We arrived in the colonial town of Granada, Nicaragua and were looking forward to visiting our friends Greg & Karen and their two daughters Daniela and Emma.  We had some time to kill before they were expecting us so Aaron decided to find a welder to create a stand for his new small motor.  There was a tiny hair “salon” right next to the welder so I got a much needed haircut.  It consisted of a large gold framed mirror on a tiny table underneath a tin roof.  There were only three walls so it was open to the welders working in the dirt lot right next to us.  While Aaron waited for the guys to start his project he watched them build a gate.  He realized there was a much easier way to build a stronger gate and offered to show them how.  (Read on …)

The night before crossing the border from El Salvador into Honduras we stayed at a gas station about 45 minutes away from the border. We got up early and were at the El Amatillo border crossing at 8:15 a.m. It was a good thing too, since it was the worst border crossing we had experienced so far; we didn’t leave until 1:30 p.m.! The border “helpers” were the most persistent they have ever been hanging on the RV and Aaron was eventually forced to yell at the top of his lungs several times to convince them we did not need their assistance. They are men with ID tags hanging around their necks “confirming” they are legit and trying to sell their services at the border to help people get through. We speak Spanish and have never used one until we crossed into El Salvador, and even then it was proven that we shouldn’t have. (Read on …)

We left Panajachel on schedule at 7:30 on the road we had already driven on our bike ride around the lake.  There were lots of piles of rocks in the road (some from construction, others from rock slides), but the traffic was light so early in the morning and we had no problems.  We bid adieu to the beautiful Lago de Atitlan and made our way onto uncharted territory.  We passed several volcanoes along the way which we believe to be the same ones we could see from the city of Antigua a month before.  One of them appeared to have steam coming out the top, so we stopped for a picture and let the brakes cool.  (Read on …)