We left early from San Miguel as we had to do 4 borders and cross an entire country (Honduras).
All the roads we travelled in El Salvador are in great condition and in general we have found the country in better condition than we expected.
We also liked the people who are quite friendly and humble.
We stopped at the border and the exit from El Salvador 🇸🇻 was quite easy but we met the more pushy “helpers” so far in this border. They kept saying we needed them as the process in Honduras would be very difficult. We kept pushing them away.
As we arrived at the Honduras border we were able to park the bikes very close to the immigration and customs building and lucky for us, in the shade.
The immigration process was very fast and uneventful but the customs was a nightmare. I am sure someone defines the most complex process they can think of and then they give it to 10 other people to make it even more complex and that is what becomes the final process.
I am sure the customs officer entered our names and bike information into 4 different forms (we also had to supply 2 different sets of photocopies). And then when I thought she was finished she enters all of it again in a computer. We took over two hours. And we still had to travel through Honduras, and reach what we expected to be the most difficult border, Nicaragua 🇳🇮.
We traveled fine through Honduras 🇭🇳, on a much better than expected road and as we were nearing lunch time we looked for a place to eat. We were close to the capital Choluteca and just outside town we saw this beautiful hotel where we stopped and had an excellent meal. We were the only people there and had the fortune of seeing a number of iguanas 🦎 that roamed the grounds. The iguanas mating on a coconut tree 🌴 photo I took will probably be one of the most interesting ones we have taken so far.
Being there was also an opportunity to speak to some locals and I liked their sympathy and empathy with strangers (very different from the neighbors on the south).
Although we were having a lot of fun on a gorgeous day at a beautiful hotel, we needed to get going.
After a number of hours riding we arrived at the Honduras 🇭🇳 and Nicaragua 🇳🇮 border.
Leaving Honduras 🇭🇳 was lengthy (just slow and drawn out process) but straight forward.
The first interaction we had with Nicaraguans was at the fumigation station. This is another part of the process in some borders where they spray your vehicle with some type of chemical. Of course you have to pay something and wait some more in line for them to enter info about your bike, sign in triplicate and give you a paper.
During this interaction I asked the guy in the office if he could throw away some unnecessary papers I had with me. He looked at me and said no. I just stood there, speechless. After I processed what has never happened to me before, I turned around and thought this will not be an easy country to visit. There were other occasions where I interacted with Nicaraguans and my overall feeling is that they are by far the most aggressive and abrasive people of the countries we have travelled so far. They are also the poorest and it is the country where I was riding much more attentive to things that were happening around us.
The process through the border was complex and slow and officers were in general not courteous.
It was the only country where we had to open every single bag for them to look through and no, we could not park the bikes in the shade while we did this. And yes, we were told numerous times, the process has to be done between an officer and the specific individual so no, I was not allowed to give the documents of Bo and Dave to the officer even though they were standing just next to me. They had to hand them themselves.
Bottom line, we spent another 2 hours, had one more process than other borders so far which was getting insurance for the bikes and left the border with about one hour of sun left in the day.
That meant we needed to find an hotel fast and a town quite close. We opted for Chinandega and made our way there.
Riding on the road just after the border is very different from our experience later through Managua (the capital). Here people live in very bad conditions (by far the worst we encountered). There are no houses and they live in shacks made from zinc or even pieces of trees. It felt similar to riding through the poorest areas of Africa. In other countries in Central America there are buses, and taxis as well as motorcyclists that take people around. Here there are only bicycles that have been fitted with some type of a seat where the rider can take a passenger.
Every where we passed people stopped doing whatever they were doing and watched us. We usually lift our hand as a form of saying hello. We got few responses back.
The sun was dipping fast, the dark was getting stronger so we pushed on.
We arrived at our hotel already at night and were able to put our bikes in safety of a closed parking lot in the nick of time.
That night we asked them to make us food at the hotel and bring some from restaurants near by. We just did not feel comfortable to leave the hotel.
The hotel experience was very nice as our rooms were on the ground floor just next to where we had our dinner and WiFi speed was good. We were also taken care of very well by three ladies that helped us choose our food and made it themselves in the hotel.
The food was very tasty and the beer helped us relax of a long and eventful day.
Make Life a Ride !
Lunch in Choluteca, HN
Iguanas in the wild in Choluteca, HN
Sticker in Honduras
Explaining the border process after exiting the Honduras border
Sticker in Nicaragua
Dinner in Chinandega, NI
Facebook post for the day
Click HERE for all the photos and videos of this Day
All the roads we travelled in El Salvador are in great condition and in general we have found the country in better condition than we expected.
