San Francisco to Ushuaia in an 87 4Runner.

BIGdaddy

Expedition Leader
At the risk of semi-teching your wonderful thread. A pair of vise grips or small c-clamp usually work in that situation. :safari-rig:

x2...yup, i've seen a couple "three brake'd" rigs drive pretty close to stock on some rough terrain. One was clamped on the soft line, and one had some more extensive damage at the knuckle, so they just rolled the hard line a few times back on itself and clamped a vise-grip over the folds. Then they taped that to the axle...
 

defrag4

Road Warrior
We camped out on the beach and did not a see a soul for most of the next day.

Later in the afternoon, 2 young guys came riding up on horses. We started talking and it turns out that one guy was from Belize (and spoke english) and the other dude was Garifun from the village just up the road. We shared some beers and became instant friends.
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We spent the rest of the day sharing stories, drinkin', and riding their horses bareback on the beach. Kenry told us the last time he saw white people was over a year ago, another Californian (surprise, surprise) had backpacked his way down to the village.

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Eventually we run out of beer and they say we can buy more in their village which is about 5 miles up the beach. OFF WE GO! FOLLOW THAT HORSE!
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We parked in front of the village bar, headed inside to BOOMING reggae music and a handful of 5-10 year old kids doing some of the dirtiest dancing I have ever seen. It was hilarious. We picked up some more beer and on our way out a drunk dude tried to sell Lauren a dead iguana for dinner. I almost bought it (I've been trying to eat iguana this whole trip!) but my buddy said it wasn't a good tasting one.
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We headed back to the beach and continued the party. Our friends brought a bottle of Miskito hooch, which got us all pretty loopy. The stuff was straight fire water.

Not a bad spot to party at.
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After many beers and bottles of Miskito liquor I decided it would be a good idea to ride the horse again...

UP YOU GO!
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DOWN YOU GO!
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SUCCESS!
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We say goodnight to our friends, they pose for some stunna shots and rode off into the sunset.
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Another night in Paradise.
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See more pics and read the rest of the story on the blog, http://homeonthehighway.com
 
Purely awesome, guys.

See everyone... you are able to go to "dangerous" areas and not get machete'd up by the locals!

Can't wait to see what Nicaragua has in store for you! I think you guys will love it there! Changes in Latitudes, changes in attitudes.
 

defrag4

Road Warrior
Good advice! Also a good idea to carry two cards of different carriers, ie Mastercard AND Visa. We wanted to open a Mastercard account just in case we had problems with our VISA, but we ran out of time. Oh well...we carry extra US cash and pesos in our safe just in case. It's already bailed us out of a couple embarrassing moments!

Glad to hear you guys stayed strong with la policia. We're still waiting for our chance to play "the game" with some cops :sombrero:

hopefully your turn will never come! but if it does... your prepared!
 

defrag4

Road Warrior
Just wanted to say, LOVE the pics and blog posts. thank you!

Your'alls great attitutudes and adventure spirit definitely comes through in your posts.

One question, I tried to watch the vid on your blog, but it was only 1 sec long when I visited a few minutes ago.

Is that it, just a "tidbit"? Would love to see more of that jaunt, but I def. understand if it's just simply a glimpse. :)
Unforunately Lauren got too excited and had the camera in the wrong mode during the crossing, all we got was a 1 sec clip
 

defrag4

Road Warrior
Hell yeah!!! I did some studies on the Moskito coast in college. Cool culture out there! I was going to go to the same area on a moto trip south... that never happened. One day! Thanks for sharing!

Get out there! I bet you could fit a Moto on the kayuk and bring the bike with you to even more remote places
 

defrag4

Road Warrior
let me know if you guys plan to stop by venezuela! i know its not very well advertised, but if you have someone to show you around you will have no problems at all!


thanks gr, we are not sure if we are headed to Venezuela yet. The gas prices are enticing though... If we end up heading that way we will hit you up! thanks for the offer
 

defrag4

Road Warrior
As usual a great read

You two realize you can't go home now:Wow1:...nope...never

There is something about the stories, the pictures...it's by far the best one:ylsmoke: on line

So you must continue around the world if you ever get to Ushuaia...this part of the story should be good for another year:Astrologist:...then across the water with you two

Safe travels to you:victory:


thanks bansil, we hope to continue around the world... need to save a little more money first ;)
 

defrag4

Road Warrior
Purely awesome, guys.

