Home on the Highway - San Francisco to Ushuaia, Argentina in an 87 4Runner

[defrag4]

We packed up our stuff from the “Omega Tours” in Pico Bonito and headed to town to stock up on supplies, gas, and cash. We were planning to drive out to the remote “Miskito Coast” and needed to be prepared for anything.

We load up the grocery cart with tons of food, water, beer etc. Hit the register and try to pay with our debit card. Lady tells me its not working for some reason… OK, try this one? Still not working… Great. OK Let me go pull some cash from the ATM.

ATM is not working either. Crap. We try Lauren’s card, same thing. Nada. “Please contact your bank” UGH. Worst case scenario as we now have no money, no food, and no phone to call to figure out what is going on.

We apologize to the clerk and abandon our cart full of crap in the store, luckily we were in a mall and figured we could find a payphone/internet café to call the bank and see what was up. We went out to the truck and pilfered our last few bits of change from the ashtray to pay for a call.

We find an internet café which is setup for international dialing, after messing around for 20 minutes trying to dial a 1800 number (If you have ever tried to use a phone outside the country you will understand!) we finally get through. Then we end up waiting on hold for 45 minutes…. Lauren and I start to wonder if we have enough change to cover this damn call.

Finally an exasperated man picks up the line, Before I get a chance to say anything he yells “THE VISA NETWORK IS DOWN! YOU CANT USE YOUR CARD!”

Oh. Looks like we weren't the only ones with problems….

It turns out while we were staring blankly at the grocery store clerk and then confusedly stumbling from ATM to ATM with no success. The entire VISA network in the states was taking a 45-minute coffee break.

We hung up the phone, walked out to the ATM, and tried again. The sweet whiiir of cash being queued up was like music to our ears.

Life is all about timing my friends… 10 minutes earlier we would have had no problems getting cash, 45 minutes later the same. We just happened to arrive at the perfectly incorrect time.

Overlanding ProTip: We have a stash of US currency in the truck for emergencies like this, however the store did not take U.S. money. We now keep a little stash of local currency in the truck as well. You never know when your card is going to crap out on you.

 

[defrag4]

Stocked up, fueled up, and ready for adventure! We hit the road to the Moskito coast.

The directions we had were shaky at best and we ended up taking a wrong turn into a small sketchy neighborhood. Before I got a chance to turn around we found ourselves smack in the middle of a police-checkpoint in this barrio.

The checkpoint was manned by 6 young fellas. They see us coming and pull me over. Young guy asks me the usual paperwork questions and then says he needs to search my truck... OK. We haven’t been asked to search our truck yet in Honduras so I thought it a bit odd.

Then he asks me to get out of the truck. Again odd, I haven't been asked to get out in quite some time either.

So I get out and he puts me up against the truck and gives me a crappy cursory pat-down. The first pat-down I have received since leaving the U.S. Obviously he wasn’t looking very hard since he doesn't notice I have a damn buck knife in my pocket. He starts asking me if I have drugs, where we are from, did we come here to buy drugs. We are conversing in spanish, I am telling him… No we are just lost, we are tourists bla bla blah.

He continues to search the truck, I roll down the rear-window, he opens the cooler and comes back around to the front of the truck. He then tells me “Having a cooler full of beer during Semana Santa is illegal...”

I say... Por Que? (Why?) and he says because the police say so...

So from this point on we know this guy is trying to take us for a bribe and we mentally shift gears.

As sick as it sounds… We have been preparing for this moment now for so long we are almost excited to get a chance to have a go at some corrupt cops. The game is a-foot!

He rechecks all of our papers and tells us our vehicle import papers are only good for Guatemala (which is bull****. Why would Honduran immigration give me an vehicle import document for Guatemala?) so I call him out on that in spanish. Surprised by our confidence. He moves on.

Then he says I need a front plate. I explain to him you do not need one in the United States and they do not issue you a front Honduran plate at the border, in spanish. He moves on again.

