Looking for an apartment.

The matriarchs of a family that were staying in the same hotel as us, just outside of Xela in Guatemala, spoke English very well. They lived in the States and were back in Guatemala visiting their family. They arrived in the same size van as we did except their van had bench seats and 13 people in it. We didn`t take many pictures in El Salvador and Honduras because we we getting exhausted and we were really pushing for Nicaragua. The border crossings were impossibly exhausting and always very hot. This picture was taken right after our final border crossing into Nicaragua. Maia is sad here and is showing signs of exhaustion as well.
We have been in Granada for two days now. We are staying at the hotel casa San Francicso and making new friends. I look a little drunk here because I am. We just got back from dinner and we finished two bottles of wine. Our friends name`s are Adam and Grace. We are relaxing at the hotel in the courtyard by the pool.

We made it to Granada....and its great. After leaving Guatemala we thought we could drive to Nicaragua in one, long day. As you know, the border crossing was crazy and we drove for 3 hours looking for a city big enough to have a hotel. We ended up in La Libertad right before dark. Emilie got some food and we went to bed. We had decided to take all coastal roads after Mexico because Tink simply cannot handle the big hills.

We left La Libertad without incident at dawn. We filled the van with gas and oil made fairly good progress despite the check points, construction, wandering country folk and stray animals that mosey across the highway without a care in the world. We thought we would make it to Nicaragua today (April 21) and we passed through San Miguel with only 3 u-turns. There are very few signs in the cities and the ones that are legible are often misleading. Em and I use a combination of intincts, a compass and luck to get through any of the cities and towns. Once we drove right through the Town`s main market. The streets were filled with people and shops of all kinds of beautiful art and fresh fruit. We took a right, then a left and soon the density of the population on the street decreased. A couple more turns to a traffic circle and off we go!

The border of Honduras and El Savaldor was not as horrendous as Guatemala but was very expensive and took a very long time. I was waiting outside, in the 40ish degree heat while the "officials" sat on the other side of the glass, in an air conditioned room and ate their lunches. There was 3 or 4 young guys in there lounging and in no rush to stamp my paper at a cost of 10 dollars canadian. The final bill for all the different government divisions was over 70 dollars. We were at the border for about 4 hours and when we finally starting driving in Honduras we were spent.

We made it Choluteca and found a hotel. It was 2 pm and we could have been at the border in 40 minutes or so but we heard that the Nicaragua border is just a bad as the Honduras border and so we resigned ourselves to one more day on the road. The hotel we found was unremarkable but comfortable. Strangely, we had somehow driven on a pseudo city bypass. The hotel was situated on the highway to the border and we drove straight to the border (through two checkpoints ofcourse) without incident.

The Nicaraguan border was dream. It was fast (ish) and the people were very nice. We were at our first Nica police checkpoint by 10:30 am (April 22). The roads for the first 30 km were the worst we'd seen. Potholes a foot deep and wide as the highway itself. There was a crew of about 30 boys doing some repairs with tampers. After that, it was smooth sailing through Leon and Managua. We were stopped again near Leon and pulled over by the police in Managua for a bribe. We paid the 200 cordobas and kept on going. I was a little upset at my first "robbery" but it is only 10 dollars to me and 10% of their monthly salary so I will forgive him eventually.

We drove straight downtown and found a room a the Hotel San Francisco. We scheduled an appointment to see some apartments on April 23 and we also were invited to a very grand 60th birthday party on Saturday night. The owner of the Hotel is having the party. We met Adam and Grace that night and things are moving along nicely.

Today is the morning of the 24th and we will have a place to stay by tonight. We saw places ranging from $4oo to $1600 all in the downtown area. The $1600/month mansion is a summer home for a German family. It was HUGE. Hard to explain but I will try. It had 4 bedrooms, all with their own bathrooms, a pool, garage, indoor fire bar-g-que in the courtyard beside the gardens and a view of the mountains. The entertainment room was atleast 1000 square feet. We thought about renting it for 1 month just for fun but we would have to sublet half the house.

Talk to you soon!

Going Home

It is 5:30am and everybody in the room is sleeping except for the tireless line of ants coming in from the window. I am too tired to see where they are going and even if I wasn't I wouldn't disturb them. They need to eat and drink too. Even if I did use the blow dryer on them and try to close the window, they would be back in 15 minutes anyway. People in warmer climates become accustomed to bugs. It's a fact of life.

