Border Crossing 4

We left Armie, left the coast and our time was up here so had to leave El Salvador and what a place! For a country with such a bad reputation (it was top of the world's murder hotspot for years) and such difficulty times only recently (100 years civil and guerrilla wars) it has been such an amazing place to travel through. Currently an easy favourite in Central America. The people from start to finish had been wonderful, friendly, curious, welcoming and happy. Street food always easy from pupusa to yucca; and some of the best volcanoes, lakes, mountains and beaches around. It's a place we really loved. Thank you El Sal!

We had a big push on our hands to get to the northern border from the south coast. After bypassing the capital we found a garage to get new tyres and who also checked our brakes before the endless mountain roads of Guatemala. After a confusing musical tyres we left with all the right ones in the right places and the knowledge our brakes had seen much better days! But we knew that from the insistent squeaking on entrance to every town. That was another days problem as the parts weren't available.

En route we stopped in to an ancient Maya village that had been buried and perfectly preserved by lava and ash. So interesting to see everyday life as opposed to the kings and lords of the pyramid city ruins. On again North we arrived to our last town, Metapan, and found a restaurant with a view to let us camp out for the night. We decided to spend one last day in the country and drove 10kms into a mountain National Park. Really testing those new tyres and old brakes out! All in all a nice relaxing day in the hills and the afternoon at an old Hacienda property with a gorgeous garden on the river. Being our last night, we wanted to go for dinner on the plaza. Eyed a snazzy burger place, checked they did a veggie option then crossed to a café/bar with views of the town, plaza and mountains to reminisce the last month. Back to the burger bar, we ordered the two veggie burgers and curly fries, such a treat, for them to come out with two steak patties in each!! Awesome. Back to the café with a view for rice and beans!

The morning border run was a breeze, much as the last two, out of one and into another, no questions asked. The highlight was when we were asked to pay import fees for Franky but they had no facilities to take a payment so we had to pace into Guatemala on foot and ask a shop down the road who rudely did it for a receipt

and a charge. But the border staff again where all lovely and helpful.
We still had a long drive ahead but some sights to see all along the way and being that we were taking a very, very scenic route to the Méxican Pacific, we planned to break drives to about 3hrs a day. Franky was well due a service and new brakes so what better than a week round trip to the Ancient Maya capital. We toyed with the idea of the easy route, via the current capital for repairs while we flew to the other side of the country. But we chose the adventure gamble!

After a couple of hours of bad roads, they got a little better as we joined the main highway. A quick stop in a 'picturesque pueblo' for a free museum full of dinosaur bones and ancient crockery, including a whole giant sloth skeleton 3m tall! The second pit stop we detoured slightly left (finding that Guatemala was bigger than it looked after 20km 'just down the road') and after a police checkpoint pulling us over just to ask if we had a cold fizzy drink, we ended up at a chilled out locals river hangout to escape the afternoon heat ourselves and neck a cold one, ¡Bienvenidos a Guatemala!