To Guatemala and back: 3 countries, 4 border crossings, 24 hours driving time, 36 hours total travelling time

Tanya, Jesse, Zoe, Victor, Melissa and I left at 7am on Sunday to go pick up our car from Guatemala. First blessing was being able to hitch a ride on the back of a pickup from right outside our hotel. Stopped for gas and got American hot dogs for brunch. Lesson for the day: don't try feeding a hot dog with every sauce under the sun (plus carrots and cauliflower as an added extra (FYI not a great addition) ) to a 2 year old in a moving vehicle over bumpy roads.

Jesse, Tanya and Melissa in the back of the pickup

The messy hot dog...

After going past the driver's house, we met his family and then negotiated for him to take us through El Salvador to the Guatemala border.

Crossed the Honduras-El Salvador border quickly and easily, the (local) car was quicker than us on foot. Drove through El Salvador in a matter of hours before being dropped at the El Salvador-Guatemala border. Quick border crossing - crossing on foot is sooo much easier than crossing with foreign cars.

Once over the border we were blessed with getting a ride on the back of another pickup all the way to Guatemala City. It was a pretty crazy tide, driving 80-120km an hour overtaking every car through bending mountain passes with potholes. No wonder I was car sick :( The good part was that we got there pretty quickly! After being dropped off somewhere in the middle of Guatemala City we managed to flag down the smallest taxi in the whole city to take us to collect our car. 6 adults, one toddler plus our bags. Squeeeeze!!!

Collecting our car was fun, even if paying for it made the mechanic laugh - we didn't have enough quetzales (Guatemala local currency) in team money so we all pulled out our own money (which wasn't very much!) plus luckily I had some $'s so that saved the day. Our test drive landed up being all the way to Antigua, a whole other town!

Dinner at Pizza Hut was amazing (we hadn't eaten since our hot dogs for brunch so we were definitely tired and hungry!), but even better was staying at the Holiday Inn, the poshest hotel yet. It was amazing. Unfortunately we didn't get the best night of sleep, even though the beds were amazing - Zoe was restless (she's only nearly 2), Tanya was up with allergies, and I had a bad dream so woke everyone up by screaming in my sleep. Sorry guys :)

Monday was another early start as we made the drive back to Honduras. Driving in our car was definitely more comfortable than the back of a pick up truck, but the border crossings were a little painful getting the car across. BUT so much quicker than taking the 5 cars across so that was good. The afternoon was quite intense as Jesse had to drive as fast as possible to make the El Salvador-Guatemala border crossing in time. Which we did :)

Some funny quotes from the day:

1. Victor: I like driving, it's like being in a video game, dodging the potholes as I drive

2. Melissa to Victor (driving): turn on your headlights
Victor: they are on
Melissa: no, the spotlights
Victor: they are on
Melissa: oh gosh, our lights suck

3. Victor: if I drove with my head torch on I'd have more light