He starts saying I have drugs in the car, since I am from California and Californias love drugs! (I see our reputation precedes us…) I tell him we do not have any in spanish. He moves on.

The cop just keeps coming up random crap hoping we cave and just offer him cash. I keep calling him on his B.S. in spanish. He is almost smiling at this point, unable to keep the con alive and remain serious.

Eventually he just straight up starts asking for a bribe/regalo (gift). That is when we start playing the fool and immediately forget all the spanish we know….

Everything he asks now is met with a "no entiendo"(I dont understand)

He asks Lauren something, she replies “No entiendo”

We go back and forth for 10 more minutes with him asking me for a regalo and me saying “no entiendo”and talking to him about random nonsense in rapid fire english which really confuses him.

He keeps saying in frustration “You don’t understand my language!?”. Guess he forgot about the 1st half of our conversation that took place entirely in spanish…

Eventually he calls his buddy over who just tells him to knock it off. Young Cop #2 takes our paperwork from Young Cop #1 hands it to me and tells us to get going.

Home on the Highway-1 Honduran Corrupt Cop-0

While every case dealing with the police is different…we have found, as have most others, if you play along with the cop long enough, waste their time, or just downright confuse them. You can get out of most bribery incidents without paying a nickel.

NOTE: This was our first bribe attempt in over 5 months of travel and 20,000+ miles covered. The majority of police/military we have encountered have been friendly and helpful.

PS: He never did ask about our reflective triangles, fire extinguisher, or reflective tape!!!

 

[SV_Dude]

Awesome story!! At least there was a good cop there instead of your typical movie scene where the supervisor just so happens to "find" some drugs in the vehicle.

Good job dude!! Keep up the stories and photos. I get excited every time I see a new reply on your thread!

 

[defrag4]

ATM disaster dodged, Corrupt cops deflected. What else could go wrong!?

We are climbing through the mountain passes of Honduras and I can tell the 4Runner is losing power. Not exactly sure what is going on I do what any proud Toyota owner would do and simply ignore it. Hell... She still runs don’t she?

Eventually we are coming through a construction zone near the top of a pass and I lose all momentum/power. The truck basically cuts out. The accelerator pedal pins flat to the floor and doesn't come back up.

We are smackdab in the middle of the construction zone. Huge dumptrucks and bulldozers battle it out with the mountainside all around us. It is at least 95F, hot, dusty, and LOUD.

We are stuck blocking the 1-lane of the passable highway with gigantic buses and semi-trucks all honking and trying to squeeze around us.

I jump out of the truck and pop the hood. Chaos everywhere. Tons of dust, huge loud tractors, people honking like crazy at us. I check the throttle cable and its all screwed up, sagging from the throttle body like a limp noodle.

I try to jerry rig it quickly. No go, It wont retract. Something is jamming. I pull out my tools and take it apart in the middle of the highway with people passing everywhere.

No wonder it wont retract... Line is frayed and jamming inside the throttle cable housing.

Not going anywhere fast I decide to push the truck to the side of the road and assess the situation. I figured the cable had not yet broke and I could just remove the frayed wires and it would get me a little further. While I was working on this 2 random construction workers came over and started talking to us. They said they knew a mechanic in the next town and would be happy to give us both a ride. We locked up the truck and jumped into the construction workers truck.

They gave us a ride to town where the mechanic looked at the cable and said we needed a new one (you don’t say!?) He didn’t have one but knew there were parts stores in the next town. Back into the construction workers truck we go. Drove about 15 miles to the next town....

We searched from store to store. 83 throttle cable for a 22R motor, 88 throttle cable for a diesel Hilux, 22RE cable for a Corolla. No exact matches for a 87 4Runner 22RE. I figured I could make the 22R cable work but the parts guy insisted we need the right one.

The little town did not have the right cable but they assured us we could find one in San Pedro Sula (Large industrial town of Honduras). However the town was almost an hour away.

I started asking the guys if they knew a taxi that we could call to take us all the way to San Pedro. They said “Nonsense!” and off to San Pedro Sula we went, a 45-mile drive in the construction truck.

