On the Lam in Honduras

Last month, despite warnings, we crossed the border into Honduras through the Eastern highlands of El Salvador. We read on iOverlander that this border didn’t deal with out of country vehicle permits, resulting in travellers having to head to a border on the other side of the country to try again. We asked a few locals and they all assured us that it was passable. No problemo. So we went, and hoped for the best.   The whole process took less than 30 minutes, which included the short drive between borders. It was our shortest border process yet. On The El Salvador side, they entered us in the computer system as departed. Sadly, to us passport stamp collecting travellers, there is no passport stamp in or out of El Salvador. At the Honduran border they stamped us in and we paid the $3US/pp fee to enter. We were then asked to go into another building where a police officer wrote our vehicle information down in a book. It was all very official……

We had our misgivings as to why there was no Temporary Import Permit process, like EVERY other border crossing, but when the guy with the gun says you don’t need one and welcomes you to Honduras, you don’t ask too many more questions. We would have to wait to see how this would play out later when we crossed into Nicaragua. If all goes well, we saved $40US. If it doesn’t, we will likely have to spend much more, and hope that we don’t go to jail for breaking a law. At the end of the day, we were happy to have had such a quick and easy border crossing, and excited to be in a new country.

Our first stop was Comayagua National Park, which was a full days ride through the country. Although, the real adventure started when we hit the rusty coloured dirt road in San Jeronimo. All we knew was that we were looking for a small village called Rio Negro, which wasn’t on any map we had, neither was the road, for that matter!

Short story short, we found Rio Negro pretty easily by stopping every time we saw someone and confirming with them we were going in the right direction. We pulled into our destination just as the sun went down and a storm was rolling in. We spent the next two nights on the Velasquez organic coffee farm, and from the first impression to the last, we were happy to have had the honour of meeting this family. Avilio and Bertilia welcomed us into their home as if we were part of their extended family visiting from out of town. We spent the majority of our time with them in their kitchen; eating, drinking, and talking about life in Honduras. It was fascinating to learn the customs of a coffee farming family, while drinking the freshest cup of coffee we’ve ever had. As we followed Avilio around the farm, his pride and passion was evident. Sadly, we didn’t get to spend as much time with Bertilia as she is one of the two teachers in their small village that donates her own time and resources to teach the 50 kids in their community.

On our second day in the mountains, we decided to hike a series of waterfalls that were near the farm. We found the first two without a hiccup. It was while trying finding the third one that we lost the trail and got ourselves turned around. “Why do we always get ourselves into this mess?” is what I said from behind Bren after two hours of bushwhacking through the dense cloud rainforest. At this point I had already given up reaching the 70m waterfall that had brought us here in the first place, and was just trying to distract my mind from the tarantulas and malaria filled mosquitos which I was sure were going to ravage me at any moment. Bren answered my question with, “Well, we always get ourselves out of it, don’t we?” I agreed with a sigh, as I tripped over another jungle vine.

The situation was more of an annoyance than a panic, as we both knew if we kept the sound of the river within earshot we would be able to navigate our way out of here. Maybe you are wondering why we simply didn’t just turn around. Well, you have obviously never walked though the thick jungle before. Even though we had literally cut our way to this point, the trail behind us was barely visible. It seemed like the jungle immediately grew back over our trail the moment we passed. As expected, but much later than planned, we found ourselves back in familiar territory, cooking the heavy stir-fry lunch we just took for a walk around the countryside.

Sadly our time in Honduras was limited, and only a few days later we were crossing into Nicaragua, our toughest border crossing to date. It didn’t come as much of a surprise to find out that our bike was, in fact, in the country illegally. With a little patience, smooth-talking and crossed fingers, we were able to explain to the officials why we did not have the required paperwork and were able to drive away with only a warning. They informed us that had we been pulled over in transit we would have been charged with a $500 fine and had our bike impounded, but….chalk one up for the home team, we saved $40.

From here we thought it was smooth sailing. The Nicaraguan government recently changed their border policy, requiring a document to be sent 7 days in advance of entering the country. Bren sent the required documents 9 days in advance to be sure. With a confident smirk we strutted up to the immigration window just to find out he had emailed a blank copy. He can drive, but I better do the emails from now on. 4 hours later we rolled into Nicaragua – still smiling even.