Jeremy's Bike Blog

​El Salvador and Honduras have reputations for being dangerous and worth avoiding.  Meanwhile, travelling solo by bicycle, one is obviously vulnerable to anybody or group that decides they’d like to take your bike and whatever you have in the bags hanging all over it.  This has been in the back of my mind since the weeks leading up to this trip, and when I’d allow it, going through all the specific ways in which I’m vulnerable, could consume my thoughts.  Before I left, I realized that it would be nice to have a spare debit/credit card and a driver’s license (which I happen to have a spare of) in the event I’m relieved of everything but my clothes on my back (and feet), and that the sandals that are my primary footwear on this trip (leading to some awesome feet tan lines) happen to have a slit in their sole where I could wedge these things.  So I did that, and then concluded that I’d derived all the benefit I could from playing out these scenarios mentally, and resolved to stop.

I’ve succeeded in sticking to this resolution through my traversal of these two countries, as I write this from a few km inside of Nicaragua.  It was no great feat; it seems to always be the case that the trepidation in anticipating a place exceeds that of the experience.  All the same, I was very happy to meet Ryu, a cycle tourist from Japan on the road a few km shy of the Guatemala/El Salvador border.

But I’m getting a bit ahead of myself.  As you may recall, when we left off in Antigua, I’d decided to drop down into the coastal lowlands and stop punishing myself with routes up and down the brutal volcanic slopes of the highlands.  Once I do so, the kilometers start to fly by.  I could make it to the border by sundown, 140km away, but I opt to take a room in a town called Chiquimulilla, a few km detour off the road to, and about 40km short of, the border to El Salvador and any craziness that border might entail.  Borders can tend to be hectic, with beggars and money changers swarming you.  While Antigua was nice in its own way, it’s like the Sonoma of Guatemala, it feels good to again be well off the beaten track, clearly the only gringo for miles, and in a ‘real’ Guatemalan town, among Guatemalans, none of which interact with foreigners on a regular basis.

The next day I stock up on water and snacks then hit the road, and get caught up with by Ryu, a cycle tourer from Japan.  On past tours, he’s cycled from Alaska to Mexico, and this time he’s started out at Cancun.  It’s a no brainer that we’re going to cross the border into El Salvador together.  This is the furthest South into Central America that either of us have cycled, and we share trepidations, even if we’re downplaying them a bit, for both our own and each other’s benefits.

We change our remaining Quitzal to US Dollars, which is what El Salvador has been using since they abandoned their own currency some years ago, and then go through the border.  We go to the first town just beyond the border and grab some lunch.

We stop at a place with AC, which is blissful, and both get a lunch of chicken, rice, and salad.  When we’re back outside saddling up, a drunk seeming guy ambles up to us and gets in our faces, in the way that drunk guys do.  He shakes my hand, then puts his arm around me, and then another.  By the looks of the guy, I’m a little surprised to be fending off a hugging rather than a mugging, but I manage to, after not too long an awkward, sweaty embrace.  Ryu is subjected to the same, and it’s apparent that hugging strangers is even less amusing/familiar to him than it is to me, and we share a chuckle over it on our ride out of town.

I have data on my phone, my phone mounted on my handlebars, and a rearview mirror.  Because of these three factors, it’s invariably been the case, when encountering other cyclists, that we decide it’s easiest if I lead, navigate, and keep tabs on the other to avoid getting separated, at least in the first few hours, until we get comfortable with separating and reuniting as cycle tour companions do. Despite the fact that Ryu caught up with me on our initial encounter, it seems that I’m consistently outpacing him.  I wonder if the subconscious competitiveness that Jung and I shared is absent in Ryu, and while I’m pushing a little harder now that we’re paired up, he’s maintaining his same pace.

