I Am Not A Killa.... Things go sideways in Honduras

Stevie and I talked about whether or not to write about certain events in our travels. On one hand we prefer not to worry our families back home and it would be easy to omit things. On the other, we feel obligated to tell all, good and bad. If we censor our experiences there would be nothing but fluff on the blog. Yesterday was anything but fluff.

Our caravan left Copan in the morning. Our destination was a B&B on a lake in Central Honduras. So far we only had one incident of the cops trying to extort a flashlight from Dave. I had just told Stevie how mellow Honduras was turning out to be when we pulled into a gas station so Dave and Chad could fill up. I had plenty of gas so I pulled aside in the parking lot. The first thing I noticed was a 14 or 15 year old kid with a machine gun standing in the lot. Having seen nothing but private security guards toting guns for the last 3 countries I didn't think anything of it. I walked over to where Dave was pumping gas to point out how young the security guards were getting. Dave just looked at me and said "Tree, take a look around". There was a jacked up blue 4x4 truck surrounded by kids. All of them had 9mm glocks tucked into their belts, in plain view. They were staring at us. I barely had time to register what I was seeing when another man walked toward us wearing fancier cloths and gold chains. He had a nickel plated 9 tucked in the front of his belt. The kids were bodyguards and I was staring at a narco boss. He was holding a beer in one hand and his other hand extended toward me. He said in a slurred voice, "I am not a killa" and smiled, showing gold teeth. I looked down at his gun. I looked at the kid with the machine gun standing next to him. I extended my hand and said "mucho gusto senor". He took my hand and did not let go. I took a breath. Dave stopped pumping gas and moved toward his vehicle. The man said some other things in broken english that I honestly can't remember. Again I said "mucho gusto senor". I looked toward the Sprinter and saw Stevie walking Kiki. I felt the mans grip loosen and I slowly pulled my hand away and started back toward the van. I told Stevie to get in and turned the van around. I left the engine running and for the first time looked back toward the men. Dave was pulling around behind the Sprinter and the men had surround Chad's windows.  A moment later Chad was getting out of the van. The Boss was holding his arm and showing him photos. The others surrounded them. I waited. I knew the leader was drunk and the kid's were young and armed. Even though they weren't showing aggression, the situation felt very volatile.  I caught Emily's eye and said "we need to leave NOW". She got into the drivers seat and turned their van around. Chad was still surrounded. The boss still had his arm. Nobody knew what to do. A few minutes went by and Chad managed to exit the situation and get into his van. We drove away and didn't stop for 2 hours. We later learned that the narco boss was showing Chad photos of helicopters, his sister, his wife, his time in the army. It must be lonely being a drug lord. Chad, his new best friend, was doing his best to exit the situation without provoking him or appearing rude. Looking back on it, it was crazy how flagrant those guys were with their guns. They were obviously not concerned with the real gas station security guard who had a shot gun, nor were they worried about the police checkpoints. We were in an area that they clearly controlled.

We all had quite an adrenaline rush going. I felt bad for Dave and Ann. After being robbed last week by 3 guys with machetes, this was the last thing they needed. Then the next card fell. About 45 minutes from our destination white smoke started flying out the back of the Sprinter. The van went into a computerized "limp mode", meaning it would only go 20 miles per hour. We made it to our destination and with a weak internet signal and the help of my Dad back in the US determined that the Turbo Resignator was blown. Our friend Duncan had already warned us about this known Sprinter problem over a month ago, so I had already ordered the spare part which is at Outdoorplay in Oregon right now waiting for me to pick it up in April. We just weren't planning on ours dying before we had the replacement.

The good news is that my amazing crew at ODP is sending the part down via Fedex today (thanks Jason!). We should have it by the end of the week. The bad news is that the Sprinter vans down here do not use that part since they don't have emissions controls. That means they won't install. That means I get to do it. So what's the difference between a wrench and a socket again?