An hour later we arrive in San Pedro, same situation. Store to store to store with no exact match found. These guys have been helping me now for 3 hours in the hot as hades Honduran sun. We can barely speak to them, we have no idea what the hell is going on with our truck back at the construction site, and store after store turns us down. Our gracious construction workers are getting frustrated as well. I am wishing I just rigged my cable and ignored these guys, when all of the sudden I see a little hole-in-the-wall parts store "TOYOTA REPUESTOS IMPORTER". I jump out of the truck and run in with my cable, 30 seconds later I have an EXACT match 87 4Runner cable. We all rejoice and head back to the truck.

With the bad cable out.

We put the new cable in. Success!!! Back in business. I offered to pay these guy for their gas/time (They drove over 60 miles and were with us for almost 5 hours) but they refused. They said to us…

"Today we help you, tomorrow maybe someone help us"

I forced a few cold coke-colas on them from our fridge, we gave them some hugs, thanks, and said goodbye.

Time and time again we say that the people of Mexico/Central America we meet are the nicest, friendliest, most giving people on earth. The people of Honduras live up this mantra as well. We have loved getting to know them and their beautiful country.

 

[defrag4]

We had seen the movie "The Mosquito Coast"with Harrison Ford a few years ago that described this very remote undeveloped area of the northern Honduran coastline. We forgot all about it until we saw the name again in our Honduras guidebook. The Moskito Coast is described as the least developed area in all of Central America. With minimal roads, no services, and no tourist infrastructure. It sounded right up our alley.

We heard about a 4x4 trail that hugs the coastline out to a small Miskito village named “Pueblo Nuevo”. They said it was rough going, lots of beach/sand driving, river crossings, and no support out their if something was to go wrong. SOLD!

Winding through the hills towards the coastline

The paved road gave way to dirt path on the way to the coast.

Loads of Coconut/Date palms, Banana trees, all kinds of fruit trees. Dole/United Fruit Company/Chiquita Banana have had Honduras on lock for 50+ years. You can find various sides of the story, some people say they have exploited the people/land for profit, others say they took a malaria-infested swamp and turned it into livable habitat and provide a decent life for the people. Either way, They are here to stay. We passed mile after mile after mile of fruit trees. And thousands of people selling bushels of fresh off the tree (still green) bananas everywhere. You could buy a huge bushel of bananas (like 50 bananas) for $1.

Dirt roads through mile after mile of plantation.

Somewhere along the way on these horrible rutted roads, I go to push the brake pedal down and it hits the floor… Slowing to a stop, I jump out and find the front driver side brakeline pissing brake fluid and my front caliper bolt missing.

The caliper bolt had somehow rattled its way out allowing the caliper to rock back and forth eventually causing the brakeline to snap. 40 miles out into the bush with no brakes… We had the option to turn around and head back to civilization (Knowing that it was Semana Santa week and most shops would be closed) or just keep mashing it out towards the Miskito Coast using just the transmission and E-Brake to stop. What do you think we chose?

Getting further and further from civilization we encounter lots of small Garifun/Miskito villages. Most people live in simple thatched roof mud huts out here. Very basic but they all seemed happy and smiled at us when we waved.

Couldn't find any place to camp so we rolled into a small village and ask around for place to stay. We find Don Tinos hospedaje (small hotel) for $5 a night. We met Tino himself who was a nice guy and it was getting dark, so we say OK.

Things are a little rougher inside. Raggedy bed with roach guide on the wall. The roach guide did come in handy that night as we played “GUESS THAT BUG!” TV syndication rights in progress, back off FOX!

I tried to crimp/JBweld the snapped brakeline so we could at least have 3 working brakes. It worked for a few minutes but after I bled the brakes and applied some real pressure to the crimp/JBweld it gave out spraying my eyes full of brake fluid (fun!)

Oh well. E-Brake still works!

