Honduras here we come!!

We started today where we left off yesterday, namely finishing the head gasket repair for Nigel’s Lagonda. The cylinder head and rockers were already on so it was just a matter of replacing all the other connected parts. We started at around 08:00am and were finished by 10:00am, then a quick shower and clean up and off to the border we went, once aghain escorted by Nicaragua’s finest.

 

 

The road to the border took us through the town of Ocotal. Nigel’s car now has power and is like a reborn stallion, the only issue being a tendency to overheat. We aren’t quite sure what is causing that but the car is so much better than it was previously we can sort the heating issue out over the coming days.

 

In Ocotal our cavalcade stops and we are met by the commissioner/ mayor and his wife which was a great honour and pleasure although our mutual communications skills are limited. Then it was plain sailing onto the border.

 

The Nicaraguan side of the border was very straightforward and fast. It was after all a Sunday and the border crossing north of Octotal is not a major one. We crossed into Honduras to be met by ‘Porky” and his crew who promised that with their help we would experience the fastest border crossing yet. They weren’t wrong. They knew exactly how to process both the passengers and the cars into Honduras and we were completed in about an hour.

 

Honduras once again is a beautiful country although they have a similar approach to rubbish as the Peruvians namely that they don’t really give a damn and dump it everywhere. Such a shame when you live in a truly beautiful country. We had a choice of heading for Tegicigalpa, the capital, but chose to head into the Valley of the Angels, a national park about 30 minutes east of the capital. It was a fantastic drive up through the mountains, twisting and turning and rising and rising through the rain forest. The biggest challenge was the traffic and the subsequent pressure on the car and in particular their tendency in such conditions to overhead. Nigel stopped twice on the way up, Ham and Chris once. The cars increasing tendency to overheat probably exhibits the fact that they have covered over 11,000km and really weren’t designed to do this sort of mileage.

 

We arrived in our AirBnB around 18:00 and I am happy to admit we sat in our cars for about 30 minutes juist enjoying the moment, cars and drivers cooling down gently as the sun goes down.

Excellent steaks all round and as usual early to bed fro an early start. the cars run much better in the cool mornings than the blistering afternoons.