Republica del Salvador. Santa Tecla. [but just for a while].

The very next morning, or whatever it was, due to my jet lag, my mate Antonio Blanco Rodriguez [Tony] woke me up very early. Around 6-7 am. He had a new watercraft he just bought and wanted to try it, in a river called Rio Dulce in Guatemala. A 'Sea-Doo 1500cc', with over 200 HP. He was considering also to buy a boat there and maybe a property too, so he wanted to do some early research and of course, have fun with the watercraft.

At least it would be very handy for us to access to hidden places with it.

I warned him that was one of the main things to me on the trip.

No tourists, no all-included huge resorts, no .........fuck that!

http://www.seadoo.com

Guatemala is on the border with El Salvador, and has a little part of the country facing the Caribbean, 'The Izabal Department'.

Antonio Blanco Rodriguez - Tony's plan was to go all the way through 'Lago Izabal' then to 'El Golfete' with the watercraft and face the Atlantic in 'Livingstone' trying to find the best hidden beaches, or other local places where the tourists never goes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/República_de_El_Salvador

Just came to El Salvador and I’m already leaving.

Great.

My friend told me the countries in Central America are very very small. El Salvador, The only Central-American country with no Atlantic-Caribbean sea for example, is as small as most of the provinces here in Spain, so in 3 or 4 hours we could go any other country.

So we departed through the Pan-american motorway to 'La Hachadura' border in Guatemala driving through 'La Libertad department' and 'Acajutla'.
I have to say the roads/motorways in El Salvador are very very good, they have a very good reputation and to me looked much better than in some other countries, here in Europe.

But another different thing is the way they drive. I will explain about it later on.

Sea Doo Jetsky

My friend Antonio Blanco Rodriguez lives in El Salvador

I felt a bit awkard, maybe even embarrased sometimes, with the 'Sea Doo' watercraft behind our car, to be honest. We drove in very very poor places, and you can imagine the expectation it did create amongst the wee little kids in the countryside small villages where we stopped or drove through.

It was like if they saw a Ferrari!

Mad

El Salvador-Guatemala Borders

We went through the border customs right over a bridge in 'La Hachadura', it was pretty fast, border police only asked for the watercraft papers.

Rio Dulce in 'Izabal Department' lake was our next step.

We only had to made a quick stop in Guatemala City, which is the capital, Tony had to do something for his work. I wouldnt take us more than a couple of hours. No problem at all to me, the more places I see the better it gets.

Fridge repair shop, I bet they do!

The landscape of Guatemala is pretty similar to that in El Salvador, and also like the other neighbouring countries I have to say. Beautiful green fields and lot of coconut and palm trees around everywhere.

I saw huge beautiful mountains, a thing I didn’t expect to see over there.

Also on the side roads there are lots of wee little shops with locals, and sometimes kids, selling coconuts, papayas, pineapples and all sort of exotic fruits for about 25-50 cents.

Another funny thing was that coaches and cars has Barça stickers everywhere!

Yes!

Barça!

Fruits are excellent in Central America, and very refreshing in the heat.

The mountains in Guatemala were stunning!

End of Part 2