This trip has taking a lot of research and organising. There is no way we would have been able to do it without the internet. Other peoples blogs and websites have helped us so much and we hope we can do the same. We will post as much information as possible as we go along. Here are a few websites that we have used so far.
http://www.vwvagabonds.com
http://www.onamissionfromdog.com
http://www.99daystopanama.com
This is the website for the French couple who are travelling with their four kids on a similar trip to ours. We met them in Tela, Honduras and they are such an amazing family. Their son Liam was diagnosed with leukemia when he was three and went through three years of operations and treatment. All the time they promised him if he got better they would travel the world. So when he got better they sold their house in Austin, bought and RV and have been on the road for six months. Please check out their website, it such a heart warming story and you can also subscribe to it to help them along the way.
www.milesofhope.net
LANGUAGE SCOOL GUATEMALA
We loved the language school we did in Todos Santos, Guatemala. Our teacher was excellent and Lucas the coordinator is great with helping to organise family stays and hikes. A lot of the children in Todos Santos are illiterate and their families cannot afford to send them to school. This school gives a percentage of your fees back to the community. Also, if you are interested in sponsering a child in Todos Santos to go to school, please contact the school at the website below. It costs about $200 to send a child to all three levels of education and it would be greatly appreciated.
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~kakenned/
Email: Hispanomaya@hotmail.com
BORDER CROSSINGS WITH A VAN AND A DOG
For the van I have brought many color copies of the original title. We have International Driving Permits which we got at an AAA office in Chicago. For our dog Francie, I had got all the revelant forms from a website called www.pettravel.com. We made four visits to a vet in Phoenix to have all the paperwork filled out and signed. We also have several copies of his rabies cert and vaccination cert plus a USDA International Health Certificate.
USA TO CANADA: We weren't asked for any documentation regarding the van or the dog. Our passports were the only thing we needed to show. Because we were going to be travelling for a few months there we did have to prove we had enough money to support ourselves. The border official allowed us to go online on her computer and show her our bank balance. Our American insurance was valid in Canada.
CANADA TO USA: We just had to show Francie's rabies certificate and our passports.
USA TO MEXICO: We crossed into Mexico at Nogales. We went to an insurance office just off the main highway before making the turn for the border (follow the truck route). There are plenty of insurance offices signposted as you approach the border. It cost $61 for 24 days, liability only. At the border, we showed our passports and for $22 each we were given a 90 day visa. The vehicle permit cost $50. We had to show the title of the van and insurance. There are copy machines at the border office to make the copies required. The permit is good for 10 years. We didn't want a 10 year one but this is the only permit they would sell us. I asked where I was to go with Francie's paperwork and they said it wasn't necessary. Nobody even came out to look at the dog or the van.
MEXICO TO GUATEMALA: We crossed into Guatemala at La Mesilla. On the Mexican side we had to go the immigration office and hand in our tourist permits. They stamped our passports to prove we have left the country. Be sure to do this or the Guatemalan officials will send you back. Then at the Guatemalan border they sprayed the wheels of the van with disinfectant and charged us about $5. I gave the official Francie's paperwork. He barely looked at it and just kept a copy of the vaccination warranty cert. Then we went to the immigration office and handed in our passports. We got 90 day visa with no charge. Next door was the vehicle permit office. We gave in the title of the van and our passports. The permit was $4 for a year. There was no insurance office at the border or in Huehuetenango. Apparently it is not illegal to not have insurance in Guatemala. However we did find a bank in Xela called Seguro G&T. They gave us 3 months insurance for all of Central America except for Panama for $140. It's liability only but worth having just in case we did get into an accident.
GUATEMALA TO EL SALVADOR: We crossed the border into El Salvador at Cd. Pedro de Alvarado. An official stamped the Guatemala vehicle permit and then we went to immigration with our passports. The stamp for Guatemala is actually good for El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua as well so the lady said we could go ahead to the El Salvador side. When we drove there we had to get a new vehicle permit and were told that we needed to go back to the Guatemala side and get that permit finalized. Apparently one stamp wasn’t enough, they wanted two stamps! So back we had to go and get another stamp on the permit, drive back to the El Salvador side and then we got landed with the slowest official ever there. It took three hours in total to get our new vehicle permit and off we went. Again, they didn’t even ask for Francie’s paperwork. The permit was free but we had to pay $5 at the checkpoint before we left.
EL SALVADOR TO HONDURAS: We crossed into Honduras at El Poy. As like all the other borders we had to surrender our current vehicle permit for El Salvador and get a new one for Honduras. Thankfully both offices were in the same building. However, we got there at 11am and everyone goes on lunch at 12pm for supposedly an hour but it was really two hours. So we had to wait three hours for them to process the new permit. The permit cost $38 and it was $3 each to check our passports at immigration for the Guatemalan stamp. For the first time ever a quarantine official for El Salvador asked for Francie’s paperwork. I showed him everything and he stamped it all and took a few copies. We thought we were done but then a quarantine official from the Honduran side came over to look at the paperwork. I had everything for him but he still insisted that we needed to get a transit permit for Francie. Of course he couldn’t do it there and he said we would have to go to one of the international airports! Then we had to wait another hour while he typed up a bullshit compromise letter to allow us to enter the country with Francie.
We didn’t want to go to the capital city so we drove to San Pedro Sula afew days later, the second biggest city in the country. The airport was outside the city and wasn’t too difficult to find. Instead of trying to struggle with our Spanish to explain what we needed we just walked right into the airport with Francie. With a big dog with us it wasn’t hard for them to understand what we were there for. A cop brought us down to the quarantine official who handed us a list of vets telephone numbers that we needed to call. A woman at the Rent-a -Car desk spoke English and made the call for us. We thought the vet was in the airport but it turns out she had to call a few different vets in the area until she found one that was available to come out. We didn’t really understand why we needed a vet but just went along with it all to try and get it sorted as quickly as possible. The vet arrived after and hour and half. He went in the back with the quarantine guy for a few minutes and when he came back out the first thing he asked us was if we wanted to know how much it would cost. We said yes and he said $132 and we said get lost. It was obvious he had cooked up the price with the official. Apparently he needed to examine Francie in order for us to get the permit. We said no thanks that our dog was perfectly healthy. Then he wanted $35 for his taxi fare back to his clinic. After a lot of arguing the vet eventually got pissed off and left in his car I presume. We were left with the quarantine official then who said we could stay in the country for five days with Francie but he wouldn’t give us back the paperwork we had got at the border. He walked off and Jimmy took after him through the security gates and tried to get his name but he wouldn’t tell him. He tried to cover his badge number too but Jimmy got it in time. The next day we went to the tourist police in Tela and told them all that happened. They said we didn't need a permit for Francie so hopefully it will be OK when we are leaving at the border.
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