We mash on further. Tino from the hotel tells us there is a road that leads deeper into the Miskito Coast but the road is completely sand and there is a "river crossing" we need to pass. OK, I can dig a river crossing. He says its difficult to pass the river if you don’t know where to cross. He assigns some random dude from the village to jump on the back of our truck to show us the way.

Our new guia (guide)

We drive through the village and eventually out onto the beach, We drive through the deep sand for a ways when the truck stalls due to getting stuck in the sand. Homeboy jumps off the truck and starts running towards the ocean and taking off his pants. Lauren and I are thinking... What the hell? Did we just give this dude a ride to the ocean so he can go for a swim?

Eventually we realize this guy is fording some sort of underwater sandbar and trying to show us the way to drive across the damn ocean to get to the other side.

I look at Lauren and say.... Looks like were driving in the ocean! We get out and air down the tires to 10psi which frees us from the sand and we head to the start of this underwater sandbar. Homeboy runs back to guide us once more.

We drive into the ocean, water up to the hood of our lifted truck and this random Honduran kid swimming in front of the truck in the ocean.

See more pics and read the rest of the story on the blog, http://homeonthehighway.com

 

[PiTTdAwG72]

This keeps getting better and better. What's up with the cliff hanger? Did you make it?

 

[Coctailer]

This keeps getting better and better. What's up with the cliff hanger? Did you make it?

No kidding!!!
You cant break the story here!!!................unless you were swept out to sea.:hiding:

 

[elcidsurfer]

Just checked your web site to see if y'all made it across... Spoiler Alert!!!! Spoiler Alert!!!

PS: Hit me up when y'all get close to Costa Rica. Been to the Pacific side several times and can point you in the right direction on places to go/stay.

 

[derekabraham]

Technically, the corrupt cop was right about you needing front plates since your Runner is registered in California and CA requires front plates.





Excited to hear more!

 

[nugsfan]

Wow this is amazing. I just spent all morning getting caught up on this awesome trip! It's great that you guys are doing this while you can. Good luck with the rest of the fun times!

 

[defrag4]

We camped out on the beach and did not a see a soul for most of the next day.

Later in the afternoon, 2 young guys came riding up on horses. We started talking and it turns out that one guy was from Belize (and spoke english) and the other dude was Garifun from the village just up the road. We shared some beers and became instant friends.

We spent the rest of the day sharing stories, drinkin’, and riding their horses bareback on the beach. Kenry told us the last time he saw white people was over a year ago, another Californian (surprise, surprise) had backpacked his way down to the village.

Eventually we run out of beer and they say we can buy more in their village which is about 5 miles up the beach. OFF WE GO! FOLLOW THAT HORSE!

We parked in front of the village bar, headed inside to BOOMING reggae music and a handful of 5-10 year old kids doing some of the dirtiest dancing I have ever seen. It was hilarious. We picked up some more beer and on our way out a drunk dude tried to sell Lauren a dead iguana for dinner. I almost bought it (I've been trying to eat iguana this whole trip!) but my buddy said it wasn't a good tasting one.

We headed back to the beach and continued the party. Our friends brought a bottle of Miskito hooch, which got us all pretty loopy. The stuff was straight fire water.

Not a bad spot to party at.

After many beers and bottles of Miskito liquor I decided it would be a good idea to ride the horse again...

UP YOU GO!

DOWN YOU GO!

SUCCESS!

We say goodnight to our friends, they pose for some stunna shots and rode off into the sunset.

Another night in Paradise.

See more pics and read the rest of the story on the blog, http://homeonthehighway.com

 

[defrag4]

Perhaps we were getting too big for our britches, perhaps we had one too many drinks the night before, and perhaps we did not bother to sit down and seriously study the Honduran/Nicaraguan border crossing. But here is a lesson on what NOT to do.

I went back and forth on sharing this story… Primarily out of amateur overlander shame and secondarily out of scaring the crap out of our parents. But here at Home on the Highway we like to share the UPS and DOWNS of the adventure. So here it is!

