El Salvador.....
We rode into El Salvador on Tuesday 27th February 2018. Our initiation into this small country was met with mixed feelings as we had an interesting time crossing the border from Guatemala. A full write up of this experience will be made in my 'Borders' page.......coming soon....lol.
All I will give away is that we used a 'Fixer' to cross the border.......something I'd personally never done before and from the El Salvador experience would probably not do again, even though he was very nice.
After several hours we were finally relieved to leave the border behind and ride off into some beautiful countryside. We've planned the route to San Salvador......as flat as possible, don't forget I have no back brake. The roads were fairly reasonable, better than Guatemala and the main routes paved. This I'm particularly relieved about as I've still got a 'dicky' thumb and my knee is still numb from the accident.
The day passed without incident, luckily we only had about 75 miles to ride as due to my braking situation we've reduced the speed and mileage ridden per day.
Ha......I said without incident.....watch out...end of day syndrome coming up..... As we arrived on the outskirts of San Salvador the traffic and roads became busy and more complicated......and the sat nav.......useless again......I'm going to have to complain to Tom Tom.....it's just ridiculous......same situation as Guatemala City....telling you to turn where there's no road or exit or it's one way. Crazy. A decision was soon made to flag a taxi down to follow. I managed to talk to one on the move and he pulled in to get our directions. What a lovely man......he was soooo polite and friendly. We gave him our directions and I asked him to drive slowly. At one point he even stopped to ask for directions....lol but finally we made it to an unfortunately 'budget busting' hotel
El Salvador has a sad past, a Civil War in the 80's and now a reputation for gangs. You can read and watch about the two situations by clicking on the underlined words if you're interested in that kind of thing. Our fixer was very concerned that we were staying in San Salvador and had recounted a story of himself being robbed at knife point......not what you want to hear when entering the country. However we're pleased to say that during our short stay here we encountered nothing but friendly, helpful people and if you're travelling through here......enjoy it.
After an uneventful nights stay in San Salvador we continued on the next day to San Miguel, again only a short ride of about 85 miles.
And along the way.......a horse in one of those open pick up wagons and the saddle just hanging over the side. Bless.
In San Miguel we stayed at a little 'courtyard' style hotel right on the Pan Am Highway. Hotel Florencia, £45 including breakfast.It always amuses me riding Harleys that there's something about them that people love (sorry if you're not a fan)......big smiles off the security guard as he's taking photos, his big grin growing even wider at the sound of the bikes as they went under a gateway arch and the growl rumbled round the building. In fact it's almost embarrassing and you kind of hope you don't make a 'tit' of yourself when peeps come out to look.
We actually felt quite at home here the security guard thought we might have been friends of the neighbour across the road who had the 'Harley Davidson' logo on his gate.
So we're only about 35 miles from the border of Honduras here. Once unpacked we get our tea and check paperwork. We just needed a few extra copies of a couple of things which the hotel kindly did for us and that was that......bedtime...again....soon comes round and another new country tomorrow.
In case you're wondering why so little time here ???.......we've ordered the parts for my bike and are making our way towards San Jose in Costa Rica. We'd have liked to have toured round a bit more but it's seriously no fun on the hills just hoping your front brake is going to hold together and combined with the fact that the Sportster also needs a new front tyre is adding to my urgency for parts.
Corto Pero Dulce
'Salu'
El Salvador
WHERE TO NEXT ?