I miss the turn for the first town where we decided to look for a hotel, but we’re not far from another, larger town called Acajatel that has more promise for lodging, so I propose we continue on.  Ryu is game for whatever.  When we get there, it’s quite industrial and gritty, and when we pull into a street with small markets and the first town-like activity we see, we get leers from many of the locals.  Ryu takes the lead in asking a group of women if there’s a hotel nearby, for which I’m grateful, as I’m feeling both intimidated and irritated by the reception we’re receiving.  We get directed, we think, to go back out to the road we turned off, and continue on.  As we ride off to do so, we get a number of whistles, including one deafeningly loud cat call.  I’m wearing a scarf that Pao gave me, which I usually have pulled up over my face for sun protection, but which I don’t currently and I suppose is fairly effeminate by El Salvadorian (or Central American, in general) standards.  Ryu is wearing cycling shorts, as am I, but whereas I cover them with board shorts, he doesn’t.  Again, not something a local man would likely be caught dead in.  The cat call makes my blood boil, but there’s no good option other than to act as if I don’t hear a thing.  Ryu seems to do the same calculation.

We get back to the road and are at a junction where a bunch of well dressed dudes are filing out on motorcycles when one of them stops to ask “what are you looking for?”  I answer “A hotel”, to which he repeats “what are you looking for?” as if he heard my reply as “huh?” a-la laurel and hardy.  This repeats 2 more times and I get the sense that he might be messing with us, so the fourth time I answer, I put a long, and somewhat exasperated pause between “A” and “hotel”, not thinking to try “un” instead of “a”.  He says “ahhh, yes” and points down the road we were about to check out, as it’s our only actual option in following the original instructions.  We ask how many kilometers, and I think he says “about 4 minutes”.  But maybe he said “about 40 meters” because that’s how far we have to go to find the one (and only, AFAICT) hotel in town.

The hotel is right on the beach, but not a stretch of beach that you can walk down to, and the rooms are quite grimy.  The bathroom is a sort of shower, sink, and toilet all-in-one, and smells foul, but the proprietor is a kindly older guy and we’re both fine with it, particularly as we’re fairly confident it’s our only option.  It’s $15/night regardless of whether we’re one or two in a room.  The owner is totally indifferent, and we waffle a bit on this decision until I say that I’m happy to sleep on my pad on the floor and we can call it $8 for use of the bed and $7 for the floor, and each save some money.  Ryu is happy with this, and buys me a beer to sweeten the deal.

After we drink our beers and space out for a bit as one invariably does when done a day of pedalling, he goes to find an internet cafe (he has to upload a video) and I go to swim in the ocean, leaving the key to the room with the hotel owner.  I get smiles and waves from kids and young people enjoying the beach, putting me in better spirits.  Seeing the massive shipping container ships not far off, realize that this is a primarily a port town.

Back at the hotel, I’m befriended by a guy that looks like nothing but trouble, sporting several capped teeth, a crew cut, a fist-weathered face, and a tank top with a large drawing of an ornate set of brass knuckles.  And while his demeanor is gruff, he is, in fact, a nice guy that’s very excited to have foreign guests on his turf.  He gives me a slice of watermelon and advice on where to grab dinner.  He chats with me eagerly, but doesn’t linger when the conversation has run its course, for which I’m grateful.

We go to dinner at “La Poeta Viejo” where we’re harrangued by an over enthusiastic drunk guy.  Ryu has the calm, collected cool that I remember noting about my cycle mate, Terry, once when he was being aggressiively begged from in Riga.  Spittle from the drunk draws only the most slight bemused expression as Ryu takes it all in stride, and this ability to withstand reaction is, it occurs to me, a hallmark of a seasoned traveller.  Eventually the waiter comes over to tell the guy to give us our space.  The drunk meant no harm, which goes without saying, and he buys us a couple of beers to show he means it, then leaves to dance exuberantly with one of his women companions while we wait for our food in peace…or at least as much peace as the blaring PA will allow.

The next morning, we backtrack the 4km that we’d gone out of our way to get to Acajatel, then look for someplace to get breakfast more substantial than the pre-packaged coffee cake and coffee we got at the hostel for $1.50 total.  We try a couple of food stands before finding one that’s open, where we get the typical breakfast of eggs scrambled with onions and peppers, refried black beans, a semi-soured cream, and tortillas.  A hearty breakfast for $1.50 each.

