Honduras to Granada, Home at last.

We had gotten bitten the night before, not only by the border swindlers but by mosquitos. But we were now headed for home, one last border. We arrived early, not so much craziness. Got through again saying the registration was both title and registration. We had made it. We thought we might stop in the Nicaraguan highlands for lunch, but did not see anything too appealing and did not want to hunt it out. So we carried on and were just about in Granada when we got waved over by the police. All papers were in order, but we did not have an emergency triangle. They were going to take away my liscence. After 3000 miles I was about to lose my liscence for not having a $4 dollar plastic triangle. Well the offense was "taken care of" and we limped finally into Granada. We came into the hotel, no reservation, just beaten down.
"You're back" We were greeted with. "I remember you two. You're back. Welcome" We were finally home.

Guatemala through El Salvador to Honduras

Left our hotel in Guatemala and charged off....in the wrong direction. An hour and a half later, 50 precious miles and we were back where we started from. Ok fine, now off to El Salvador, a country, justified or not neither of us were looking forward to. We ended up making it to the border before noon, again sketching our way through without title. The last thing I was on the phone with Ronnie, a friend of the guy who helped get us through the El Salvador-Guatemala border. He would be waiting for us at the El Salvador-Honduros border, where we needed him.

It was not Guatemala, but there were some amazingly beautiful parts of El Salvador, at least what we saw in the few hours we were there.

Ok, so we're coming up on the border. I really don't think anything of the Ronnie rendevous. But sure enough we come to a fork in the road and there they are the border "officials" who try to wave us down, waving obviously(by now) fake id's. We blast past them. We know better now. They take pursuit in a pick up truck. They parallel us. "It's me. It's me. Ronnie. You know me."

Ok, we slow down maybe we can use his help. Over the next few hours, several things happen. Ronnie gets us to the head of the line in the worst immigration office yet. Good. Ronnie's brother realizes we don't have title. Bad, very bad. They have us by the balls. They run off with our liscenses, passports, registrations, several times. I know, all cardinal sins in traveling. But we are in reality, traveling illegally and they have us by the balls. Oh and then there is a lightning storm and black out, thank you God or mother nature. Now we are blocked in at this impossibly crowded border, litterally dozens of truckers sleeping in there cabs while Ronnie and Jose work us for everything they can.

The border just before dark and the black out.

But we do not want to spend the night here. At the end of it they got us for a few hundred bucks but we did get in front of the crazy lines, got past without title, and got the name of a hotel in Honduras that did prove to be a port in the storm. At the end of the day it was a bargain.

Acapulco to Guatemala, Goodbye Mexico

We charged out of Acapulco early, but not as early as we thought we might. We immediately hit grade and curves and again were slowed to an impossibly ridiculous mph. We lunched in our favorite Mexican site to date Puerto Escondido,

rather late and then shot out to try to get to the Mexican/Guatemalan border. Luckily we didn't make it and spent the night in Salina Cruz which was dicey and seedy enough. The next day we hit the border mid-morning. And we were hit by a gauntlet. First two boys, almost in uniform waving official looking id had a pull over and said we had to have certain documentation and they needed to take care of this for us. At some point we realized they were not official and literally had to push them out and away from the car. When we got to the border it was worse. At least a dozen people waving id's, slapping the car, yelling, waving their arms accosted/assaulted us, telling us what we needed. I found the most reliable official ID was someone wielding serious firearms. Well the process of crossing borders with a vehichle has one going back and forth between borders, getting the proper stamps and stickers from both borders, one recieving the vehichle, one canceling the previous countries admission. Each wanting to see proper ID, registration and title, which as you may recall was in the interum process in the States. So I basically had to play stupid and somehow convince them that the registration was both registration and title. Having the Mexican permission helped and we got through the Guatemalan border. Guatemala was stunning. The roads were in good condition although the drivers were absolutely mad. Let me add that they we mad in Mexico as well. What I had not imagined were there ridiculous number of big trucks we would be dueling with all the way down to Nicaragua. We made it half way through Guatemala and found a really OK hotel. Guatemala was very nice. I don't have photos to do it justice. Charles does. I may publish them in a later blog. For now believe me it was beautiful.