NOTE: There are no pictures to this post. During stressful times the last thing running through your mind is, “OH I SHOULD SNAP A PICTURE!” Sadly, once you look back these are the times you wish you had documented it via photos.
We arrived at the “El Espino” border from Honduras into Nicaragua. We had glanced over some border crossing info the night before but feeling confident enough with our Spanish and our prior border crossing experience we did not bother to study. We roughly calculated it would cost around $50 to complete the crossing and had that amount in Honduran Lempiras. Mistake #1. ALWAYS CARRY EXTRA CASH AND CLOSELY RESEARCH FEES BEFORE HAND

We arrive to the frontier road and find a chain strung across it. A government official sits lazily in an old run-down shack nearby. We are instantly bombarded by touts (border helpers) but we are prepared for this and ignore them. I grab our paperwork and make a beeline to the government shack.

I hand over our paperwork over to the government official to check it out, he, in turn, immediately hands it over to some random dude in a T-Shirt who proceeds to run off with it. Mistake #2 NEVER LET YOUR PAPERWORK OUT OF SIGHT

I ask the government official, “What the hell?”

Government official explains that I must to use this guy to get the process done…

Sensing the worst, I immediately run after him to find our paperwork. I find him in a another dirt-floor shack that has been rigged up with a copy machine. T-Shirt guy is happily making copies of all our paperwork.

I demand it all back from him, he refuses explaining that he is the official in charge of this process. Not exactly wanting to get into a brawl at the border… I reluctantly pay the copy man $5! for a fistful of copies and we go back to government official in the shack whom I apparently need to get a stamp from to cancel my Honduran import permit to move on with the border crossing process.

The entire time I am yelling about getting my damn paperwork back, so now T-Shirt guy and government official are both perturbed that this gringo is rocking the boat. They start running a scam demanding some bull**** receipt we were supposed to have from purchasing the original car import permit into Honduras over 3 weeks ago.

I told them we received no receipt and obviously we have paid since we had a legitimate car import permit.

They explained that if I did not have the original receipt then I would have to pay again.... $40 (Originally it was $25 when I paid crossing into Honduras from Guatemala…)

Realizing we are now deep into scam territory I start some scamming of my own…
I explain… “Ummm... OK I am happy to pay for the new receipt but I do not have enough cash right now.”

I told the government employee that I needed his official stamp to move on with the process, to the next country where I could use an ATM. He reluctantly agrees and stamps our paperwork. He tells his T-shirt buddy to stay with us to make sure I come back and pay him. Great… a new friend!

I jump back in the truck, Lauren who has been listening to all this going down, gives me the “What the hell are you doing!?” look…

T-Shirt guy runs ahead of the truck with our paperwork. By the time I catch up with him he has had our passports stamped out of Honduras (I pay his friend $10 in bribes... for this) It is normally free and I know this but I am all flustered and not thinking clearly at the time.

After checking out our passports T-shirt guy goes to check the car import permit out of Honduras. For this he actually did come in handy since the office was closed for lunch, I guess he knows the people that work there since he banged on the door and someone came and got him. They went inside for a few minutes and came back with our stuff. The import official wanted a bribe as well, Worrying about my dwindling bankroll, I told him I didn't have enough money but would come back later to pay...

We were now officially checked out of Honduras (Owing at least $60 in back-pay bribes) but now needed to check into Nicaragua.
At this point I now have T-shirt guy and 3 other touts following me around like sharks. I have screwed up. I am now a mark...

To enter into Nicaragua you are required to purchase car insurance and pay a per/person check-in visa fee. I needed to change my Honduran Lempiras into Nicaraguan Cordobas (Again, We did not check the exchange rate.. and lost about $5 in this process)
I pay the Nicaraguan customs guy for our visa stamps. He was actually very friendly and yelled at the touts to leave us alone.

We get our passports stamped and now our bodies are official in Nicaragua but the truck is still in limbo stuck between the 2 countries.

We need to buy insurance and get it inspected by customs to get the truck legally into the country.

