We had to make an early start to next day, we were hoping to cross the 2 borders and arrive in Nicaragua all in one day. The 395km journey was going to take most of the day and we never have any idea how long the border crossings will take. By time we had said our goodbyes it was 9am and we hit the road. We soon arrived at the border control which turned into an absolute nightmare. Alex is a saint when it comes to the borders, he leaves me with Peggy and goes and sorts the paperwork out…only twice have I been called to the passport window for them to check my identity…no wonder there is such an issue with human trafficking! Alex has it down to a T…getting out of El Sal was no problem but getting back IN to Honduras was. We had already paid $30 to enter Honduras once and they wanted us to pay again. We just didn’t have $30 with us and the pinciple was that we had paid once and we would be leaving the country the very same day!

Alex tried and tried to get out of it but they wouldn’t budge. We had to give them a mixture of Mexican Peso’s, Guatemalan Quetzals, Honduran Lempira and US Dollars to make up the $30…and after all that we had $2 left over..which we had to pay to get Peggy sprayed at the pest control! The time it had taken had really eaten into our day and we still had 350 km to cover. We sucked it up and set off and within minutes knew we weren’t going to make it all the way. The road was one of the worst we have seen. Paved beautifully just with gaping crevises that snuck up on you from nowhere. They littered the road and most were as wide as the van and knee deep. We had to take it so slowly or we would definitely do some damage to Peggy or end up in an accident. Cars and lorries swerved about the road at speed trying to dodge the craters. We covered most of the distance and as dusk set in we had to give up as we were blind to the badly damaged road.

We pulled in at a 24 hour gas station and tried to sleep. It was in the middle of nowhere but so noisy…trucks slowed with their air breaks on the bad bend and people were passing by the van all night long keeping the security guard company.

Needless to say we were up early to continue our perilous journey. Just before the border we hit a huge hole, we just didn’t see it coming! Alex saw it at the last second and tried to swerve but it was too late. Peggys right wheel slammed into the pit on an angle and came out rattling and wobbling. Alex braked and the noise was awful. The brake disc had been knocked loose. We had no choice but to carry on until we found a garage, the brakes stopped us fine, it just meant wearing down the right pad as it was pushed up against the wheel as we drove. The Nicaraguan border was a complete doddle and before we knew it we were in country number 9! As I have mentioned we had decided to try to make up some lost time by crossing Nicaragua in a day…and that is what we did. The country is 472km long and we drove it in a day. It was an eventful drive…as they all are and within 60km of entering the country we were stopped by the police for a check…that was fine, but 200km later we got stopped again…this time Alex was taken into the office! The police officer didn’t speak any English and we can just about muddle by in understanding Spanish but certainly not speaking it. It soon became clear that the officer was after a bribe. He checked our papers, accused us of not wearing a belt (which we were), asked why we were there and where we were going and then asked if we had a traffic cone and triangle. We do not. So Alex was taken into the office while I frantically looked through the useless Spanish phrase book we have to work out how to get out of this. If I had wanted to ask the guy if I should invite his sister for dinner or tell him his shoelace was undone I would be well away, but telling him we dont have room for a full size traffic cone was not in the translation text.
Alex stood his ground and said to the young officer…I have a traffic cone! The guy sat down and indicated for Alex to show him it. Alex came in the van and I said “Now what, where are you going to find a traffic cone!” He only picked up his multicoloured Mexican Sombrero (as featured in the TTD blog) and took that into the office. Not surprisingly the officer wasn’t amused but Alex would not back down. The officer was telling Alex he had to pay $50 to BUY a 4 foot traffic cone and Alex refused. He told him to ring the embassy as Alex knew he was about ready to give up. He was shaking and had made the mistake of sitting when Alex was standing. We can only think it was his first bribe attempt as he was so nervous and only quite young…poor guy, don’t think he’ll do that again in a hurry! After a good 40 minutes he let us go and we carried on until we were 30 km from the border of Costa Rica. San Juan Del Sur is a small surf town with a big attitude, we wandered the beach front until we found somewhere we fancied eating. Alex nearly fell asleep in his bowl of clams after the long drive. There is certainly never a dull moment!

Find out what happens next on our travelling wedding adventure!