We drove through central America with our windows open and many bugs were hit by our windshield but several got into the van. One example was an ant/fly that was knawing on my belly for 30 minutes while I was driving. I don't really know the name of this bug but I do know that I kept itching my belly. I finally scratched the bug to death (accidently) because its carcasse was on my leg. The next time I looked at my belly there was red welts all over it. Maia has a few red welts on her legs as well. Some are from bugs but most are from falling down. Miraculously, Naomi has not been bitten yet. Her skin is so delicate even the bugs know that she is off limits. Having said that, I did have to swat several wasps away from her sweet smelling car seat at the El Salvador/Honduras border. The wasps gave up quite easlily and looking back now I beleive they were looking to eat some of the many flies that were calling our van home.

Highway construction. We have seen a lot on our travels but none so incredible as El Salvador. I wished I had pictures but we had waited half an hour to get going and there was quite a mad rush to get going. Lots of honking. As I drove through the 7 km section of closed highway I noticed that all the sign placards were replaced by people. There were people every few hundred meters waving a flag. The flags were all waved in the same manner and the workers crowded the driving lane forcing the vehicles to slow down or run them over. After driving for 5 km we came to the first and only piece of equipment that was working on the road. It was mixing soil cement into the base of the road. The mixer was a modified lawnmower and it took four guys to push it. It was going to take these guys a very, very long time to complete the next 30 meters of highway let alone the 7 km that was sectioned off. The pace of life is slow down here and those four guys couldn't be happier. They have water, food and work for the next year. The good news is that it looks like they had finished 2 km already.

Heading for the border now. Its 6:07 and Maia is ready to go! We want to beat the rush at the border.

adam

El Mismo Dia

Hey again...
Well as Adam said, we were literally thronged by people wanting to sell us this important document or that important document, but we stood our ground. After a while, most of them let up, but it still took as a stinking hot 3 hours to get from Mexico into Guatemala. I would have been a little less stressed, had I not had two very hot kids with me, but they survived, as did we.
One small note regarding Jose's Camping and Cabanas...it is run by a Canadian man and his Mexican wife. The Canadian (Jose...named John by his parents) had planted a coconut grove, when he moved there thirty years ago. He also planted mango trees, and he built his business, room by room. Quite impressive really. It was very rustic, but everything worked. The beach was a quick walk away, and we were the only ones on it. It was a lucky break that we (meaning me) missed the highway turn-off. We really needed the rest. I didn't even mind the giant cockroaches, I was so happy not to be driving.
When we made it into Guatemala, we were all very impressed with it's beauty. It is lush, verdant and plentiful with fruit of every kind. We stayed at the hotel where Adam wrote his last post and then left for El Salvador this morning.
Luckily the border between El Salvador and Guatemala is less busy. Not so lucky perhaps were the 2 hours it took to fulfill alll of the various requirements at the four different buildings I had to walk to. THEN...we got stopped by the police about 5 mins into the country. Oh well, 2nd time today. We are getting kind of used to it. The people who stop us tend to be quite friendly when they find out that we are Canadian. In fact, one of the policemen told me I had a pretty name while he was looking at our passports. That was nice of him!
Initially, we were warned about staying in El Salvador, but so far so good. It has been a gorgeous drive down the coast. The road is good, curvy but in great shape. The currency in El Salvador is the American Dollar. It struck me as a little weird, but with all of the money flowing into El Salvador from the Salvadoreans working in the U.S, I guess it makes sense. What about the Canadian dollar, you may ask. Nothing doing. It is just not the same.
Tonight we are staying in a vacation hotspot for Salvadoreans. It is called, Puerto La Libertad. It is really great, but we are getting tired of being on the road and Maia has been feeling a little sick, so we will leave really early again tomorrow and try to get as far as we can. We will for sure be in Nicaragua by Wednesday.
MUST SLEEP NOW! Love you all tooooo much! Becky, that is a really great vote of confidence from Montreal!

Blood, Sweat and Tears

This morning I am writing from a somewhat unremarkable hotel about 45 minutes south of Quezaltenangoin Guatemala. We are in the mountains halfway to Quezaltenango because we couldn't make it up the hill. We drove for as long as we could and Tink did her best but eventually we had to pull over beside some other broken down vehicles for fear of overheating. We asked the locals how much further and they said it was another 1/2 hour which means another hour for us. We turned around and found the closest hotel for the night. It may be a blessing in disguise because now we must take highway 2 to El Salvador which is the coastal road and should have less hills.

