Departure from San José the next morning was early and Costa Rica was to become one of the highlights in our journey along with Bolivia. Driving to the first Special Stage was like driving through a huge version of the Royal Botanical Gardens, an equatorial jungle with picturesque volcanoes, wildflowers and lakes. Stopping for morning tea at a café in the shadow of a volcano waiting for our time on the Special Stage, hummingbirds would dart in and out of jungle flowers climbing up the pillars supporting the roof. Costa Rica, a virtual paradise, is the Switzerland of Spanish America having no army, no nuclear power and an insistence on maintaining their tropical rain forests and thereby keeping in tact the flora and fauna which is so evident in this clean, happy and peaceful country.
The two army boys, Nick and Mick, having badly damaged the Ford Escort which the repair crew at Cartegena had put right for them, were now trailing along, Mick seemingly suffering from dehydration. The Halls were now in trouble again with broken suspension and renewed gearbox trouble. Despite it being their second box, they were also getting through their second supply of tyres having been able also to use the Kane’s supply which had been waiting at La Paz. The Aussies, Les and Gordon, had punched a Macpherson strut through the bodywork damaging the bonnet lid.
The road to Nicaragua bound for Managua was along, hot one of 336 miles and after crossing the border, we were immediately aware of the poorness of this country, the only thriving element seemed to be the heavily armed military which like the police, sported the latest 4-wheel drive Japanese vehicles. Managua stands between two large lakes, which are home to freshwater sharks. In the centre of the largest lake is a very scenic volcano and driving along its coast we found the only colour emanated from the occasional flame trees, a burst of bright orange in an otherwise parched and dusty land. No doubt with so much freshwater this had once been full of lush vegetation before intensive cattle farming had reduced it to its arid state.
The petrol quality in Nicaragua was extremely poor and there was nothing we could do to stop the engine from pinking and running hot. We arrived at the hotel which was splendid and after a swim, in a slightly oily pool, we had an early dinner and collapsed into fresh beds.
Departure on day 27, the 18th May from Managua to El Salvador, meant that we would be in three countries today, Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador, and our Road Book led us to believe that crossing these borders would be so smooth we would hardly notice them. We decided to press on and get to El Salvador as early as possible. In so doing found the border crossings were as predicted and we cruised through Honduras which was much better than Nicaragua though not up to the standard of Costa Rica. We then rapidly moved on to the border with El Salvador.
With three border crossings, however smooth, the day seemed long despite there being only 380 miles to do and it was getting hotter as we neared the city of San Salvador. In 38°C we entered a cacophony of noise and pollution to join the fastest moving gridlock we have ever been a part of. The buses on all sides belched black diesel smoke through their 4″ diameter exhaust pipes, short stubby noisy lorries bounded across our path like charging rhino bellowing on their horns which could hardly be heard above the noise of their exhausts. Somewhere in this maelstrom of turgid metal we realised that we were irrevocably lost so that we would have to resort to the good old standby of hiring a taxi and following it.
Some 40 minutes later after the most harrowing city driving, we came into a more prosperous quarter of the city and there found our hotel nestling under a massive mosaic of San Salvador himself. We paid the taxi driver $5 US and could have kissed him on every cheek he possessed especially as we thought we were the first to arrive, but there in the car park was the transport of that crafty Spanish speaking cad, the lime green Mustang Convertible. Alberto had beaten us again and was relaxing by the limpid blue pool drinking iced tea.
Despite the 38°C, the hillyness of the city, and the wheel-to-wheel driving, Hero had not boiled-over but come close with 95°C recorded on its temperature gauge. It was now obvious that somewhere in El Salvador we had topped up the radiator with a detergent mix used for cleaning windscreens when we bought petrol. It was now foaming into a mousse pushing out the coolant and making the engine run hotter. The correct thing to do would have been to drain the radiator and engine block and wash it out, but hose pipes are a rare commodity in these countries so I resorted to topping up the radiator each time we stopped, hoping that the mousse would blow out of the over-flow pipe and the detergent would finally be diluted so as to be ineffective. Additionally, we had been topping up the rear axle oil level each night and could find no indication as to where the oil was going. There was never a pool of oil under the axle and nor was it leaking into the brake drums. Quite a mystery. The oil loss from the power steering box was still with us and worsening. There was a considerable dent behind the front left wheel on the sill, the result of hitting that huge hole on the road to Cali in Colombia. Otherwise, Hero was behaving as well as she had at the start of the event, and with only three more days to the end of the Rally we took to our beds in the super hotel The Presidente having noted the last sentence in our Road Book ‘tomorrow is a long hard day – turn in early tonight’.