Equipo Williams

We’re in the middle of a three-day, three-country border dash. When we made plans for the Central American leg of our trip in Cartagena, we realized that we didn’t have enough time to do everything we wanted and some things had to be cut. The result was that after two and a half weeks in Panama and Costa Rica, we needed to get from Costa Rica to western El Salvador in three days.

This isn’t too crazy, except that we’d have to drive through Nicaragua and Honduras get to El Salvador. We’ve gotten pretty decent at dealing with border formalities in Spanish, but it’s still a process: exit a country, cancel our temporary import permit for that country, enter a new country, answer their questions, get passport stamps, get vehicle inspected, get bags checked, get new import permit, buy vehicle insurance, then onward. The procedures and requirements are all a little different, so the night before a border crossing Jessie and I review the overlanding blogs and forums for tips. That way we can dream about border hassles the night before.

Central America also seems to have fees associated with things. When you fly these usually get rolled up in the price of the ticket, but at land borders you have to actually pay the entry and exit fees, and generate a long paper trail of tiny little receipts that have to be shown to the right person. These are usually small amounts: $3 per person to exit Nicaragua, $3 + $1 to enter Nicaragua (one dollar goes to the municipality, three to the national government, but it’s two transactions and two receipts), $5 road tax, and so on. It’s not a problem, it just requires going to a different window and doing another thing. I will say that the agents are usually very friendly and helpful, especially given our very basic Spanish.

We also have “border rules,” which basically means the kids are supposed to leave all their stuff packed up, not ask any questions, and generally only speak when spoken to. They… mostly do this. It’s a little embarrassing to be explaining the details of your vehicle to a customs agent while your kids are pushing each other around behind you, but generally Latin America is pretty understanding of children.

Syd did a short piece on his experience, but it seems that writing about borders is even more boring than crossing them. Here’s what he gave me:

Borders are boring 🙁 I just stand there and look at cameras. I mostly stand there. Me and my sister play chop sticks and we talk a lot. We just sit there sometimes. My dad gets really stressed. I saw at least 6 guys with guns today. Some have machine guns and some have big shotguns.

Sydney

Yeah. That’s about right. Chopsticks is a game they learned at camp but I’m pretty sure it’s solvable and Audrey seems to know some trick to always win. I’ve been getting better (I think) about being stressed. I think what really happens is that the kids smack each other, I yell at them, then they ask me why I’m stressed.

Border crossings aren’t very photo-friendly. The picture of the top is Costa Rican leaf-cutter ants.