We also liked the people who are quite friendly and humble.
We stopped at the border and the exit from El Salvador 🇸🇻 was quite easy but we met the more pushy “helpers” so far in this border. They kept saying we needed them as the process in Honduras would be very difficult. We kept pushing them away.
As we arrived at the Honduras border we were able to park the bikes very close to the immigration and customs building and lucky for us, in the shade.
The immigration process was very fast and uneventful but the customs was a nightmare. I am sure someone defines the most complex process they can think of and then they give it to 10 other people to make it even more complex and that is what becomes the final process.
I am sure the customs officer entered our names and bike information into 4 different forms (we also had to supply 2 different sets of photocopies). And then when I thought she was finished she enters all of it again in a computer. We took over two hours. And we still had to travel through Honduras, and reach what we expected to be the most difficult border, Nicaragua 🇳🇮.
We traveled fine through Honduras 🇭🇳, on a much better than expected road and as we were nearing lunch time we looked for a place to eat. We were close to the capital Choluteca and just outside town we saw this beautiful hotel where we stopped and had an excellent meal. We were the only people there and had the fortune of seeing a number of iguanas 🦎 that roamed the grounds. The iguanas mating on a coconut tree 🌴 photo I took will probably be one of the most interesting ones we have taken so far.
Being there was also an opportunity to speak to some locals and I liked their sympathy and empathy with strangers (very different from the neighbors on the south).
Although we were having a lot of fun on a gorgeous day at a beautiful hotel, we needed to get going.
After a number of hours riding we arrived at the Honduras 🇭🇳 and Nicaragua 🇳🇮 border.
Leaving Honduras 🇭🇳 was lengthy (just slow and drawn out process) but straight forward.
The first interaction we had with Nicaraguans was at the fumigation station. This is another part of the process in some borders where they spray your vehicle with some type of chemical. Of course you have to pay something and wait some more in line for them to enter info about your bike, sign in triplicate and give you a paper.
During this interaction I asked the guy in the office if he could throw away some unnecessary papers I had with me. He looked at me and said no. I just stood there, speechless. After I processed what has never happened to me before, I turned around and thought this will not be an easy country to visit. There were other occasions where I interacted with Nicaraguans and my overall feeling is that they are by far the most aggressive and abrasive people of the countries we have travelled so far. They are also the poorest and it is the country where I was riding much more attentive to things that were happening around us.
The process through the border was complex and slow and officers were in general not courteous.
It was the only country where we had to open every single bag for them to look through and no, we could not park the bikes in the shade while we did this. And yes, we were told numerous times, the process has to be done between an officer and the specific individual so no, I was not allowed to give the documents of Bo and Dave to the officer even though they were standing just next to me. They had to hand them themselves.
Bottom line, we spent another 2 hours, had one more process than other borders so far which was getting insurance for the bikes and left the border with about one hour of sun left in the day.
That meant we needed to find an hotel fast and a town quite close. We opted for Chinandega and made our way there.
Riding on the road just after the border is very different from our experience later through Managua (the capital). Here people live in very bad conditions (by far the worst we encountered). There are no houses and they live in shacks made from zinc or even pieces of trees. It felt similar to riding through the poorest areas of Africa. In other countries in Central America there are buses, and taxis as well as motorcyclists that take people around. Here there are only bicycles that have been fitted with some type of a seat where the rider can take a passenger.
Every where we passed people stopped doing whatever they were doing and watched us. We usually lift our hand as a form of saying hello. We got few responses back.
The sun was dipping fast, the dark was getting stronger so we pushed on.
We arrived at our hotel already at night and were able to put our bikes in safety of a closed parking lot in the nick of time.
That night we asked them to make us food at the hotel and bring some from restaurants near by. We just did not feel comfortable to leave the hotel.
The hotel experience was very nice as our rooms were on the ground floor just next to where we had our dinner and WiFi speed was good. We were also taken care of very well by three ladies that helped us choose our food and made it themselves in the hotel.
The food was very tasty and the beer helped us relax of a long and eventful day.
Make Life a Ride !
Lunch in Choluteca, HN
Iguanas in the wild in Choluteca, HN
Sticker in Honduras
Explaining the border process after exiting the Honduras border
Sticker in Nicaragua
Dinner in Chinandega, NI
Facebook post for the day
Click HERE for all the photos and videos of this Day
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