Yesterday was a day that we wished we had flown to Nicaragua. We woke up at Jose's Cabanas sweating. It was 7 am and it was HOT. The van was hot already too and we hit the highway quickly to get the air flowing in the windows. We had stayed at Jose's Cabanas mostly due to a wrong turn. Emilie was waving at a bus full of locals and had completly unknowingly turned off the highway. I commented that the road didn't look like a highway and Emilie agreed. Forty five minutes later we were at the coast in a town of population 1000. We went with the flow of the day and stayed the night in Puerto ? (to be added later, I don't have a lot of time because laptop battery dying).

As we sweated down the highway our spirits were good, but also hot. We passed Tapachula (Mexican border town) without incident and headed for the border. There is a scam near the border that we avoided quite well. Every couple kilometers people try to pull you over and sell you permission to cross the border. We drove through them whilst honking and waving. The actual crossing is down in a hot, jungly valley packed with people. I would like to accentuate how many people were waiting at the border. It was shoulder to shoulder and nearly every one of them were yelling something at us. When we finally got through one of the throngs to accelerate a little, we were chased.

To be continued, really sorry. I am out of juice!

Friday morning pictures

These pictures are in addition to the previous blog and were added this morning because the internet was not working very well last night.

Maia and I are upset here because we aren't allowed to walk on the side of the rail. We fold our arms and refuse to move until something new gets our attention.
Here is a family portrait durning sunset in Mazatlan. The large cistern behind us was used to brew Pacifico, a popular Mexican beer. It is pretty good...believe me.
These are the ladies from the chocolateria. They are shredding chicken here but they do make pretty good hot chocolate.
Maia and Naomi are cuddling in the morning. Neither of them wanted to get up because it is 5:30 am. Maia just finished saying " But I am still tired?", as if we should let her sleep.
Here is a picture of Mexico city suburbs. We are approximately 30km from downtown now and on a very high interchange. Not a lot of land wasted here!!

From the Metropolis to the Jungle

Mexico has a surprisingly diverse landscape. When we pictured Mexico, Adam and I both pictured lush jungles. Until today, we hadn't seen anything resembling a jungle. Yes today, we finally felt like we entered the Mexico that lived in our heads.
The beginning of our trip, saw an arid desert, then we got to the beach at Mazatlan, then we saw huge pine trees in and around Mexico city. It was so crazy, you would have thought that you were in British Columbia. We saw a snow covered mountain in the distance just yesterday, and today we are in the heat!!! We even bought some freshly squeezed pineapple juice from the side of the road. It was really cold and refreshing and a little gross, when I discovered a dead bug floating in the bottom. Yes, I couldn't finish the dregs of the juice. Call me Princess if you like.

So, tonight we are staying in Tuxtla Guiterrez. It is the capital of the State of Chiapas, home of the anti-Mexican Zapatista rebels. We are in the heart of downtown, once again. We try to stay on the outskirts so that we can avoid overheating Ole Tink, but it NEVER, ever works out the way we plan it. Try as we might. We do plan though, really.
After our last blog, we had to brave Mexico City. We got up really early in the morning, again. For those of you who have ever lived with me, you know that getting up early is not my forte, but luckily I just didn't sleep at all. There was a high school band staying at the hotel, playing their horns in the middle of the night and having a great time. The band noise combined with the extremely loud dance music coming from god-knows-where (I didn't get up to investigate, just prayed that it would go away), made for a sleepless night. I was out of bed before Adam.
We had an unexpectedly easy trip through Mexico city. We have uploaded a little video to show you some of what we saw at the worst point of the drive. After that, it was pretty smooth sailing. Mexico City is actually really nice to look at. We were going pretty slowly, so we got to enjoy some of the nice, wide tree-lined streets.
Then we went straight up!! Tink is an old van, and the big climbs we have encountered in Mexico have been pretty slow going for us, but we have been (knock on wood) getting to our destinations each day. The climb into and out of Mexico city valley reaches approximately 3000m above sea level. More than twice as high as Roger's pass!! All vehicles pass us on the way up because our maximum speed is 52-64 km/hr but many vehicles overheat and we end up passing them when they stop to let their engine cool down.
Speaking of destinations, ours was Cordoba yesterday. We stayed at a motel that gave you the option of paying for a four hour or a full nights stay. We opted for the latter. I still haven't figured out why there was an option for four hours. I think it is a secret rendez-vous place for the lovers of Cordoba, who knows. Here's the thing, it was incredible!
It had a private parking garage right under our room. Our own, giant hot tub that was more like a pool for Maia, with a retractable roof. Yes, a retractable roof. It also had radio music wired into the bathroom. It was spotless, huge, and really cheap. It felt a little surreal because when I asked them if there was a place to wash clothes nearby, they did it for us instead.
You would have thought we would stay longer in a place like that, but we are really getting itchy to get to Nicaragua. Maia's getting a little tired of all of the days in the van, and we would really like to get settled soon too. So, we just kept going.
Tomorrow we cross the border into Guatemala. We plan on staying at Quetzltenango ...apparently referred to as "Xela". I'm not sure why, but I'm sure we'll find out.
Oh, yeah and one more thing abount Mexico. It is not as dangerous or as corrupt as we had been lead to believe. In fact we have only been pulled over twice; once by the city police and once by the military. Both times, no bribes were requested (or offered for that matter) and we were wished well and on our way in a matter of minutes. I think having kids in the back really helps.
I have uploaded a video of Naomi talking to me, as well as the abovementioned Mexico City gridlock.
Can't upload any pics tonight. I am not sure why, but we will try again next time.
Love you all very much! Keep on realxing mom and dad. You guys deserve it!

