Central America | 2slowspeeds

The few photos in our last post didn’t do justice to the stunning scenery and colourful lifestyle of Central America. We got the message :-). So here are more photos. But they still don’t convey our full experience and intense variety of senses. The music everywhere, the sight of fluttering butterflies (sadly too many ended up with sore heads against our screen or visors), the smell of storm, the sweet smell of mangoes dripping from the trees or waiting to be bought from roadside carts, the sweet smell of pineapples from the roadside sellers, the daily sound of car alarms (we know the sequence of sounds and rhythms as we have heard the same alarm throughout South America too), the number of heavily armed police everywhere and the number of police checks along the road. Mostly, they wave us through. Sometimes, when we’ve had enough of slowing down and stopping for nothing, we just wave at them with a big smile and drive off!! And luckily, you won’t experience the smell of dog, which became wet dog, and finally wet horse which we have worn every morning in Central America – our clothing has got progressively wetter and has not managed to dry out by the morning. You can tell the time of the day each photo was taken based on the colour of the sky and the clouds.

Central American villages love to use “reductors” to slow traffic down. Some are easily rideable on a bike, others are serious humps. They are often perfect opportunities for us to overtake slow trucks but sometimes, when they are spaced literally every 50 metres, they can be a bit painful. Some villages though build their own humps so they are not that visible as they don’t paint the warning stripes over them.

People in Central and South America have great concern for their motorcars safety and wellbeing. This goes as far as to have hotels that allow you to take your car into the bedroom with you. The Auto hotels as they are known allow you to drive, with your partner into garage attached to the bedroom and close the door behind you for privacy for you and your car. As most of us do not sleep for 24 hours, you, your car and partner can rent the room by the hour. What enlightened hotel management that think of your wallet and your cars safety.

Hope you enjoy the ride 🙂

Anne & Anthony