Dave and Chad walked me through a hypothetical installation and made sure I had all the tools required for the job. The installation does not look too difficult. I think I got this one! Anxious to get out of Honduras, our friends will be heading for Nicaragua tomorrow. We will be on our own. We're gonna miss their company for sure. After we get the van fixed I think we will also head for Nicaragua instead of heading to the other side of Honduras. We'll see how things unfold. Should be exciting. TREE

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Aloha Honduras! El Poy Border Goes Down...

As we approached the El Salvador/Honduras border crossing this morning I got that feeling in my stomach that I always get before entering a new and unknown country. Nervousness, excitement, anxiety. I love that feeling. Stevie usually doesn't get excited about a new country until we're there, but I like to build it up in my head way before we arrive. I've been amped up about Honduras for a couple weeks now. So far it hasn't disappointed.

Although it took a long time because there where 3 vehicles, getting across the border was pretty easy. There were no corrupt officials here and no aggressive 'helpers'. We did not encounter one single police checkpoint. All this affirmed our decision to skip the hellish lower border crossing. We made the right call taking this longer route, plus now we really get to see and enjoy Honduras instead of rushing through and dodging cops.

Approaching the Hondo border. Not looking too bad...

Stevie adding the Flag of Honduras onto the Sprinter. Yes, I know. Its crooked. I'll be doing all flag applying from now on...

Our drive through the huge rolling green mountains was spectacular. This country is so beautiful it's hard to describe...

Dave and Ann led the caravan, Sprinter Life was in the middle, and Chad and Emily brought up the rear. The roads were fairly rough in places but we just took it slow. It occurred to me when looking at the map how close we were to the road that we drove through Southern Guatemala on weeks ago. It's a testament to how much Sprinter Life is zig-zagging through Central America. Good form! Wouldn't want to miss anything.

Check out this color, so raw... (both photos below)...

Due to the slow border crossing and rough roads, we didn't make our final destination for the day. But we found a cool little town, Santa Rosa De Copan, and checked into a hotel a block away from the central plaza. In the plaza we found this one million year old tree.

Kiki is always a good ice breaker when making contacts with the locals. The kids always seem to rush her. All they want to do is touch the fur. Most have never seen a dog like Kiki before, yet somehow they all seem to know the word "fluffy." This little kid thought he was going to take Kiki home with him.

We're really stoked to be in Honduras. So far the reoccurring theme has held true. That is, the people in the next country are not horrible or scary as the previous country would have you believe. We are finding the people here to be some of the nicest we've met! Today we are heading to Copan Ruins. Stay tuned... TREE

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Sausage-Cheeto - Let the Honeymoon Begin

It's amazing how much we nest when we rent a bungalow for a couple weeks. A few things get unloaded out of the van every day and before you know it we've moved in! This tendency to "roost" always motivates me to get back on the road. Freedom is always just one packing session away. We spent the last couple days prepping for our departure from Tunco. It's sad to say goodbye to our new friends, the beach, and the waves, but we are both feeling like it's time to push on after 16 amazing days. Honduras is calling us and we're ready for our honeymoon.

Our friends Dave and Ann of Advodna had left Tunco last week on their way to explore El Salvador and then Honduras, so we were surprised when they showed back up at our bungalow as we were preparing to leave. They had been robbed by 3 guys with machete knives on a small road heading toward Honduras. I immediately had flashbacks of the movie Blood Diamond when Dave was describing the incident. I was secretly jealous that he had an infinitely cooler story to tell than the one I had of a young Elvis sitting on my lap while robbing my wife in Guatemala. Seriously though, it was a scary thing and we were really happy they weren't hurt. They lost some expensive but replaceable stuff, and fortunately the bandits did not take their vehicle. This was a sobering reminder that we are traveling in some dangerous areas. After collective consideration we decided that it would be safer to caravan as a group for a few days. Chad and Emily also decided to join us in our attempt to avoid the dreaded lower Honduras border crossing by going through El Poy. Our plan is to travel as a group across El Salvador and push into Honduras on Friday. We'll caravan until we reach central Honduras where Dave, Ann, Chad, and Emily plan to head down to Nicaragua. We plan to continue across Honduras toward the Caribbean coast to see the other half of the country and then drop back down into Nicaragua about a week later.

