the Honduras border as possible well before dark. However, unforeseen delays, unmarked roads and an overly-optimistic plan for the day caused us to violate one of the cardinal rules of the trip: we were still looking for a hotel in the pitch dark in purportedly the most dangerous country in Central America. We finally found refuge in a small beach community, El Cuco, in the southeast corner of El Salvador. In light of the fact that both we and our motos were safe for the night, it mattered little that the “resort” was a bit shabby and overpriced.

The food at the hotel's restaurant was good. Because of the long ride, the stress of arriving in the dark and the border crossing we decided to reward ourselves with a Banana Split. The kind waiter not wanting to disappoint us brought out an Apple Split. Maybe they didn't have fresh bananas in El Salvadore. Apples are likely imported and very expensive. The new found type of split was good.

On the following morning, we ventured out onto the beach behind our temporary digs and discovered that the place was also used as a fishing operation, as there were large tables of drying fish and vultures wandering around in the sand looking for treats. We also discovered that there was a power failure in the entire El Cuco community, so we set off without coffee or breakfast on what was to be the most difficult day of the trip so far.