We take our only viable option, cycling up away from, then back down to the El Salvadorian coast, where we yo-yo up and down steamy seaside cliffs, and go through a series of 5 tunnels.  We stop at a seaside town for lunch and inquire about places to stay for the night, as it looks like a big storm is rolling in with long, gutteral rumbles of thunder that last for 10-20 seconds each.  Ryu’s english is very good, and while he doesn’t know as many spanish words as I do (with which to try and often fail to be understood when speaking them), he clearly understands spanish when it’s spoken better than I do, maybe owing to a mental/linguistic elasticity that he has and I lack, being that he’s already multi-lingual.  While I have a hard time making any sense of what our waiter is saying, Ryu determines that he’s saying there’s no rooms available for this evening.

Meanwhile, I’ve been on my phone, scouting out AirBnB options.  There’s one in a town called El Tuncal a dozen km up the road, and the host is initially very responsive.  I book it, ask her to save a bed for the friend I’m travelling with, and then she goes radio silent.  We bike there anyway, and come to find it’s a somewhat fancy seaside hotel resort (with dorm beds) in a somewhat fancy seaside town.  We get a room with 2 beds for $16 for me via AirBnB and $10 for Ryu paying on the spot in cash.  The place is somewhat disorganized, and advantage goes to Ryu.  He ends up staying there another 2 nights, motivated primarily by an interest in surfing, getting a private room for the cash price of a dorm bed.

The next morning, I’m ready to continue on, despite the fact that there’s a steady, medium rain coming down.  So we part ways.  We had discussed this over dinner the night before as the likely conclusion of our time together.  I seal the deal in my mind by booking my flight home from Panama City for September 16, leaving me some spare time to get there, but not a lot.  Not enough to linger in El Salvador or Honduras, especially at the expense of having that time for Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama.

The next 3 days and nights kinda blend together.  I see a horse corpse being burned on the shoulder of the road, then a dog corpse getting pecked at by vultures.  I get shouted “hey gringo” or “hey bicicleta” at by a lot of people as I cycle by, which annoys me, but I get necessary and sufficient satisfaction from the passive counter-aggression of acting like their shouts have fallen on deaf ears, aided substantially by the constant use of earbuds playing music or podcast, and feel particularly satisfied when their frustration is made apparent by increasingly loud/aggressive/desperate shouts for my attention.  I ponder this dynamic for a bit and find some empathy…if roles were reversed, I could easily see myself in the role of heckler…but not enough to consider giving them the satisfaction of reaction.  On the other hand, I always and happily return waves, smiles, and any greeting that strikes me as good natured, of which there are at least 4 fold as many.

I pound out 90-110km days.  I stay on two consecutive nights in “auto hotels” which are, apparently, sex hotels, with commercial grade toilet paper dispensers at the head of the bed, and in the case of the second one mirrors in very explicit locations and heights and super sad porn on a USB drive plugged into the TV.  But these are the only hotels around, and camping seems ill-advised.  It’s gross, but my exhaustion trumps disgust-tion.

I have $32 to convert to Honduran limpara at the border, having not used an ATM since Antigua, at a loss of about 4%.  I spend about half of it on an absolutely disgusting hotel room in a town called San Lorenzo in Honduras.  I have an offer to stay for free with the parents of a Warm Showers host in a larger, nicer town called Choluteca another 30km away, but I’m at 110km for the day, fairly exhausted, and there’s a heavy rain rolling in judging by the skies and constant rumble of thunder.  I actually ride off having seen the room, but after half a kilometer and feeling the rain start, I double back in defeat and take the room.

In the room, there’s is a window AC unit blasting away next to another window with shuttered glass that provides no insulation whatsoever, on which at least half the cost of the room must be being sunk. I go out and splash around in flooded streets with the rest of the people walking about, the rain having started and the town’s drainage being non-existent, and spend about half of the half of my remaining money on food for dinner.

