Driving from Texas to Nicaragua. go through el salvador or not?
Replies: 9 - Last Post: Nov 30, 2012 10:25 PM Last Post By: likeeveryoneelse
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Driving from Texas to Nicaragua. go through el salvador or not?
For people who have done the drive. We are planning on driving to Nicaragua next month (ive always flown there before).We are visiting friends in south mexico, and will enter guatemala on the pacific side. Is it better to stay on the pacific side and enter into el salvador? or is it better to go around it and drive through honduras. Either way we have to enter honduras, and i though it might be worth staying north of el salvador and driving through honduras and skipping el salvador completely (one less border crossing and all, nothing personal against el salvador. im sure there are lots of great things to see, but this isnt a sight seeing trip unfortunately). Its not much "out of the way" to drive up north around el salvador, at least from the maps perspective.
So what do you think? go through the extra border crossing and go straight through el salvador? or drive the 80 extra miles to stay north and drive the length of honduras and cut out one border crossing.
2
It may be that driving through El Salvador to get to Nicaragua is the shorter way (although with more border crossings). There is someone here in the threads that lives in Guatemala (Atitlan) and drives to Nicaragua or Costa Rica fairly frequently... maybe he can help7
#4 Sorry I answered: I know El Salvador - I am from here... I know that the roads are flat and good here - so that if you have to pass through El Salvador you know what to expect. Look at the maps in Google Earth (3D) and see that north it is more mountaneous, and may negate the time you win. If you read #6, it says in Honduras there was like no road at one time - maybe they took the wrong turn and there is a paved road, but (being from El Salvador) I can assure you the roads are not that way here.8
#4 And, I don't know why, but trucks and many others going from Guatemala to Nicaragua PASS through El Salvador south and NOT north to Honduras...This is part of a series of video of driving from San Salvador to Santa Ana (two towns 60 kms apart, about 1/6 or 1/5 of all El Salvador):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGSanAwIHr4
Get one from the Honduras side to compare and decide.
You will have 1 more border to cross, but also consider: Guatemala - El Salvador border is 50% of all Central American travel - it is a well travelled border, with lots of people crossing, and lots of people on the border proper. You have less probability of being harrased than in an emptier outpost where "officials" can harrass you more easily.
As I am no one to have an opinion of driving through that part of Honduras, I just ran a quick poll in Facebook, with people from Guate and El Salvador answering, and everybody was like "WHAT?" Some comments: the road in Honduras is lonelier, the road is twistier, going up and down, the officials are more corrupt, it is more dangerous, it is far longer in time and distance.
I travelled once monthly driving from El Salvador to Guate - piece of cake, and El Salvador to Tegucigalpa <-- mountaneous roads, but as you aren't going to pass Tegucigalpa, you only pass a small flat portion of Honduras, from El Salvador to Nicaragua. Many tell me: Honduras you get harrased more by police, don't travel week-ends as they can retain you for the whole week-end to strike fear to the traveller so they pay readily. Once in Nicaragua, everything is OK again. El Salvador is passed in 5 hours. <-- these are the comments I have been receiving.
Edited by: roquemocan
