Since the last entry>>>We drove a short distance to the border of Guatemala very early. We tried to book it as fast as we could through Guatemala as we heard it is quite dangerous... even more so than Mexico since they don't have much of a police force and lots of gang activity who apparently live in the jungle and will bombard your car if you stop along the highway. I'm sure it would be a wrong place wrong time kind of thing but we didn't want to take the chance. We just about made it through but night time fell upon us when we were a short distance away from the border. We got our first hotel room of the trip in Esquiplala which was much needed after some sleepless and humid nights. We were able to park the van in a gated parking lot and enjoyed some down time in the rooms watching spanish dubbed TV and some pizza! Honestly, out of all the little street meat vendors in the middle of no where and all the food we've been eatting, the pizza was the worst on my stomach! There were tons of ppl driving around in motorcycles, dirt bikes and 4x4s since I guess they have no real vehicle laws. It felt a little Mad Max.
Guatemala was the most beautiful country to drive through yet in my opinion. I spent all day staring out the window at the landscape rolling by. Saw banana trees full of nanners for the first time, incredible rolling hills and valleys with thick vegetation! We were going fast to get as far as we could that day. Got a little more interesting since it was now down to a one lane highway so we had to work on passing ppl when we could. The highway was very curvy and lots of up and down. In the first part of the road there were large sections of highway that was unpaved. We thought we were in for this sort of driving the whole way but there ended up only being two big sections that were like that, thank goodness!
This is where we started giving away our duffel bag full of toys and trinkets for the kids. Mostly at borders where the kids are hustling along side their parents. And to some policia and other adults for their little ninos and ninas (boys and girls). Tons of ppl ride bikes and they sit their little kids sideways in front of them on the bar and they hold on to the handlebars!! Similarly they let their kids sit on their laps as they are driving in cars. I have not seen one carseat in a car, not even for little babies! I guess they can't afford them here and have not been given enough education about driving safety. I thought that they would try and be as careful as they could with seatbelts as everyone drives so loco!? There are taxis with motorbike or pedal bike fronts and a little bench in the back to get driven around in.

We drove to Honduras border. Things were starting to get really exciting at the borders because you have coyotes approaching you as you drive up acting like they work for the border trying to show you where to go and how to do it all efficiently. We found out at one of these borders the hard way that they look and act official but they are not and even tho it helps you out to get things done a little quicker and clearer, it's best to just figure it out on your own and not pay him the ridiculous price he's asking for. Besides, after all the borders we've gone through we kind of got it down and know how to work our way around. Although it does get more confusing the further we go. Honduras was by far the most confusing... they all took their time in processing our paper work and never pointed us in the right direction and we had to double back  for a lot of things. Eric has been really awesome and getting all the stuff done for the van since it's in his name, it's just a lot of work and I commend him on being so awesome!
 After getting through the Honduras border we got lost in the little towns. Everyone was really nice about directing us where to go although their directions were pretty poor.We ended up driving to El Salvador border by accident. We turned around and got back on track going up the Honduras mountains. We lost a hubcap on a big pothole and I watched it roll down the hill. It was so steep driving up the mountains that the van slowed pretty much to a stop. It didn't have enough power to make it 3000 feet up so we turned around and headed back for El Salvador.  Drove by some beautiful volcanoes just after San Salvadore. My first time seeing a volcano! We stayed in a cool hotel in a small town where we kicked back in an open air space with some picnic tables; she served us beers and we watched  a spanish dubbed Fast and Furious movie. There was no running water in the room and we saw a cockroach in the shower area!!! My first real cockroach experience!

 Left early in the morning. They took us aside at the El Salvador border to talk to us. I guess at the Guatemala border the immigration officer asked for a bribe. we didn't give it to him so he marked Eric's passport for 30 day tourist card and the other 3 of us with 3 days. At the other borders the officers were trying to question us about it but we thought that stamp meant just for Guatemala but it is actually for all 4 countries (Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua have some sort of border agreement).At first we were thinking it was something really serious. Would we go to jail or be deported? But turns out we would just have to pay a fee and do a bunch of paperwork to extend the visas.Yet they were still suggesting we try and make it through Honduras (150k) and Nicaragua (420 k) So we jumped in the car to attempt! We would have made it if we didnt have to spend another long time at the Honduras border on the other side of El Salvador.We ended up staying Here we emptied a lot of the contents of our duffel bag we brought from Zoe's Thrift store who generously donated a bag filled with toys and trinkets. I gave away one or two things and in no time there were tons of kids around talking fast and vying for something in the bag. I gave a few things to each person but they all were coming back for more and more. We finally had to shooo them away so that we could go get our stuff done at the border. We got there around noon and they were on their lunch break! More waiting... Here is Sarah with a selection of the huge amount of bills we got! So much changing of money. In these smaller countries it's with guys with wads of cash on either side of the border, no money exchange.

We booked it through Honduras as fast as we could through the horrible potholes! We jarred the fridge loose from the wall on one of them. It was another intense drive. As soon as we got to Nicaragua the roads were way better and it was smoother sailing. We drove by some more cool volcanos, one that seemed like it was smoking and active. We were about to stop somewhere in one of the cities in Nicaragua when we went past some policia who looked like they were pulling us over. Turns out they were just looking for a ride to the next town after their shift! A whole bunch tried to pile in our van but we had to tell them only 2 more people could come. It was after dark and we usually don't like driving at that time but we figured it would be ok if we got pulled over with policia in our car. :D One of them directed us towards a nice Mission Hotel. They wanted $20 a night per person. We said we couldn't afford it and they graciously gave it to us for $10 a night each! It included a nice breakfast the next morning. There were some beautiful birds kept around by the hotel. Sad to see them in cages... but I think they are well taken care of. So we didn't make it over the border in the time we gave us but went early the next morning and we ended up not having an issue at all! We were definetely worried we would have to pay a lot.

We made it to COSTA RICA BABY! woooooOOoooO! Next up: Envision Fest and Dominical playa camping! We're in Dominical at the moment taking it easy... living slow. Hope all of you are well. LOVES!