Soon after entering Honduras, we got a flat tire. We jumped out to fix it and were immediately surrounded by kids who wanted to help us. After fixing the flat, we drove on and arrived at the Honduras, El Salvador border about mid-afternoon.

        As we arrived, we could see trucks backed up for miles on both sides of the narrow two lane Highway and our side had been completely blocked with trucks all heading north. We pulled over to the side of the road to sit and wait. I decided to walk up to the border crossing to see what the problem was and found that the border had been chained off and nothing was moving in either direction. As I walked back, I talked to some of the truckers and they figured it would take a day before we could get through.

        After about a half hour, some soldiers arrived and had the trucks that were blocking our lane back up so the south bound traffic could get through. After about an hour, the south bound traffic started to move but, by this time, a "guide" had latched onto us. He took the papers we received on entering the country and wandered off to some unofficial looking place. We joined a line of cars heading towards the border but ended up on the wrong side of the barrier. We backed up and promptly ended up behind the trucks again. Our guide found us and directed us down an almost impassable road, through a little village and back to the other side of the customs office with the bridge crossing over to El Salvador stretched out in front of us. After the guide returned from the Honduras Customs, he instructed me to follow him across the bridge to the El Salvador customs where he introduced me to another guide.

        We started with the passport check and paying the fee. Then he collected all the papers for the car and we walked back to the car to have Dad fill out the forms while the guide kept asking for money. I was reluctant to give him money so I waited till we returned to the customs office with all the paper work and paid the fee there. It was then I figured out that the more you paid, the faster the paper work got done. It was obvious that the people doing the paper work were swamped by all the trucks so the more money you paid the quicker your paper work got to the top of the pile. When I rode through on my bike, I did not have to deal with all this paper work and bribes

        When we finally finished the paper work on the Honduras side, Dad drove the car over the bridge to the El Salvador side and parked the car for another long wait. We seemed to have lost the guide and he had not been paid. As it was getting dark, some woman from the customs office came over to check the car and get the VIN number but she searched in vain for the engine block number, eventually giving up in frustration. While we waited, I figured out where the number was from a repair manual and, with the help of some soldiers and their flashlights, we found the number but, by this time, the authorities were no longer interested. We bought some food in a store and cooked some supper while we continued to wait. I finally found the guide again who was just waiting for our paper work to be done so he could go home. We decided to pay him so he could leave and, we continued waiting. When the paper work was finally done, we still had to wait for the trucks and buses to clear so we can get on the Highway.

        We decided to take the road along the coast and just as we approached La Union, the brakes gave way again. We set up camp at the side of the road.

        On Sunday, December 15, we headed into town to find a repair shop. We found a road-side tire repair shop and asked them to fix the flat tire. I then inquired if there was anywhere we could get the brake line fixed and they offered to do it themselves. They headed off to find a proper brake line and, after about 20 minutes, they returned with a steel brake line and did the repair job. We paid them and were on our way. I took over the driving as we approached San Salvador as I had some idea as to how to get around the city. I drove to Rubidia's neighborhood, bought a phone card, found a phone and called her and, by some miracle, found her at home. She agreed to come and meet us and 20 minutes later, she showed up. We drove back to her house and had a hearty lunch as I struggled in Spanish to have a conversation. She found it impossible to believe that anyone would travel as much as we had. After lunch, we went to the hotel where I had stayed on my trip down. Rubidia went shopping while Dad and I cleaned up and had a rest. We took the bike off the car and put it in the Hotel room and, after about an hour, Rubidia returned. We drove to a big, fancy mall, had supper and then went to a movie.

        In the morning, we had breakfast in our room and then a second breakfast from the hotel. The muffler on the car had been roaring since Panama so we decided to try and get it fixed. One of the employees at the hotel came with us to show us a cheap place to get the muffler fixed. They quickly welded on a new piece of exhaust pipe and we were on our way. We drove down the same road that I had traveled on to San Salvador. We soon reached the Guatemalan border, gave the El Salvador customs officer some papers and crossed over to the Guatemalan Customs. It was the usual paper work and run around but it seemed to go a bit smoother.

        On December 16, after crossing the Guatemala border, we took the same Highway to Guatemala City that I had traveled on with my bike. We stopped for lunch at the same lookout I had been for a good view of the city. After driving through the city, we started heading into the higher mountains where the natives seemed to have retained some of their traditional ways. The higher we got and the closer we came to Quezaltenango, the greater was the native presence. A lot of natives were walking on the Highway towards corn fields where they harvested the corn manually either to sell or to eat. At some points along the way, the mountains soar to 3670 meters (12,000 feet) and we climbed above the clouds and then descend down into the fog. That evening, we found a quarry site where we camped for the night hidden from the Highway.