After a good night of rest, we woke up and headed to the hotel restaurant for a caffeine fix and breakfast. We got on the road around 8:30, and knew we had about 8 hours of driving ahead of us, plus a border crossing, but were hoping wed be able to make it to Leon before nightfall.
Today, the weather had cleared, it was sunny and beautiful, and the traffic was pretty light. We were feeling good about the time we were making. We did a short stop for photos by Lago Yojoa, and then continued on. We were getting near the border by around 4, and knew that Leon was still almost 2 hours on the other side, but were still hoping we wouldnt have to do too much driving in the dark. We had watched a short, helpful video that someone had made on the border crossing, so we knew it was a slow process, but hoped that it wouldnt be too bad. We had all our covid tests, photocopies, passports, photocopies, car papers, photocopies, so we thought we were set. As the border neared, there was a very long line of trucks in the lane, so the
process (which we had seen in the video) was to drive up the line of traffic. We got to the spot to clear out through Honduran immigration. That was a straightforward process, just showing our IDs and doing the fingerprint scanner. Then we got back in the car and continued driving. There was a round about with a small building on one side, and on the far side a sign about immigration. We passed the building and started to drive around the roundabout but were quickly stopped.
An officer motioned for us back around, which we did, and then he had us pull over to the side. He said that we had drove past where we were supposed to stop, and that there might be a fine. I offered lots of apologies and smiles. Then he asked for our covid tests with copies and our IDs. He said he needed the receipt for the tests. I replied that we hadnt read anything about that, that we didnt have a receipt. He said wed have to go back to Tegucigalpa and get it- I told him we hadnt done the test in Tegucigalpa, it was
done in Roatan, and not possible to go back, but that I could have the lab send me a photo of the receipt through whatsapp. More smiles and thank yous for all his help. He questioned where we would print it. I was pretty sure he was trying to make things difficult to angle for a bribe, but didnt want to offer anything unless that was made very clear. He took our paperwork and said hed see what he could do for us.
minutes later, he came back with the paperwork, and said that he was able to sort it out so that we didnt have to pay a fine or get a receipt for the covid tests, and maybe we could give him a drink? I offered some Lipton iced teas from the cooler, he said they were too heavy, and maybe wed have to go back to Honduras to get drinks for him. At which point, I said maybe with some money he could get the drink he wanted? He nodded at that, and palmed a $10 that I passed over. This made him very friendly. We made a bit more small talk, he gave me
his whatsapp number and then asked me to message him right then (Im writing this entry a few days after the fact, and since then Ive got several messages from him, just checking in on our trip).
Next stop was to clear immigration and then customs, and get the car permission for the country. Immigration was fairly straightforward (we had filled in our form online ahead of time and our entry had been approved). As Sylvia and I are residents of Honduras, we didnt have to pay an entry free, Cherry had a $13 fee for entry.
We each had to fill in a customs declaration form, and then normally we would have had to carry in all our bags to be However, the car permission system was down, so they were processing car permissions over in the trucking area, which for some reason meant that they werent xraying bags. the agent just did a cursory check of our car, looked over the customs forms and put his signature on them, and then led us over to a long line to wait for the car paperwork.