At the convent in Guadalajara!

After staying on the beach in Mazatlan for 3 days, we felt very relaxed. The downside of being relaxed is we were somewhat mentally unprepared for driving to Guadalajara.

As we ventured inland, we started climbing into the highland of Mexico. Almost all of the large cities here are at 2000m above sea level. The heat was overwhelming and the van was starting to overheat as we climbed. After climbing over 1000m we had to turn on the heater to keep the engine temperature down. The temp inside the van was approaching 40 degrees. Naomi was only wearing a diaper and Emilie was wiping a wet cloth on her. Maia was in her underwear and looking very hot with her red cheeks. We stopped in Tepic to fill up and took our time licking popsicles in an effort to cool off.

The popsicles gave us all some frozen liquid courage and we continued going uphill. After climbing 2000m we finally reached a plateau and as soon as we did.......it began to rain. The clouds were waiting for us and we left the windows down and stuck our hands our the window.

Guadalajara is a town of four million. It is huge. We arrived at 5pm, just in time for rush hour. The drive seemed endless to get downtown and when we finally did, we entered into a tunnel that whisked us past our hotel. We drove three blocks past the only hotel in the area with parking so Emilie popped a uturn on a six lane road and headed back to the hotel. When we finally got to the right street we found it was a one-way so we circled the blocked and pulled into a very fancy hotel. The 3 or 4 bellboys were a little surprised to see a 24 year old van pull into like an old ironhorse, the steam slowly rising from its roof.

The hotel was fantanstic and was a refurbished catholic convent. By the time we ate, the pool was closed and it was time for the girls to go to bed. The hardest part about this day was that we drove all the way downtown and we didn´t have time to check out the city. We hadn´t left early enough in the morning.

Once the girls were sleeping, Emilie and I broke out the maps and the monocles and started planning for the next day. We decided to drive to Toluca and we would be leaving a 6am. By leaving earlier we will miss the hottest parts of the day and we can do some adventuring when we arrive at our destination. With the spirits of the nuns watching over us, we went to bed.

Emilie here...we are at an internet cafe now in Toluca, so we had to switch off writting the blog.
We managed to get up at 5 am, and we started driving at 6. We made it to our destination at noon. Our plan was to get a hotel on the outskirts of town, so that we could have an easy entry and departure in Toluca, then we could leave early the next day to hit Mexico city before 6:oo am.

Toluca is a small (500 000 pop) city in Mexico that is right outside of Mexico city. We are too chicken to drive in there. When we arrived, we were reminded once again that Mexico is unpredictable. We spent three hours looking for a hotel on the outskirts...van started overheating again...Maia was getting cranky...so we headed into the town centre. Exactly what we had planned on not doing!

At any rate, there is a silver lining to this cloud. We found a hotel, thanks to Adam and his amazing hawk-like vision. He spotted a parking garage that was hidden almost underground. We found a great cheap hotel, that is right in the thick of things. Toluca is a surprisingly great city. Lots of "plaza" culture. We had dinner at a chocolateria. It had wonderful hot chocolate (freshly crushed cocoa), of course, and churros and sweet bread, and something else that was made with chicken that Adam ate. We are not able to upload the pictures here, but we will try again next time.

We have to get back to the hotel now and put the girls to bed. We will try and plan our day again tomorrow. Who knows if this will help, but we will try at least.

Oh yeah...Sorry about the lame eighties reference in the last title. It just had to be done.

Love you!

The Coyle-Browns