Ness Moto 2004

After a great 6 hour ride on relatively straight and smooth roads, I arrived in Rio Dulce (RD), a small town on the Rio (River) Dulce about 10 km inland from the Caribean town of Livingston which is about 20 kms south of the Belizean border.

However, along the way I had to pass through Guatemala City, Guatemala's capital, where I promptly went around in circles for an hour before escaping to Rio Dulce.

The plan here was to ride the 3 hours straight through Honduras, and try for San Salvador, El Salvador.

The border at Honduras was something else... TOTAL disorganization....different ramshackle buildings with no markings...that houses the customs, imigration, insurance, security, and the ever present fumigation people.

I was instantly besieged by at least a dozen kids, shouting in Spanish and waiving hand made, plastic laminated ID's in my face, essentially saying that they will facilitate my passage through the "system".

After leaving Rio Dulce, Guatemala, it was a beautiful early morning ride under clearing skies on nice road into El Salvador.

Riding south for 50 kms from Rio Hondo, Guatemala, one comes to a fork in the road....5 kms east, and you are in Honduras, and 5 kms south and you are in El Salvador.

Other than the famous ruins of Copan, Honduras, and the fantastic scuba diving in the Honduras Caribean Islands of Roatan, there was not really much else for me to see, and since I now had enough of ruins, and I don't scuba dive, I headed South to El Salvador.

My entry "Honduras" dated 2004-08-14 had a few errors...

#1 - I only entered Honduras only AFTER El Salvador.

#2 - I was attempting to enter San SALVADOR, the capital of El Salvador....NOT San Jose, which is the capital of Costa Rica.

Sooooo....see the 2 previous entries.....

Checking out of Honduras was much easier than checking in, thank god, and checking in to Nicaragua was suprisingly the quickest and easiest so far.

But despite this, I lost so much time checking IN to Honduras that it was now a race against time to get into Managua, the capital, before dark.

It was an easy ride south to Granada (pop. 90,000), Nica's oldest city. Although it did see some recent fighting between the Sandinistas and Somoza's forces, it was spared the shelling seen by other cities.

Today Granada is the major tourist center, retaining it's colonial character - streets lined with Spanish styled houses with stuccoed adobe walls and large doors opening into cool interior patios.

After a pleasant 2 hour ride, interrupted by a 30 min. downpour, I arrived in the fishing town of San Juan Del Sur (pop. 6,000).

SJDS is set on a nice horseshoe shaped cove with dramatic cliffs forming at it's far edges. Although the beach is nice, I found it a bit dirty.

With Costa Rica's (CR) reputation for being the most "North American" like country of all Latin America, I was off from Nicaragua with high hopes!

Not only is CR safe but it's also very friendly.

It's been a democracy since the 19 century and is now one of the most peaceful nations in the world. In fact the armed forces were abolished after the 1948 civil war, and CR has since avoided the despotic dictatorships, military coups, terrorism, and internal strife that has affected the other countries of Central America.

First of all, some corrections and additions on my stay at the coffee plantation south of San Jose in the town of Jerico. The "Finca" is owned by JEANNETTE'S family who is married to KENNY, the brother of Laurie (and Glen), my sailing friends from Boston.

Kenny and Ginette live in Maine, but set things up for my stay in their second home next to the family home in Jerico, Costa Rica (CA).

There I met most of Jeannette's family, Don Francisca and Dona Celina, her parents, and Juan Bautiste, William, Olman, Celi, and Henry, her brothers and sister.

Here I am in front of the Jaguar Inn in Tikal, Guatemala.

My "border brokers" entering Honduras.

Waiting out the rain on the way to San Juan Del Sur, Nicaragua.

On Nina's porch, San Juan Del Sur.

At 2000h on the 17 September, I sadly left Mexico, and crossed the border into Brownsville, TX. (on the Gulf of Mexico).

Stay tuned for the Costa Rica and the return trip stories.

N