Tonight we find ourselves in the beautiful town of Suchitoto, or as I like to call it Sausage-Cheeto. Since this is technicaly the beginning of our honeymoon, we decided to splurge and get a room at the swank hotel overlooking the plaza and church. Dave and Ann joined us. But not in the same room. I had to tell Dave no dice on that. We lost Kiki's vote, but we still had enough to ensure they got their own room. Here is a photo of the hotel with Sprinter and Advodna parked out front...


They say this town is everything El Salvador was before the civil war. It's gossipy, left-leaning, and full of civic pride. The centerpiece is certainly the amazing colonial church standing in the central plaza. This photo is the view from our hotel balcony...

We know the game with dogs and hotels well, so we never show Kiki until we're paid, checked in, and unpacked. Sure enough we got the knock on the door 5 minutes later telling us they don't accept pets. We introduced the manager to kiki and she decided to make an "exception". Can you blame her? How could you say no to this face...

Our honeymoon suit has a beautiful balcony overlooking the plaza and church. Seriously, a room like this in the US or Europe would be well over $200 a night. We're paying $76 and it comes with free breakfast. I love Central America.

Thursday we went out and explored the town, which sits on the edge of a beautiful lake. We enjoyed the views and had some beers...

more exploring the town and, ummm, nevermind the second photo...

We're a family that truly appreciates fine art. You'll often find us in museums and art galleries where we'll linger for hours, and hours. And hours. My wife calls it "culture". Kiki has a special appreciation for abstract art. I've always liked to color. I'm thinking about going pro. I'm not sure yet, but maybe next year I'll look into some art training camps.

And so we go onward to Honduras, as a group, as a posse, as a sit-tight clique of overland travelers. As friends.

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Global Citizenship: is the whole greater than the sum of its parts

As some of you may have noticed, one of our family border crossing rituals is to learn the history and current events of a country as we enter it. As much as this preliminary, self-taught lesson has enhanced our appreciation of the country we’re about to visit, it seems to have also tarnished the respect we have for our own. It’s hard to feel national pride when we find out that our beloved country is responsible for countless covert operations in other people’s beloved countries, ranging from staging coups, killing leaders, financing wars, and conducting medical experiments on unwitting mental patients. So far, learning the truth has sucked . It makes us look like sadistic bullies only out to protect our own interests at the expense of other people less fortunate than we are. Isn't our government supposed to be a representation of us, an extension of our will?  Yet, that picture doesn't seem like a fair depiction of you or me, does it? How about your friends, relatives, or neighbors? Of course not. For the most part, we're a land of good people, so how and why is so much evil done in our name, on our behalf?

 The implication is that maybe we’d just rather not know what goes on behind the scenes to insure our freedom and democracy, more precisely expressed as our standard of living. So long as gas stays below three dollars a gallon and the produce isle is stocked with cheap summer fruit year round, we don't want to ask what the impact of our government’s and transnational corporations’ actions is on democracy, social and economic justice, human rights, and war and peace, in other less developed countries. 

The other patriotic buzz kill has been observing the distribution of wealth in the world, or rather, the lack thereof. I could wax poetic injustice for hours about this, but for the sake of simplicity, let me give you two figures. Back in the States, Tree and I spent around $150-$200 a month on coffee drinks. Ridiculous, I know.  In Guatemala, the average family spends the same amount in a month to feed, clothe, and shelter themselves. Our extraneous spending equals their life support.  Not to mention the irony that much of the coffee we Americans happily drink is grown somewhere in Guatemala. I can’t help but be reminded of the concept of the haves and have-nots. Is it that, some people grow coffee and some people drink it? That’s just the way it is? As I wrote on New Year’s Eve, I don’t agree with this line of thinking at all, (read that article here).  I believe that there is enough in the world for each and everyone; we just do a piss-poor job of playing fair.  So what to do? I believe in the principles of justice, namely liberty and equality, on which our country is founded, and I'm tired of being ashamed of the ways my government undermines those values. 

