Border Crossing
Crossing borders can be difficult. Crossing them with a vehicle you can be strangled to death by red tape. On average you will have to visit 5 different buildings per crossing. Shell out money at each place, fill out forms, get stamps and stickers wait in long lines out in the heat. Through the whole experience you will wonder how you could have arrived on everybody’s first day, since nobody will know for sure what you need done.
When we crossed from Guatemala to Honduras we came to large new looking facility. It was a welcome sight, maybe this would be over quickly. We filled out some papers and our passports were stamped in minutes. Next came the permit for driving in Honduras. Apparently the office was down the road and we would have to be escorted there. So a guy who spoke about 3 words of English gets on the back of my bike to show us where to go. We end up driving an hour to Cortez, Honduras where they issue permits. But when we get there the office is closed for the day.
Our helpful friend wants to keep our passports and original titles for our bikes, to make sure we don’t skip town without the permit. After talking him out of that idea we stayed in a hotel for the night, and were back at the office bight and early. 6 painful hours later we were back on the road. Time stuck waiting for a permit: 30 hours.
Yesterday we left Nicaragua for ecotourism friendly Costa Rica, if any country down here would have the system streamlined it would be Costa Rica. But in the fifth building we came to the computers were broken, and some of the truckers trying to get through had been there for 6 hours. With the computers down there was no way for them to do it manually.
Mitch and I tried just going for it, but got stopped at a checkpoint and escorted back. After a few hours the computers came back online and people started to move very slowly. The girl typing in the information must have been going at about 6 or 7 words per minute. We were stuck there for 8 hours, didn’t get out until after dark, and it had started to rain. We had to do 15 miles in the rain and dark to make it to the next town.
Hassles like this make miss the chicken bus.
--Ryan
When we crossed from Guatemala to Honduras we came to large new looking facility. It was a welcome sight, maybe this would be over quickly. We filled out some papers and our passports were stamped in minutes. Next came the permit for driving in Honduras. Apparently the office was down the road and we would have to be escorted there. So a guy who spoke about 3 words of English gets on the back of my bike to show us where to go. We end up driving an hour to Cortez, Honduras where they issue permits. But when we get there the office is closed for the day.
Our helpful friend wants to keep our passports and original titles for our bikes, to make sure we don’t skip town without the permit. After talking him out of that idea we stayed in a hotel for the night, and were back at the office bight and early. 6 painful hours later we were back on the road. Time stuck waiting for a permit: 30 hours.
Yesterday we left Nicaragua for ecotourism friendly Costa Rica, if any country down here would have the system streamlined it would be Costa Rica. But in the fifth building we came to the computers were broken, and some of the truckers trying to get through had been there for 6 hours. With the computers down there was no way for them to do it manually.
Mitch and I tried just going for it, but got stopped at a checkpoint and escorted back. After a few hours the computers came back online and people started to move very slowly. The girl typing in the information must have been going at about 6 or 7 words per minute. We were stuck there for 8 hours, didn’t get out until after dark, and it had started to rain. We had to do 15 miles in the rain and dark to make it to the next town.
Hassles like this make miss the chicken bus.
--Ryan
Labels: adventure, bmw r1200gs, border crossing, costa rica, guatemala, honduras, kawasaki klr650, motorcycle, nicaragua, panamerican highway, passports, travel
posted by Half-Throttle at
4:06 PM
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