Rough Start

Well i´d like to say that the start to our drive home has been awesome but that would be a lie.  We left Playas Del Coco early on the morning of the 25th and got to the Nicaragua border without any problems.  We were bombarded with people trying to help us and after spending a few hours at the border we shot out the other side thankful the day´s ordeal was over.  We went to put our Ipod on and noticed it was missing..... The guy who was helping us stole it without either of us noticing until he was gone.  Great start hey.  Note, never let the guys in your vehicle, we felt like idiots afterwards.  Our plan for the day was to go to Omotepe Island on lake Nicaragua. We were told by several people that there was one functional ATM on Omotepe which we tried to use unsucessfully..... meaning we had just enough money to get back off the island without seeing anything.  Great.  The worst is now over though.  We left and pushed on to Granada where we ate dinner, then went to Laguna de Apollo for the night.  We were planning on staying at the Monkey Hut which was the only affordable place on the lake but they were booked up for the night. Fantastic.  We went to a better (more expensive) hotel down the street called Selva Azul and after explaining our days tribulations the owner Tim showed us an unbelievable room with a private pool overlooking the lake.  We thought that it would be way too much but he gave us a great deal so we stayed 3 days, which was perfect.  We got professional massages down by the lake and really enjoyed the peaceful seclusion of the community. 

Next we crossed two borderes in one day, Honduras and El Salvador.  Crossing into Honduras went pretty smooth, except we ran out of money, so we paid our border assistants in Lizano Sauce, Coffee, and Cervezas. We are pretty sure we paid ¨tourist prices¨, becuase it cost alot more than we expected. We decided to get another helper for the El Salvador border, since they usually only cost $5to $10 and make the process alot easier. We found a nice guy who spoke perfect english to help us out. Everything went perfectly fine, until he asked us to pay him upwards of $70!!!! He said that he had personally paid off tips to the officials at the border in order to save us time, however the whole process still took the average 3 hours it always does.  When we finally, unhappily, handed over $40 he made us feel like garbage and was very ungrateful.  He also tried to tell us that if we gave him another $35 we wouldn´t have to pay anything to enter Guatemala (he explained that he would put us in the computer system as having paid already to save us time when we left), but considering we were in El Salvador, which is a completely different system than Guatemala, it made no sense and he sure wasn´t happy with us declining his oh so generous offer to ¨help us out¨. We have now decided that the help is not worth it. We can do it ourselves, and even if it takes a bit longer we wont end up walking away feeling disrespected, and completely taken advantage of.

We are on the Costa Balsamo, a string of beaches and surf towns along the pacific coast of El Salvador. We are planning on relaxing here for 4 or 5 days, which is much needed after our trip so far! Next we will be heading back into Guatemala, to Antigua. We will try to update again then.

Hasta Luego,

Chris and Nat