Then it came to me, isn’t my shame really just the inversion of patriotism? Aren’t the two sentiments just flipsides of the same nationalist coin?  Their effects sure seem similar.  Whether I’m boasting about my country or kicking it to the curb, my myopic ranting is probably alienating someone (like Simko...hi Simko!), somewhere. In order to find an inclusive solution to the problem of exclusivity, we need to look outside of the binary, heads or tails thinking that created it. We need to look beyond nationalism.

The problem with nationalism is that it sets up a paradigm of us versus them, and no one wants to be on the short end of that stick.  In regards to it, Albert Einstein wrote, “Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.”  More poignantly, he said this during the height of Zionism, the movement that fueled the creation of Israel. He was well aware of the bloodshed that comes with borders. In his testimony in January 1946 before the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, and in answer to the specific question whether refugee settlement in Palestine demanded a Jewish state, Einstein stated: 'The State idea is not according to my heart. I cannot understand why it is needed. It is connected with narrow-mindedness and economic obstacles. I believe that it is bad. I have always been against it.”  Yet, this is not to say that Einstein was not a Zionist; he absolutely was, but he distinguished himself as a cultural Zionist, and not a territorial or political one.

In no way am I picking on the Jewish people by insinuating that they don’t deserve their own country. What I am saying (and I think Einstein would agree) is that none of us deserve our own country: we deserve global citizenship. This idea sounds a tad radical and a bit scary, even to liberal ole me, especially when I think of the chaos that could come with the dissolution of nation states… or even worse, what a unified world order might entail (think Orwell’s 1984).  So, for now I propose that we simply change our consciousness to be more inclusive, and perhaps down the road we can work towards an actual global citizenship that compliments our national citizenship, much like what the EU provides, except for everyone, worldwide.

The other day, a fellow traveler said to us that he couldn’t figure out where we were from because we have so many different flag stickers on the back of the van. That made me so happy! I felt so free…..and big! I love the idea of being a person that has no national bias either way, of being able to objectively hear truth and formulate my opinions absent of shame or pride and in the best interest of all parties considered. How wonderful to be a global citizen, to be a human who feels connected to and cares equally for other humans regardless of where they were born! And think about how much better off the earth would be if we cared about landfills in China and emissions in India as much as we care about our own.  I can only hope that this kind of global identity and accountability would foment a climate of justice and compassion in our otherwise divided and unbalanced world.

Yet, it’s hard for us to want to love and protect what we don’t know.  Usually, we need to feel a part of something to inspire the urge to care for it. But how can we feel like every country is our own? This is where traveling makes all the difference.  Mark Twain wrote:

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.

The farther we get from our comfort zone, the bigger our comfort zone becomes.  The more we travel, the wider we stretch the net we call ‘home,’ and the more we love and want to protect it.

So what do you think? Can we make this mental leap? Or, is it too hard to give up the patriot that lives in all of us in exchange for the global citizen? What would we lose? What do we stand to gain? Do you believe that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts? I do. -Stevie

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Honeymoon In Honduras

If you have any information on Honduras or any contacts there, please email us.
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Honeymoon in Honduras. That has a nice ring to it doesn't it? I know, it's not your typical destination for a romantic getaway. Honduras is the least frequently travelled country in Central America. In fact, most overland travelers heading south skip it all together. Well, you can't actually skip it, but by taking the lower border crossing in El Salvador you can drive across Honduras in 2-3 hours and be in Nicaragua the same day. We had originally planned to take this approach due to reports of dengue fever, malaria, bandits, and a corrupt police force. But then we started thinking about it and wondered why we would rush through and miss the opportunity to see a country and meet the people? So we've decided to go for it.

We've been putting feelers out for reliable information on the safety. Due to the fact that most overlanders heading south skip Honduras we've been unable to gather very much on-the-ground info. The reports we did get were not promising. Our friends Luis and Lacey from Lost World Expedition volunteered their horror story. After spending 8 hours at the border dealing with crooked officials they finally made their way across Honduras toward Nicaragua. During the couple hour drive they got pulled over 7 times and had to pay over $300 in bribes. Luis is native Venezuelan and speaks fluent spanish. Not the kind of report that inspires confidence or invites tourism.

