Our two drivers who would take us from El Tunco, El Salvador, through Honduras, and into Leon, Nicaragua didn’t speak a lick of English, which we found a little odd.  Usually when there are two guys riding in the bus, at least one of them can speak a little English and between a few of us on the bus who can speak a little Spanish, we can make it work. These guys pulled out their cell phones and typed words into Google Translate for us.  If you’ve ever tried to use Google translate, you know how accurate it is, which is to say it’s not.  I was staring at this guy’s phone, looking at both the english translation from Spanish and the Spanish he had typed into the box and I couldn’t understand either one of them.

He was trying to give us instructions for when we got the the Honduras border.  We finally figured out he wanted us to stay in the van and not get out when we went through the border.  Uh…Ok.  We exited El Salvador without any issues and jumped back on the bus to enter Honduras.  As we were traveling across the bridge, our van was stopped by a police officer, who wanted to see all sorts of papers and licenses from our drivers.  He didn’t like one of the licenses he was handed and wouldn’t let us through.  One of the drivers gets out of the van and starts pleading with the guy, following him around all over the place as the cop ignores him and inspects other people, bicycles, cars going though.  He got back in the van and started pulling out cash out of his wallet.  The cop wanted a bribe.

Thankfully, the drivers didn’t pass around a collection plate for the bribe and we were on our way again.  But when we got to the Honduras side to get our entry ‘stamp’,  a guy suddenly appears as we’re exiting the bus and he’s motioning for us to give him our passports.  He’s going to get all of us our stamps and we’ll just pay him some money.

We kind of look around at each other and all come to a consensus…There’s no way in hell we’re giving this guy our passports.  We were right at the immigration window, so we all formed a line and waited our turn.  And the guy comes back!  While we’re standing in line, he still wants our passports.  I’m starting to get annoyed and after a few back and forth with us telling him no, thanks, we’ll get through immigration just fine without your help sir, I finally let fly with, “WHO THE HELL ARE YOU ANYWAY?! WE’RE RIGHT HERE AT THE BORDER, GO AWAY!”

Mandy has to calm me down and I remember that we are trying to cross a border here, so it might be best just to cool it and ignore this guy.

Oh, I have to mention this Australian couple and it won’t be the last time you hear about them.  They’ve apparently already been through the border once before and were assured they wouldn’t have to pay the $3 tax to get out of the country again, but of course, immigration is asking for another $3 from each of them.  And they are not happy.  They also have to be first in line at immigration (keep that in mind for later), so we’re all just waiting for them as they try and argue with immigration about this stupid $6 they owe.  I’m about to seriously pull out some cash for them and ask if I can pay so we can get this show on the road, when they acquiesce and pay their damn tax like everyone else has to.

Then when we stopped in Honduras for gas and a bathroom break, they’re making out like middle school kids in the corner of the store and it’s grossing everyone out.  They’re old enough to know better, but they just don’t care.

Finally, we’re ready to exit Honduras and enter Nicaragua.  Exiting was painless.  Entering Nicaragua would turn into a 2 hour ordeal.  It started with our van having to be sprayed down with some toxic substance, due to the Zika virus we assumed.  After that was done, we were ready to go through the entrance of Nicaragua.  As we exited the bus, the driver is halfway screaming at us in Spanish some instructions. I can’t make out what he’s saying, but I assume it’s something along the lines of, “Hurry up and get back out here quick, so we can get going again.”  The drivers stay outside, and 15 white people walk into immigration.

Guess who has to be first in line at immigration?!  Honestly, it wasn’t their fault but after everything we had dealt with them, it was hard not to get pissed off at them.  The immigration officer sees them, and all of us behind them and asks how many people are in their group.  She turns around and counts and says, “Ten”.

Now, the instructions that were given out by the driver would have come in handy here.  He told us that if they ask, tell them we’re not together in a van, or else it would cost us more and it would take longer to get through.  We knew this because there were a couple of German girls who spoke more Spanish than I did.  So there was a communications breakdown here for sure.  The drivers need to know a little English, especially since most of their clients are english speakers.  The german girls should have let everyone know what the drivers said.  Hell, I should have been able to get through that after asking the guy to slow down, but I didn’t.  The Australian couple had no way of knowing all this and they had a good point.  Even if they had, we all walked in there together.  It was obvious we were in a group.

So we had to go though some extra health screenings.  We were all whisked into a trailer around the corner and asked different questions.  I thought they were asking if you were sick or had a fever, so I told Mandy just to say no when she got in there.  So I started laughing when I heard the lady ask her in Spanish, “What nationality are you?”  and heard Mandy say, “Nope!”  Luckily, she just laughed and handed Mandy her ‘ticket’ that proved she had been through the health screening.

We waited while the drivers had to fill out more paperwork and then finally two hours later, we were on our way.  It was a long transportation day.  We had left at 7 in the morning and arrived in Leon, Nicaragua at 8 that night.  We found a cheap place to stay, went around the corner and found some food and then laid down and passed out.

It was in Leon that we would do the stupidest thing we’ve done so far on our trip.

Mandy snapped this picture from within the bus before we entered Honduras.