Day 119
During my stay in Managua I managed to obtain 2 new electrical relays for the bike which should now hopefully put an end to the starting issue I experienced a few days earlier. One other thing that I needed to attend to was that after my escapades with the punctures, when the bike was in the back of the truck full of sand, somehow or other a load of sand had gotten inside of my petrol tank via the filler cap. Thankfully it was in the overflow drain and not actually inside the tank with the petrol.
Once the new electrical relays had been fitted and the sand cleaned out I was ready to go so I left Managaua at around 7 o’clock in the morning and headed for the border with Honduras. During my journey to the border the odometer on the bike turned 4000 miles.
The ride from Managua to the border was relatively uneventful except for an ass-hole driving a Toyota pickup who decided to pull out in front of me as I was overtaking him and the bus in front of him. He was too close to the bus to see if he could safely overtake the bus or not but apparently that did not matter to him nor did looking in his mirrors.
As he pulled out I swung the bike hard over to the left, as I passed him he continued to pull out and I hit his driver’s mirror with my nearside mirror and my elbow. My front side bag crashed in to his door with such force that the bike bounced across the road and on to the gravel verge on the left hand side of the road but managed to stay upright and then I managed to get back on to the road and on to the correct side in front of the bus before a lorry that was now approaching, reached me.
I must have caved in his driver’s door panel and maybe broken his wing mirror but as the driver of the pick up was such an ass-hole I decided not to stop and continued to ride on as both I and the bike were undamaged. It was only when I reached the border did I see that the collision had ripped one of the closure fastening completely off my side bag, but they were only made of plastic after all.
I reached the border at about 11 o’clock in the morning and I was stopped by the border police who checked my passport, TIP, and driving licence.
I was then handed a customs declaration form to fill out and then I was allowed through to the main area where the immigration and customs buildings were situated. First I had to go to the immigration office and pay my 3 US Dollar exit fee. As Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador are all in the CA-4 Visa scheme I did not receive an exit stamp which I would only have gotten if I had left the CA-4 area in to Mexico or back in to Costa Rica.
All that happened was that 90 days allowed in all 4 countries shown on the entry stamp I received entering Nicaragua was updated with the new total of days that I was now allowed, and having been in Nicaragua for 9 days, the new total was 81 days.
Then I had to go and get the customs to inspect my bike. I was made to open and unpack every single one of my bags which was a real pain in the ass. Once the customs officers were happy that I had nothing illegal in my bags I then had to get the border police to sign my customs declaration.
Once this had been done I had to go to the customs window and have my TIP cancelled and noted in my customs declaration form. Once this had been done I them had to go back to the customs officers who had searched my bags and hand them the customs declaration form. I was now free to leave Nicaragua at it was about 12 noon by this time.
Once the border barrier was opened (a large metal pole across the road) I was in Honduras and about 20 yards after the barrier I saw the customs buildings on my right. As soon as I stopped two guys approached me and offered to help with the border crossing. Apparently this is common in this part of the world. As I had read online that the TIP in Honduras in a bureaucratic nightmare and takes a long time to obtain if you try to do it yourself, I agreed to allow them to help.
My helpers then took me to the immigration window where I had to pay my 3 US Dollar entry fee in local currency, I did not have any at that time but as I was explaining this to the immigration officer a guy approached me and offered to exchange some for me. I gave him the remnants of my Nicaraguan currency and got enough in exchange to pay the entry fee.
Then my helpers took me to the customs office where I had to give my destination address. I gave them the name of a hotel in Tegucigalpa the capital of Honduras (which I had not booked) and this was accepted. Then my helpers asked for all of the documents that they needed, including copies, to apply for the TIP. My helpers then filled out my TIP application for me and told me to take a seat whilst this process was completed.
I sat back down and chatted with one of my helpers for a while and for this my Spanish was sufficient for us to understand each other. The guy told me that apparently vehicle insurance in not required in Honduras so I never had to buy that. I asked him where I could buy a SIM card for my mobile phone and he directed me to a nearby shop where I bought a bottle of water and SIM card.
The SIM card cost 10 US Dollars for 7 days of internet but I found the guy in the shop to be very grumpy about something and he seemed very unfriendly. Once I had put the SIM card in my phone I found the internet to be very slow and I was just about to go back and speak to the grumpy guy in the shop about it when of my helpers called me over to the customs window where I had to sign my TIP application form and give him the fee which was 50 US Dollars.
Then a while later the guy came back with my TIP which was valid for 30 days. Now I was free to legally ride in Honduras. I suspect that my helpers ripped me off for a large portion of the $50 that I paid for my TIP but the cost of crossing this border was roughly the same as crossing the previous 2 borders so I just accepted it and in any case, their assistance meant that I did not have to deal with the bureaucracy. By this time a total of 3 hours had passed and it was now 1 o’clock in the afternoon so I took a photograph showing the border from the Honduran side before I left.