But we kept the faith and last night the universe delivered. We met a couple here in El Salvador. He is a New Yorker who works at the US Embassy in Honduras and she is a native Honduran. We busted out the map and they gave us great information on where to go, which roads to use, which towns are safe, and which towns to avoid.

With that new information we're feeling really good about exploring Honduras. I'm sure we'll have some issues with the cops, but everyone who passes through does. We plan to hang out here in El Salvador for one more week and then we'll cross into Honduras at the El Poy border crossing. We'll spend 9-10 days there for our honeymoon! TREE

Only one more week to enjoy the surf of El Salvador. So far these have been the best waves since we crossed the border into Mexico. I don't want to leave, but I know there will be great surf all the way to Chile.

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I Now Pronounce You Husband and Wife...

Now Introducing Tree and Stevie Trujillo!
Stevie and I got engaged last June while on a 16 day solo raft trip down the Colorado River of the Grand Canyon. I had the bright idea of asking her to marry me at the bottom of the biggest rapid on the river, Lava Falls. Pretty romantic huh? Rafts routinely flip there. I remember being really nervous. As usual, it didn't occur to me during the idea phase that if you plan on proposing after a huge rapid, you had better stick the line. That enlightenment came to me only moments before we ran the rapid. The chances of getting a "YES" drop significantly if you flip the would-be bride into a giant turbulent rapid prior to popping the question. I got us down the rapid upright, and she delivered a big YES! That was followed by a request that we get married in every country in the world. Every country in the world, really? Yes. Well, by the end of the trip I had negotiated it down to every continent. What can I say, I'm married to a hopeless romantic. One down and six to go.

Read the engagement post - Click Here
See the engagment photos - Click Here

Neither of us ever wanted a big traditional wedding. We both envisioned ourselves on a tropical beach with a couple of friends, me wearing board shorts and Stevie in a simple white dress. For the last 8 months we've been looking for the perfect spot. We finally found it in Playa El Tunco, El Salvador.

Our special day was everything we hoped for and more. We woke up and had breakfast at our favorite restaurant. I got an hour massage, and Stevie finished an article she's been working on. As the day wound down I relaxed in a hammock while Stevie got ready, and then at sunset we walked down to the beach where our friends were waiting. We were joined by 3 other overlanding couples. I won't go into too much detail when you can just watch it for yourself here -

View Wedding Video

I guess you could say that I feel like the luckiest man on the planet. I found the woman of my dreams. She completes me in every way imaginable. She is a wanderlust and loves to travel. She is smart and articulate and beautiful and perfect in every way. I'm so happy. TREE

Here we are in the middle of the ceremony. Instead of a Bible, Chad brought the Lonely Planet Guide Book for Central America. Very fitting. During our vows a huge overhead set of waves rolled in. I planned that.

Our first kiss as Mr. and Mrs Trujillo

Kiki was the maid of honor and she looked beautiful. She was catching the eye of more than a few stray dogs on the beach.

The scenery where we got married was absolutely breathtaking. Right in front of the jagged rocks of Tunco at sunset. 

Just what we always dreamed. A sunset wedding on the beach. It was even a full moon and we got to watch that come up after the sun went down. See photo above.

Let the record show our wedding occurred in the country of El Salvador, as recorded in this photo with the flags...

After the wedding we all went to dinner at our favorite restaurant. I surprised Stevie with a bottle of her favorite, 7 Anos Havana Club Rum...

We want to give a very special thanks to our overlanding family, who, with no planning or prep, showed up and helped make our wedding day fabulous. Chad, thanks for doing our ceremony. Emily, thanks for shooting so many great photos. Dave and Ann, thanks for great photos and sunset cocktails. And thanks Paul and Jetske for coming to the wedding despite having food poisoning. We are privileged to be on the road with such great people. 

Chad and Emily

Dave and Ann

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