At the outskirts of San Salvador, huge billboard advertisings for Denny’s restaurant and Wendy’s Hamburgers announced that the end of civilization had also reached this country. The tallest buildings I had seen in weeks appeared on the horizon, yes this is a big city. Did you know El Salvador uses American dollars as their currency? I found that out when I gassed up, and by the way, their gas pumps use gallons instead of litters… Traffic was intense in both directions and I missed a turn from my gps instructions, but what do you know? It took me right in front of a Yamaha service center, a block away from my hotel. I stopped and a friendly service adviser agreed to schedule America first thing in the morning, they open at 7 and she’d be ready, fed new oil, checked all around and washed up by 10, fantastic!

I contacted Willie and decided to meet for breakfast tomorrow, he would bring me to pick up America afterwards. I spent a leisurely afternoon doing laundry at the hotel and tanning up by the pool, this felt like a vacation but then again, people claim with a hint of jealousy that my life is a vacation…

Willie was so helpful, sage advice on routes to take and border crossings were given. A real biker and a vintage BMW car enthusiast, he had driven all over Central America and I appreciated his counsel. He gave me warnings about Nicaragua and its corrupt police force and I vowed to be more respectful of posted speed limits, over there. He then drove me to Yamaha, and I was reunited with my faithful steed. We hugged, with Willie, and promised to keep in touch, thank you brother for your time and generosity, we’ll meet again, maybe on the road to Ushuaia next April? I’ve gotta work more on my lovely wife for that to happen, we’ll see…

I crossed the whole country of El Salvador on the littoral road, an easy long ride, but I made it to Honduras in less than 6 hours. I’m trying to remember something specific to this El Salvador but the sameness of the past 5 countries, Southern Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua, I’m talking landscape here, is numbing. Same vegetation, beautifully lush and luxuriant, so green everywhere, palm trees, huge beautiful trees with yellow flowers. Same kind of roads, way less topes than in Mexico, just a few in Guatemala, they call them Tumulos, meaning mounds, in villages only near schools, none in El Salvador, even though they are signs announcing them, they just lie, only white stripes of paint, I thought that was funny, liars, clever way to save though. What pained me though is the total disregard these countries (Honduras being the worst offender) have towards nature. Let me explain, I’m talking about litter, trash that you see everywhere, this is so disgusting. I don’t understand how can the people be so indifferent to this, these countries are full of trash, empty beer cans, plastic bottles, paper, cardboard, domestic trash, plastic everywhere. You see garbage on every inch on the sides of the road, it is as if there is no waste management system anywhere. Sometimes, its like an open disposal site at the exits of the villages, in a curb… I guess people just bring their trash a little bit out and dump it on the side, just like that. It’s heartbreaking to me, without this aspect of human impact, these places would be just beautiful with all this vegetation, this marvelous foliage you can just inhale while riding, eyes wide open, taking in the beauty of forests and plants and shit… When I crossed into Costa Rica, all this garbage just stopped, like magic. That’s a country that cares, no litter anywhere, what a relief! I guess that’s what makes the difference between third world and what? Second world? Is Costa Rica a 2nd world country? What’s does that even mean? I’m in Panama right now, and just like Costa Rica, they don’t have that littering problem either… And you know what else? All their constructions are finished, houses are totally painted, none of the unfinished floors with iron sticks jutting out of cinder block houses like you see everywhere in Mexico. They complete their buildings in Costa Rica and Panama, but of course they also use these garish colors, these weird blue and green and pink and ocre hues propping up their one story houses everywhere. Two stories houses are a sign of prosperity and they make sure they surround their property with bars on windows and doors and add barbed wire…

Another observation, as I am an observer underneath my helmet, another similitude among all the countries I’ve conquered thus far, yes, when you’re long distance riding, you vanquish countries, you cross them in all their length, so you’ve won the battles, you conquered their mountains and mastered their plains. Anyways, I’ve noticed that they use fire to control vegetation on the roadsides. Scorched earth policy to tame the overgrown weeds, you can smell the fires from miles away, and no doubt, when you arrive at the smokes sites, burning ambers clean away those nasty shrubs. In Mexico one day, that practice of burning the roadside went out of control, the smoke was so thick and the flames so high that traffic came to a screeching halt on the toll road, truckers coughing outside of their cabs, eyes running with tears I crossed the smoke seeing almost nothing, eery and cinematic short and slow driving experience through this artificial and smelly fog…

Honduras was a short country to cross, I stayed in a ugly city called Choluteca, in an ugly motel not worth the 30 dollars a night, but it had secured parking and wifi, a must to keep in touch with the lovely wife at home. A much better hotel was available a block away, so I had my meals there, I could pay for my dinner and breakfast the next day with a credit card.

Nicaragua, ah Nicaragua, everyone warned me about driving in Nicaragua, you’ve gotta be careful and watch your speed… Speed was not what the immigration officials had in mind when I got to the border. I was interviewed by 3 different guys, as unsmiling as could be, they were very interested in my profession, I told me I was retired, they wouldn’t believe it, they asked me with great interest where I’d be staying in the country. I had read in those bikers forums about this and had the good idea to book my Managua stay in advance, I showed them my reservation on my phone and that helped I guess. It took me only 4 hours to enter the country after I paid the different fees with crisped dollar bills, they wouldn’t take the crumpled ones. Had to get America fumigated, another 3 dollars, and I was in! It only took me about 50 miles before I was stopped by the police. There was a police road check stop ahead and a few trucks driving way too slowly for my taste, there was an opening on the right and I passed one, on the right, that was my mistake. Approaching the men in black, one of them motioned me down with his machine gun. I have a policy to never argue with someone pointing a deadly weapon at me, so I sheppishly obeyed and stopped and smiled and said: hola amigo, que Paso? There was no smiling back, the police/soldier/special force guy (he has a patch that says special fuerza something) started to talk rapidly for quite a while and he pulled a yellow block note labeled infraccion, this
I could understand. I apologized for my poor Spanish and kept repeating I want to go to Managua and dont want to drive at night so can he let me go? No one spoke english there, so I asked if anybody spoke french, I showed them my french flag sticker on America’s windshield, they asked me for my passport. I showed them my US passport (I had no entry stamp for Nicaragua on my French one), making sure they notice the place of birth… The mood got better all of the sudden, they asked me why I lived in the US, maybe they thought I was a spy or something. I told them, mi esposa es americana! I came for love! That worked! They thought that crazy French going for love to America! Somehow I was absolved! I couldn’t believe they let me go!

I was still singing behind my visor, when I spotted ahead another road block a few miles later. I made sure I was driving real slow. This had to be repeated numerous times, they were stopping people at random it seems, before and after every village crossed it seems they were there trying to catch me! This had 2 effects: my gas mileage improved dramatically in Nicaragua, I almost got 330 kilometers on a tankful of gas, and my stress level increased very much in that country…

I was stopped a second time that day, for no reason, just a bunch of us drivers were pulled aside. They kept my passport a long time and when they came back with their yellow block notes I made sure to let them know of my birth country. This bunch was into soccer and they made fun of me for losing the world cup! I don’t give a rat’s ass about that but pretended to hate the damn Argentinians and they let me go laughing… Saved again!

I vowed to only spend the minimum time necessary in that country, couldn’t take the pressure and after a restful night and surprisingly good Italian dinner in Managua, I was outta here!! Costa Rica, finally I’ve arrived!