See everyone... you are able to go to "dangerous" areas and not get machete'd up by the locals!

Can't wait to see what Nicaragua has in store for you! I think you guys will love it there! Changes in Latitudes, changes in attitudes.

Life would be boring without the locals, might as well stay home!
 

defrag4

Road Warrior
I hate the police of Latin America, always searching for money, in Colombia one time a police say me if don't give money he put me drugs in my bag a take me to the jail! of course is lie he only wanna money, don't be afraid and never show you nervous, maybe they let you go or have to pay a few money.

for example if they ask 30 dollars give only 10, this type of police are so pathetic you can ask for a discount jajaja

lol thanks for the tips jimny!
 

gr1910

Observer
thanks gr, we are not sure if we are headed to Venezuela yet. The gas prices are enticing though... If we end up heading that way we will hit you up! thanks for the offer

the black market exchange rate is also very high right now... so everything is relatively cheap..! (about 9 bolivares per dolar)
google some of this stuff so you get exited on coming here !
Los Roques
Gran Sabana (a part of canaima national park, in the border with brasil, very camping friendly)
Angel Falls (tallest waterfall)
Aguaro Guariquito (national park)
morrocoy
 

defrag4

Road Warrior
Perhaps we were getting too big for our britches, perhaps we had one too many drinks the night before, and perhaps we did not bother to sit down and seriously study the Honduran/Nicaraguan border crossing. But here is a lesson on what NOT to do.

I went back and forth on sharing this story… Primarily out of amateur overlander shame and secondarily out of scaring the crap out of our parents. But here at Home on the Highway we like to share the UPS and DOWNS of the adventure. So here it is!

NOTE: There are no pictures to this post. During stressful times the last thing running through your mind is, “OH I SHOULD SNAP A PICTURE!” Sadly, once you look back these are the times you wish you had documented it via photos.
We arrived at the “El Espino” border from Honduras into Nicaragua. We had glanced over some border crossing info the night before but feeling confident enough with our Spanish and our prior border crossing experience we did not bother to study. We roughly calculated it would cost around $50 to complete the crossing and had that amount in Honduran Lempiras. Mistake #1. ALWAYS CARRY EXTRA CASH AND CLOSELY RESEARCH FEES BEFORE HAND

We arrive to the frontier road and find a chain strung across it. A government official sits lazily in an old run-down shack nearby. We are instantly bombarded by touts (border helpers) but we are prepared for this and ignore them. I grab our paperwork and make a beeline to the government shack.

I hand over our paperwork over to the government official to check it out, he, in turn, immediately hands it over to some random dude in a T-Shirt who proceeds to run off with it. Mistake #2 NEVER LET YOUR PAPERWORK OUT OF SIGHT

I ask the government official, “What the hell?”

Government official explains that I must to use this guy to get the process done…

Sensing the worst, I immediately run after him to find our paperwork. I find him in a another dirt-floor shack that has been rigged up with a copy machine. T-Shirt guy is happily making copies of all our paperwork.

I demand it all back from him, he refuses explaining that he is the official in charge of this process. Not exactly wanting to get into a brawl at the border… I reluctantly pay the copy man $5! for a fistful of copies and we go back to government official in the shack whom I apparently need to get a stamp from to cancel my Honduran import permit to move on with the border crossing process.

The entire time I am yelling about getting my damn paperwork back, so now T-Shirt guy and government official are both perturbed that this gringo is rocking the boat. They start running a scam demanding some bull**** receipt we were supposed to have from purchasing the original car import permit into Honduras over 3 weeks ago.

I told them we received no receipt and obviously we have paid since we had a legitimate car import permit.

They explained that if I did not have the original receipt then I would have to pay again.... $40 (Originally it was $25 when I paid crossing into Honduras from Guatemala…)

Realizing we are now deep into scam territory I start some scamming of my own…
I explain… “Ummm... OK I am happy to pay for the new receipt but I do not have enough cash right now.”