Back in the room, I’m happily falling asleep around 8pm when I’m startled awake by the distinctive “pop pop” of gunfire, which had actually started a bit earlier.  This happens a couple more times, and again I find myself a feeling a combintion of irritation and fear.

The next day, I’m grateful for having eventually been able to get to, and stay asleep and recharge in order to be able to continue on my way ASAP.  I grab a few snacks for breakfast, cycle just out of town, eat them in the shade getting occasional whistles from passers by, and then heads down and pedal to Choluteca.  There, I go to a supermarket, chat with the security guard out front and leave my bike locked near his station.  I spend the rest of my Limpara and eat most of what it got me (granola, fruit, yogurt) next to my bike.  I have 45km to get to Nicaragua, and I’m literally heads down, counting them off.  In a somewhat fitting farewell, approaching the border, I see a couple of kids, maybe 7 or 8 years old, in the road doing acrobatics of some sort for the benefit of passing vehicles.  When it’s my turn, one of the kids jumps up and down then holds out a hand for I assume a high-five, as I’ve given a kid earlier in the day, but as I pass and the high-five is delivered, he shouts “una dollarrre, assholee” as I ride off.  Bien Viaje, Honduras.

The border crossing is pretty hassle-free given the employ of one of my emergency benjamins.  I pulled a couple out of hiding and had them ready for the occasion to spare me having to find and use an ATM at the border.  I mean, I’m pretty sure I did all the things and have all the cards and stamps in order, but one can’t be totally sure until one gets out the other end.

I’m sure a lot of it is preconception, but rolling into Nicaragua, everything immediately seems completely different, and, well, better.  For one, there’s hardly anything on the Nicaraguan side of the border.  No hustle, no shops.  Within a few kilometers I find a nice spot of shade to take some food and water and map out my options for getting cash and more food and water, and a super chill guy on a bike rolls up and quietly greets me and asks if he can share the shade.  I say sure, and ask if he’s hungry.  He says yes, so I pour him a handful of the granola I’m eating.  While we’re chilling out in the shade, munching and making small talk, a father and son on a horse-pulled cart rolls by.  There’s almost no trash strewn about.  Some kids in school uniforms walk by.  Everything just seems much more calm, quiet, clean, and relaxed.

I roll through a town that has a pretty prominade along the main street, and there’s some kind of parade wrapping up (it’s Sunday).  I don’t spot any ATM, but another few km later, I spot a hotel which looks like it’s not a sex/auto hotel (though I did pass an auto hotel on my way to that point).  It’s only 4:30, but I’m at 100km for the day and pretty tired having pushed to get to the border as I have, so I decide to see what the room would cost, and then if they’ll take dollars instead of Cordoba.  The woman seems nice, and the room runs 300 Cordoba.  I offer $10 which is only a tiny bit less at the current conversion, and she accepts.  She has some teenage or early 20s guys working there with her.  I ask if there’s food, and I think they say that they’ll be making some later.  I ask for water, and they give me a cold 1.5 liter.  I try to give them a dollar coin for it, but they refuse saying it comes with the room.  I take a shower and then pass out on the bed in my towel.  An hour later, one of the kids wakes me, gingerly, and introduces me to Richard.  He’s from Alaska, married to a Nicaraguan woman, and together they own the hotel.  They drive me back to town with the promenade to get dinner.  Richard and I chat over beers while the food is being prepared, during which he tells me about the place, and about how many places in the region don’t have municipal water or access to wells.  When my food comes, he and his wife drive back to the hotel to attend to the project that the guys are working on, which happens to be improvements to their water well.  Not long after I’m done eating, they come back, pick me up, take me back to the hotel, and arrange for breakfast to be prepared by the woman on site the following morning.

I sleep soundly.  The following morning, I enjoy a delicous breakfast that runs 50 Cordoba (less than $2) as I wrap up this blost, then set out for Leon, 110km away.