Mazatlan to Acapulco

Mazatlan was nice. Over touristy, yeah. But we had a nice meal, beautiful beach, good brekfast. It would have been nice to stay longer, but on we had to go.

We had just finished going on about the great road system when we hit a detour. Both of us assumed it would be a few miles and then we would back on the racetrack we had gotten accustomed to. We were so wrong. The detour never took us back to a speedway. Granted the road surface remained quite good, but the grade, the turns; we went from averaging 65 mph to 30 mph on average. A dramatic coastline has its drawbacks. Our mileage went from over 800 to just above 400. We thought we might hit Acapulco. We made it half way there, driving again in the dark, only for a bit, to Manzanillo. We did have a wonderful lunch in Puerto Vallerta but that's all we could afford there(in time currency) beautiful place, amazing beaches and cliffs, but we had to press on.

Our Manzanillo hotel when we left. Yes it was still dark. Like I said we had to press on.

Acapulco greeting us...in daylight. It was so nice to arrive at a destination before it was dark. Granted it was dark by the time we checked in, but we arrived in daylight and that was a huge success. Acapulco is crazy big, but still beautiful. Because we drove both in and out we were able to see what a massive sprawl it really is and we also saw the poverty stricken suburbs(not even close to an accurate word) that support our luxury tourism. But again I can't take away from Acapulco's striking beauty.

Acapulco at night from our dinner at our hotel.

Leaving LA to Mazatlan

Charles and I had already delayed the trip one day, after delaying it three the week before. Both of us were completely overwhelmed with other aspects of our lives. Neither of us were properly prepared for the trip, but we had to go. We had already realized it was much too late to buy a car and have titled transfered. That takes 60 days. So we were taking my truck, which I planned to sell anyway. I paid it off and had a letter from the financing company allowing me to take it into Mexico. After that, well I hoped Cindy would have recieved the pink slip and could fax it to me somewhere in Mexico before we had to go through anymore borders. Not the best of plans but like I said we were overwhelmed and out of time. Off we went.



Goodbye Hollywood.

We made it to Tuscon uneventfully. We breezed through the Mexican border at Nogales, all the proper paperwork in hand and hit the road hard. By the end of the day we had clocked in over 800 miles and had blown past Guaymas, Los Mochis and Culiacan, all cities we thought we might be staying in to make it to Mazatlan. We traveled for longer than we were comfortable in the night, not seriously considering the time change and really wanting to make a good first day. We were so impressed by Mexico's wonderful roads. It was a good first day. Ok second day. Good first international day.




Mazatlan in morning

Backyard-Last looks

I had planned to have a much more step by step blogging of the backyard nightmare/dream evolution, but again slammed with time. So these are shots I shot off just before heading off to Nicaragua. It's getting closer but still nowhere close to where I wanted to be at this point, but it's getting there.

Bravo Mexico

Hola amigos,

Unfortunately that's almost all my Spanish. Ok not really, but seriously, I don't know very much at all and Charles knows less and here we are driving down to Nicaragua.....That's what I started writing several days ago, but didn't have time nor energy to complete. And now we're here in Nicaragua. Cindy and Skye arrive in a couple of days. Charles and I are going up to Los Congos today. I am going to post several blogs about the journey. It was incredible, exhausting, frightening at times. It is amazing that we are here. We made the trip in seven days, going through through Tuscon into Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Hondorus and finally Nicaragua. Here a couple photo tidbits.


Mazatlan in the morning

Puerto Escondido for lunch

Cindy's back. Construction progress revealed

And I finished the back yard in time, .....yeah right. So I worked really, really hard got a lot done, but this time I took on more than I could accomplish in the time available, alotmore.What follows is mostly pics of the process with comments
peppered in.

Yet another dumpster, I think we're up to ten now and by God this will be the last one!


Finding room for all the materials and still having room to work proved to become a backbreaking chore. Kind of like digging a hole and then filling it up.


And I worked into the night.....


And then we had a heat wave and I spend half my time making shade, hooking up a mist system and drinking water

The whole house became a work site.



And the very fancy pizza oven became an even more fancy cat lounge

More materials and progress




And more junk.

I have much more narrative and more photos, but unfortunately not time. I must leave now. Driving to Nicaragua, it's around 4000 miles so I should get going. More later, I promise