I told the government employee that I needed his official stamp to move on with the process, to the next country where I could use an ATM. He reluctantly agrees and stamps our paperwork. He tells his T-shirt buddy to stay with us to make sure I come back and pay him. Great… a new friend!

I jump back in the truck, Lauren who has been listening to all this going down, gives me the “What the hell are you doing!?” look…

T-Shirt guy runs ahead of the truck with our paperwork. By the time I catch up with him he has had our passports stamped out of Honduras (I pay his friend $10 in bribes... for this) It is normally free and I know this but I am all flustered and not thinking clearly at the time.

After checking out our passports T-shirt guy goes to check the car import permit out of Honduras. For this he actually did come in handy since the office was closed for lunch, I guess he knows the people that work there since he banged on the door and someone came and got him. They went inside for a few minutes and came back with our stuff. The import official wanted a bribe as well, Worrying about my dwindling bankroll, I told him I didn't have enough money but would come back later to pay...

We were now officially checked out of Honduras (Owing at least $60 in back-pay bribes) but now needed to check into Nicaragua.
At this point I now have T-shirt guy and 3 other touts following me around like sharks. I have screwed up. I am now a mark...

To enter into Nicaragua you are required to purchase car insurance and pay a per/person check-in visa fee. I needed to change my Honduran Lempiras into Nicaraguan Cordobas (Again, We did not check the exchange rate.. and lost about $5 in this process)
I pay the Nicaraguan customs guy for our visa stamps. He was actually very friendly and yelled at the touts to leave us alone.

We get our passports stamped and now our bodies are official in Nicaragua but the truck is still in limbo stuck between the 2 countries.

We need to buy insurance and get it inspected by customs to get the truck legally into the country.

Problem is after all Nicaraguan entry-fees, various bribes, and getting screwed on the exchange rate now we REALLY are tapped out of cash.

We do not have enough money to buy insurance AKA We cannot drive into Nicaragua.

This is when 3rd world shadiness comes in handy. I search around for a dude who sells insurance who also happens to know the Nicaraguan customs guy. I explain to him I do not have enough cash to buy insurance or pay for customs inspection. I need to get into Nicaragua to use an ATM and if he could help me I would pay him for his services.
So shady insurance guy writes us up an insurance policy and gets his customs friend to inspect my truck.

I tell shady insurance guy and customs guy that I will pay them for the insurance policy and bribes once I get some money.
OK. So now we have a Nicaraguan insurance policy, the truck is inspected and signed off by Nicaraguan customs. Our passports are officially stamped into Nicaragua. I have a long-line of people who are demanding payment for their “services”. Everyone involved is pissed off and I still have no money.

I talk with Shady insurance guy and he assures the angry mob (lead by damn T-Shirt guy from Honduras!) that he will go with me to the ATM and come back with money for everyone. He wants me to go on his motorcycle into town and leave my truck at the border.

I say “Screw that, You get in my truck and we will go into town together”

Lauren who is all kinds of pissed off at me and this whole situation now has to climb in the back and squeeze between all of our crap. The shady insurance guy gets in the front-seat of the 4Runner and we drive into Nicaragua...

We are are now driving in Nicaragua, the closet town with an ATM is about 20 miles away. Lauren and I are talking in English to each other trying to figure out if we are 100% legit in Nicaragua. I am wondering if maybe we need some other paperwork at the border.

We determine we do not need anything. If we were to kick this dude out of the car we would be 100% legal and all those other border scammers could go pound sand.

Now Shady Insurance guy was really the only dude who really helped me out, he fronted the $12 for insurance out of his own pocket. I did not want to screw him over completely.

We finally get to the ATM. I pull out cash, jump back in the truck and drive back down the road. We are headed back to the border. Shady insurance guy is totaling up all the money I owe the other scammers, It totaled up to $85, plus $12 for insurance.
Somewhere in between the border and the town I pull over the truck. Give the guy $20 and tell him to get out. He gives me a confused look and starts asking for more money.

I tell him that is all he is getting. He argues for a bit but then gives up and gets out of the truck.

We are finally 100% legal and alone in Nicaragua.

What a friggin' day.
 

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