A nice breakfast buffet was on offer and because Willy’s eyes was hungrier than his stomach he could not finished all the food on the plate – especially the coconut porridge and some unidentifiable sausage that looked tastier than it actually tasted.

 

After the waiter removed the still quarter full dish , Willy was approached by the chef of the kitchen with General Manager on his side to enquire whether there was anything wrong with the food . Of course, Willy put the blame squarely on the fact that he simply thought he thought he would be hungrier than he actually was and of course the food is absolutely great and of great quality and really there is no need for a doggy bag or any other complimentary padkost that they could offer …….

 

The way to the border between Guatemala and Honduras took the boys through kilometres of Banana plantations separated every now and then with Date plantations also going on for great distances on both sides of the road.

 

Date Palms

 

The US’s most important banana supplier, Guatemala  is the third largest banana exporting country globally, trailing Costa Rica and Columbia. The productivity in this country now stands at 4,000 boxes per every hectare, and its exports have increased by 25% in recent times to stand at $623.4 million USD in value today.

 

Massive banana plantations can be seen along the roads in Guatemala

The distance between Puerto Barrios in Guatemala and Puerto Cortes in Honduras is only about 100km with a well organised border post about half way between these 2 ports.

 

The border post buildings houses both – Guatemalan and Honduras border officials and the procedures are very simple.

  • Get stamped out of Guatemala on window 1
  • Get stamped in to Honduras on Window 2
  • Cross the road to the customs building and get temporary import permit (form 9F )

    For the motor car

  • Drive off 100m and present visa stamp and vehicle import papers to Honduras police stop

Having  experienced more nerve wrecking border crossings in the Congo and in the Russian states along the silk road this was a pleasant surprise to the boys and soon they were on the way on good single lane roads approaching Puerto Cortes by lunch time and booking into the Costa Azul Lodge on the town’s beach front.

 

From here the boys will need to ship Lipstick in a container to Cartagena in Colombia because of the fact that Cost Rica does not allow any right-hand drive vehicle to drive through their country.

 

So, one of the first tasks was to get Lipstick as clean as possible and a ‘bush car wash” was found on the outskirts of Puerto Cortes where 2 very eager boys gave Lipstick a nice makeover both on the outside and inside.

A total wash and clean up for Lipstick in Puerto Cortes

 

2 very eager boys gave Lipstick a nice makeover

Back to the Lodge the Team then made contacts with their local agent :

 

Local Agent

 

and forwarded various documents to her witch would be required for customs clearance before Lipstick can actually be loaded into the container and the following programme was established

 

  • Customs clearance 9 am on Friday 26th January
  • Loading either in afternoon of Friday or Saturday morning when the container would be sealed
  • Shipment to start 31st January for container to arrive in Cartagena around 8th February

 

It was a rather hot day and the lodge’s swimming pool was a pleasure to use and cool down as was the small restaurant on the premises where the day was ended with food and Vino!

 

Cooling down after crossing the border from Guatemala to Honduras

 

 

Day 9 – 23rd January – Puerto Barrios (Guatemala) to Puerto Cortes (Honduras)