For our first trip we decided to go to Belize. It's the closest, and supposedly easiest, country for these trips. Most people take a ferry there, making the trip not that long. But the days we have off from school didn't line up with the Honduras ferry schedule, so we would have had to first drive to Guatemala, leave our car there (there's no vehicle ferry), pay for 6 of us to take the ferry and then be stuck without a car in Belize. So instead we opted for . . . The Central American Road Trip!
Now, those of you who know me, know that I love a good road trip. The kids and I drove almost 4,000 miles last summer, and I loved it! So, what's a measly 800 miles, especially with two drivers? So we made our plans. For the most part, our plans worked out. But there were plenty of opportunities to prove the verse, "The mind of man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps."
We originally thought it would be a 9-12 hour drive, based on Google Maps' estimate plus figuring in the likelihood of bad roads, border crossing delays, highway robbery, and the like. Two days before leaving, Heath was fortunate enough to find out that Google's recommended route included a non-legal border crossing! There's only one place between Guatemala and Belize where we could cross legally and get our passports stamped (which was the entire purpose of the trip). So with the new route, the estimate became 12+ hours, with no time left for bad roads, border crossings, or robbery.
We had paper directions printed out, but most roads in CA don't have names, so the directions said "turn left" or "turn right", but that's as helpful as it got. We didn't think about our phones early enough to get international cellular service activated, so once we left Honduras we only had phone help if we were near a wifi signal. But hey, my sister and I at the ages of 14 and 18, drove from Illinois to Oregon by ourselves in the days when no one had cell phones, and we thought nothing of that. Surely this little trip would be fine. AND...did you know there's a GPS app you can use even if you don't have cell or wifi? My genius husband found that, and it's good he did or we would probably still be lost somewhere in the mountains of Guatemala!
We left Siguatepeque at 5:20am. It's not really safe to drive at night in CA, because of crime as much as because of the immense potholes and the unmarked speed bumps at random places meant to demolish the vehicle of any unsuspecting drivers. The sun sets around 6, so we set out on a mission . . . no time to stop and smell the roses . . .or, uh, palm trees.
The drive out of Honduras was uneventful. Beautiful scenery coming through the mountains, no problems with anything. We made good time to the border, and managed to go through the emigration process and get officially out of Honduras with no bribes, and no problems with removing ourselves or our vehicle. Thank the Lord! We crossed into Guatemala and were looking for the Immigration Office on their side of the border, but we didn't see anything. Did we miss it? Are we illegal immigrants? Will they let us back into Honduras? These were the thoughts running through our mind for about 10 miles, until finally we saw a tiny little cement building, about the size of our living room, and a little 10" rusted and faded sign saying "Immigration." Wow. Good thing we didn't blink! We stopped and took care of getting our passports stamped and paying a small entrance fee. We didn't have any Guatemalan money, so the man had to go outside and ask his friends if anyone had Honduran Lempira so he could give us change. Then we were on our way again. Things were going great!
Shortly after noon, about a third of the way through Guatemala, the traffic stopped. There are no super highways, and most roads are only one lane in each direction, so we didn't think this was so unusual. However, when people started turning off their engines and getting out and walking around we got slightly concerned. We had a deadline and hundreds of miles to go before dark! This was unacceptable!!! Now if something like this happened at home, we would probably just take a different route. But according to the GPS there was no other route! So we sat there for about 4 hours, debating whether to keep waiting or to try to find a hotel. Of course, before we left I had researched our hotels and had chosen safe, somewhat comfortable ones. Finding a random hotel by driving around the area was not in my plans! But by about 4:30 we realized there was no other option unless we wanted to spend the night in our car. So we back-tracked about an hour and managed to find a hotel that looked decent. It was tolerable, but it turned out to be the most expensive and worst quality of our whole trip! We had dinner, and squeezed our family into a room that slept five. Good thing our girls are small enough to share a twin bed. The stay was mostly uneventful, except for the fireworks. Fireworks are a big thing here. People set off home-made ones for every occasion, so we frequently hear them in the middle of the night and usually sleep through them now. However, this night in Guatemala, I'm pretty sure the next-door neighbors were firing off a cannon! It happened at least three times . . . just as we started to doze off into sleep, BOOM! An explosion that almost shook the building jolted us awake. 20-30 minutes would go by, and then BOOM! Again. Not the most comforting feeling when sleeping in a strange place.
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| stuck for 4 hours; at least we had movies to watch! |
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| cozy quarters at the first hotel |
Just after crossing the border we stopped at a Mayan ruins site called Xunantunich. First we drove the car onto a little hand-cranked ferry to cross the river. The site consisted of HUGE structures that had been built by hand more than a thousand years ago. Very impressive. And there were no safety rules. If we had similar things in the States they would have been blocked off, glassed in, law-suit proofed. But here . . . climb to your heart's content! So we did! From the top of the biggest building it was an impressive view. Beautiful! And we managed to make it back down with all four of our children. Success!
The rest of drive was uneventful. Heath did all the driving, and he became very good at noticing the unmarked speed bumps, avoiding dogs and pigs and cows and people that were in the road, and not hitting any of the cars passing on blind curves. We made it to our lodging--Jungle Jeanie's by the Sea. It's a collection of little cabins in the jungle, right on the shore of the Caribbean Sea. Very cute. Other than it being extremely hot and humid and mosquito-ey, and the water being filled with seaweed, it was a nice place to stay. The kids had a wonderful two days of swimming and kayaking. 
We also took a little mini hike through the jungle. Supposedly jaguars and monkeys inhabit the area. We didn't see any live animals (well, unless you count the swarms of mosquitoes), but we did see a footprint that we're pretty sure was from a jaguar. It was fun to see all these new places, and we all enjoyed the break from the routine.
On the way back we had already planned to stay a night in Guatemala. So we went to our pre-planned hotel, which was a very neat place to stay. It's not a hotel really, but a collection of rooms and cabins. There was no AC here, but they did give us a fan and mosquito nets. The food was delicious here and reasonably priced, so that was quite a blessing. We were going to take a hike up a mountain there, but the mosquitoes were more than I could take...even after dousing myself in OFF. Heath and Jesse started to go on while the rest of us turned back, but soon the trail was just a mud path, going steeply upward, surrounded by jungle plants probably hiding creatures from Jurassic Park. And it was getting dark soon, so they decided to come back too.
The next day we drove back without any problems. The kids were excellent travelers, thanks to audio theater CDs of Lord of the Rings and Narnia. It was good to get back "home" after being on the road. Though not everything went according to my plans, God protected us from many potential dangers and gave us a mostly-enjoyable time. And here we are, ready to start the next three months, with new stamps in our passports and new memories in our hearts.