Problem is after all Nicaraguan entry-fees, various bribes, and getting screwed on the exchange rate now we REALLY are tapped out of cash.

We do not have enough money to buy insurance AKA We cannot drive into Nicaragua.

This is when 3rd world shadiness comes in handy. I search around for a dude who sells insurance who also happens to know the Nicaraguan customs guy. I explain to him I do not have enough cash to buy insurance or pay for customs inspection. I need to get into Nicaragua to use an ATM and if he could help me I would pay him for his services.
So shady insurance guy writes us up an insurance policy and gets his customs friend to inspect my truck.

I tell shady insurance guy and customs guy that I will pay them for the insurance policy and bribes once I get some money.
OK. So now we have a Nicaraguan insurance policy, the truck is inspected and signed off by Nicaraguan customs. Our passports are officially stamped into Nicaragua. I have a long-line of people who are demanding payment for their “services”. Everyone involved is pissed off and I still have no money.

I talk with Shady insurance guy and he assures the angry mob (lead by damn T-Shirt guy from Honduras!) that he will go with me to the ATM and come back with money for everyone. He wants me to go on his motorcycle into town and leave my truck at the border.

I say “Screw that, You get in my truck and we will go into town together”

Lauren who is all kinds of pissed off at me and this whole situation now has to climb in the back and squeeze between all of our crap. The shady insurance guy gets in the front-seat of the 4Runner and we drive into Nicaragua...

We are are now driving in Nicaragua, the closet town with an ATM is about 20 miles away. Lauren and I are talking in English to each other trying to figure out if we are 100% legit in Nicaragua. I am wondering if maybe we need some other paperwork at the border.

We determine we do not need anything. If we were to kick this dude out of the car we would be 100% legal and all those other border scammers could go pound sand.

Now Shady Insurance guy was really the only dude who really helped me out, he fronted the $12 for insurance out of his own pocket. I did not want to screw him over completely.

We finally get to the ATM. I pull out cash, jump back in the truck and drive back down the road. We are headed back to the border. Shady insurance guy is totaling up all the money I owe the other scammers, It totaled up to $85, plus $12 for insurance.
Somewhere in between the border and the town I pull over the truck. Give the guy $20 and tell him to get out. He gives me a confused look and starts asking for more money.

I tell him that is all he is getting. He argues for a bit but then gives up and gets out of the truck.

We are finally 100% legal and alone in Nicaragua.

What a friggin' day.

 

[Hyde802]

CRAP DUDE!

What an adventure!

 

[elcidsurfer]

So you Thread on T4R and your Website has you just crossing into Nicaragua from Hondurous, but Facebook has you in Costa Rica back in April...

I thought y'all were in a 4runner not a Delorean ;-)

 

[defrag4]

Border fiasco behind us we drove deeper into Nicaragua. Nicaragua is the land of volcanoes. Pretty much everywhere you turned your head your eyes would meet at least one or two of them towering over the horizon. On the road to Leon we were passing many parks that looked good for camping.

We turn down the road into one of the parks, A guard meets us at the gate. We tell him we want to camp near the Volcano. He seems confused but then explains there is a road that goes up the Volcano and points towards some farmers and their cows plying up some path.

We ask “Can we camp up there?” He says “Sure!”

So we headed off towards the “road”.

We end up in "traffic" behind a farmer, his horses and his young son. The "road" appears to be more of a cow path that farmers use to move their cattle from pasture to pasture.

After slowly creeping behind this farmer up this horribly rutted and rocky path for about 15 minutes he stops and asks us what we are doing?
We tell him we are trying to drive up the Volcano to camp....

He says he has never seen anyone drive up this road and it gets pretty rough ahead. I ask him if he thinks its possible to continue, He replies “Maybe…”

We push on further up the volcano, the road continues to deteriorate the higher we get.

I am mashing in 4x4 over huge boulders, the path is barely wide enough for the 4Runner to fit. I was having a blast tackling this challenging trail, letting the 4Runner do what she was born to do. The farmer is enjoying watching these crazy ass gringos drive up his volcano. Poor Lauren is bouncing all over the truck, worried about breaking our home while driving up this crazy path.

