Driving into Peru was a bit of a shock. Literally 2m after passing the border (and for hundreds of kilometers along the coast after that) the sides of the roads were full of thrash. We had been warned that the North of Peru was dirty but we did not expect this. What made it very remarkable was that the roads in Ecuador had been extremely clean. Crazy how the mentality (or is it the policies) in two neighboring countries can differ this much.

One morning in January, we are still in Mexico at the time, we wake up to find plenty of messages on our phones all with more or less the same message: “You are not planning to go to Ecuador, RIGHT?”….Euhm yes we are! We quickly google ‘Ecuador’ and immediately get what is going on. The president of Ecuador has announced ‘Decreto 111’ (aka ‘state of emergency’) after a steady rise in organized crime that has cumulated into a ‘take-over’ of the biggest prisons by criminals and a ‘hostage crisis’ live in the TV studio. In their usual style, international media, that never or hardly reported on the country for years, now confidently make the world believe that the gates of hell have opened in Ecuador. Even though we have no choice to drive around Ecuador, we are not really worried yet. We are still 6 months away from the country and this is an eternity in South America. There is however one annoying consequence of this situation for us.

We have visited Colombia in 2011 and our original plan was to revisit some of our favourite parts. But due to all the shipping delays, we decided to drive straight to the parts of the country that we have not visited yet. So, as soon as we have our van back, we start driving in a straight line to Medellin.

In Panama we hit the biggest obstacle on the Pan American Highway: the Darien Gap. there is no road from Panama to Colombia. In the middle of the jungle the road abruptly ends. There isn’t a ferry either. So the only way to get from North to South America is to ship it. And that is a serious pain in the neck for all overlanders on the way to and from South America.

We spent three weeks in Panama but to be honest we did not see a lot of the country. A lot of the time was spent waiting until we were able to ship the van to Colombia. We will make a separate blog for that rather painful process. Also most of our time is spent at the few places that have a bit of elevation to escape the maddening heat and humidity.

We had been in Costa Rica in 2019. It was our last ‘far away’(with flights) trip before we would have to pay the full price for the kids. We really loved all the nature and exotic animals so we had high expectations for this trip also. But it turned out that the ‘vanlife’ experience is a bit different than our previous visit…

So our ‘entry’ border crossing in 2hrs went pretty smooth but a lot of other travelers spent 6 or more hours at the border. Some have to take all their belongings out of the car. Others are downright turned away and not allowed in the country, because their profession is ‘suspicious’ (journalists, army, etc.). All ‘sings of the times’ of a country that has descended into a dictatorship (again).

This is the story of two countries that seem to go completely opposite directions . El Salvador has been plagued by gang violence for nearly 20 years but has recently changed things around and is now surfing on a wave of positivism. Nicaragua on the other hand was the rising star of Central American tourism in the first decade of this century but has slowly been transformed into the Ortega dictatorship that it is today. The 2018 uprisings and violent repression have decimated tourism and there is not really a sign of improvement at the horizon…

There are 37 volcanoes in Guatemala of which three are in constant eruption. We had seen one of them, Fuego, erupt from a distance during or stay at Lago de Atitlan and we wanted to have a closer look. That however it takes a very strenuous hike 6hrs to get up to the viewpoints at 3700m. The hike is considered ‘not suitable for young kids’ but we knew a Dutch family who did it last year. And since we had been doing very similar hikes as them before, we were convinced that our kids could pull it of also. But to be sure, we decided to do a try out and acclimatization hike to another of the three erupting volcanoes.

September 2001, I had just graduated from university and had hardly been outside of Belgium and the neighboring countries but somehow, inspired by travel books and stories from fellow students, I found myself on a plane to Guatemala to live with a host family, study Spanish and do volunteer work. After those three months my life was never the same. Arriving back in Guatemala in February 2024 was the start of a great trip down memory lane.