So I got on the bike and then rode towards Tegucigalpa but as I was getting low on petrol I stopped at the first petrol station to fill up and get a coffee. I tried to use the internet on my mobile phone but it was very slow and fortunately the petrol station where I had stopped at had the Claro mobile phone sign. One of the staff looked at my phone and then checked my number in her terminal.
Apparently I needed to top up the phone as it had no credit, the ass-hole who sold me the SIM card never explained that I also needed to buy credit as well as the SIM card. Once topped up I had internet so I looked online and found a room in a hostel at a cost of about 50 US Dollars for 2 nights.
I then continued on towards Tegucigalpa but as I was getting closer to the city I saw a large fire ahead of me on the right hand side of the road and the entire road in front of me was obscured by smoke. As I hit the smoke I felt intense heat and I could virtually see nothing, suddenly through the smoke about 10 yards away I saw a large lorry directly in front of me indicating that I was now on a right hand bend, I swerved hard to the right and within seconds I was out of the smoke and safely round the bend.
A bit of a moment indeed!
About 4 o’clock in the afternoon I arrived at my accommodation in Tegucigalpa.
The accommodation had a secure garage where I could park the bike so I was happy. Unfortunately for me Honduras, like Panama and Costa Rica have strict anti smoking laws so although it was dark by the time I ventured out to find something to eat, I found a local restaurant where the owners were happy to allow me (and other customers) to smoke on the terrace. As I was walking the short distance back to the hostel, lots of cars and bikes passed me most of which had no working lights.
Day 120
I set off from my accommodation in Tegucigalpa at 8 o’clock in the morning and even at that time it was hot. My bike has a temperature sensor however it it located under the seat and because the bike is air cooled the hot air from the engine passes it and thus the temperature shown is always higher than the actual air temperature.
On my last Himalayan it displayed the temperature about 10 degrees Celsius above the actual air temperature but on this bike I have yet to see the actual temperature displayed by the road whilst I am riding so that I can work out what the difference actually is on this bike.
Nevertheless as I left Tegucigalpa the display was showing 38 degrees Celsius. My destination for the day was Puerto Cortes which is on the Caribbean coast just short of the border with Guatemala. I rode out of the city on road number CA5 which was a dual carriageway almost all of the way to my destination for the evening.
As I got about 20 miles or so from the city I encountered a toll station however I saw that bikes were allowed to bypass it for free using a small lane to the nearside of the barriers marked “Desvio Motos”, superb!
I stopped at a service station to get a cup of coffee about halfway in to my journey and there was a security guard standing inside the building carrying a pump action shotgun.
As I had been walking around Tegucigalpa the previous day almost every shop had an armed security guard standing in front of it, even small small shops. Although I had not seen anything during my time in Honduras that I would consider dangerous, the amount of armed security guards obviously speaks volumes about the real potential for armed robberies, otherwise these guys would not be there.
I got back on the bike and a couple of hours later I was in the city of San Pedro Sula which was absolutely nose to tail with traffic. I had to filter for about 6 miles or so through clogged roads until I eventually cleared the city and headed for Puerto Cortes. The temperature on my display was now reading 48 degrees Celsius and this is the hottest that I have ever been on a bike.
I reached Puerto Cortes and headed for the beach to have a look at it and take some photos.
Then I went for a paddle to cool off my feet. The beach was really nice and the water was very warm however, there were no places to sit in to get a water or a coffee, just some picnic areas for the locals to use. I then set about finding my accommodation which was about a 5 minute ride away from the beach. The place that I had booked was a small apartment which I got for about $30. It was very nice, very spacious, and had secure parking for the bike.
Once showered and changed I headed out to explore the town and to get somemthing to take back to the apartment to eat. The town was alright but apart from a couple of streets full of local shops, a couple of banks, and one big supermarket, there was really nothing else in it except a huge port where lots of big ships were docked.
I went in to the supermarket to buy what I needed, there were two armed security guards standing at the front door and two more patrolling the small car park in front of it, and again, all of them were carrying pump action shotguns.
Once back at the apartment I needed to have a look at my bike. Ever since I had my tyres changed I had been experiencing some issues with the ABS on the back brake. Sometimes the ABS would kick in when I pressed the brake pedal, sometimes the ABS light would come on but the brake would work fine, and sometimes (especially just after I started the bike) the back brake pedel would not move and the brake would not work at all until the ABS light came on.
I examined the back wheel and I saw that the ABS rotor which is attached to the brake disc was bent out of shape. It should be flat but as can be seen in the photo it is bevelled.
I realised that when the tyre guy changed my back tyre he used a tyre machine for car tyres which had a large metal cone to hold the wheel in place whilst the tyre is removed. This metal cone had obviously bevelled the ABS rotor which is made of Aluminium and this is what was probably causing my problems.
So I took the rotor off and hammered it back in to shape (flat) and put it back on the wheel which I then put back on the bike. Hopefully this will resolve the problem, if not I will just have to be very careful until I can get the ABS rotor replaced.