The farmer is now on-board with the adventure to drive up this Volcano. Him and his son are going up ahead of us clearing huge differential murdering boulders out of the way and helping me pick lines to climb up and over rocks, cliffs, and washes.

After about an hour of mashing the living crap outta our truck we reach a point where we just cant clear the differentials any longer. The farmer looks heartbroken. He offers up his horse to Lauren and I to continue our journey. He wanted to take us back up to his ranch and to spend the night with him and his family.

We considered his offer. Unfortunately, the 4Runner was wedged in the cow path, Nothing else could fit through. I figured I should probably turn around and not leave my truck out here in the middle of nowhere blocking the way.

Sadly we had to say Thank you and Goodbye to our farmer friend and his son. We reversed in 4x4 for about 1/4 mile to a wide enough spot to turn around and start heading back down the mountain

Eventually we get back to the guard at the park gate. For some reason he was laughing his butt off when he saw us drive up… turns out that bas**** knew it wasn't a trail for trucks! He was pretty impressed when we told him how far we got up though.

We caught a beautiful sunset that night as we drove into Leon, Nicaragua.

I also got pulled over TWICE in one day in Managua for legitimate reasons. It appears Nicaraguans actually enforce laws of the road. Passing on a double-yellow and using a turn-lane to pass is illegal here…

I explained to the first cop I was just a dumb tourist and he left us off with a warning.

The second cop actually confiscated my license and was about escort us to the bank to pay our citation. Before he pulled off towards the bank he asked where we were going for the day. I explained we were trying to get to Volcano Masaya. He starts laughing and explains we are very lost and completely off-track. All of the sudden he gives me license back, tears up the ticket, then pulls out his motorcycle, stops traffic both directions in the 6-lane highway and gives us a police escort all the way across town to the correct highway to Volcan Masaya. Talk about a turn of events!!

Rest of the story, more pics, and videos on the blog at http://homeonthehighway.com/volcano-driving-in-nicaragua/

 

[defrag4]

So you Thread on T4R and your Website has you just crossing into Nicaragua from Hondurous, but Facebook has you in Costa Rica back in April...

I thought y'all were in a 4runner not a Delorean ;-)

lol i am a bit behind on the blog, facebook is up to date

 

[PiTTdAwG72]

lol i am a bit behind on the blog, facebook is up to date

Hey how do I find you on facebook?

 

[PiTTdAwG72]

Hey how do I find you on facebook?

Ok I found ya... I guess I just need to use that crazy search function before openning my mouth.:biggrin2:

 

[20034RunnerV84x2]

can't wait for the next update this is such an amazing journey! Please please please keep us updated I love this thread! How was the 4 runner how was the 4 runner holding up? Anymore updates? Just read this whole thread, so amazing!!!!!!

 

[defrag4]

We headed to Volcan Masaya. The only active Volcano in the Western Hemisphere you can drive to the rim of.

Look for the 4Runner on the left to compare to the crater

The volcano is surrounded by legend and lore.

The indigenous people would sacrifice young girls to appease the volcano gods to prevent eruptions. The indians considered the mouth of the volcano "the gateway to hell"

A spanish priest back in the 1600's placed this cross at the top of the Volcano.

The volcano is spewing tons of Sulfuric gas into the air. It is the largest natural polluter IN THE WORLD. You can barely breathe up there and cough the entire time. Definitely not a safe place to hang out very long.

The volcano went off in 2005 shooting huge rocks and gasses all over the place, lots of people were injured and cars were damaged. Now they have warnings to park your car facing outwards just in case you gotta get the hell outta there!

OBEY THE SIGNS

Prepared for a speedy escape

We took a hike up to the top of the ridge, Lauren is standing in front of an older volcano that is now dormant and filling in with plantlife.

Volcan Masaya

Read the rest of the story on the blog at http://homeonthehighway.com/volcan-masaya-nicaragua/