Five minutes into the stand-off, the local police arrived and tense negotiations began. The four Mexicans had poor English language skills and soon became sidelined. The Crips’ dire situation after being caught red-handed soon led them to sacrifice the cartel members to the police. With a typical British stiff upper lip mentality, the picnic continued into the night after the Mexicans were led away in handcuffs. The local gang members were given an amnesty; returning to Belize City with their armoury intact. The commanding officer had plenty of questions for Kevin and the situation strained their friendship. Eventually he recommended that it was better if the two overlanding couples did not return to base but took the road to Guatemala in the morning.
It was less than an hour to the border and the bridge across the Mopan River to Melchor de Mencos, Guatemala. They muddled through, helped by a lack of local traffic and a rough idea what was needed after checking iOverlander. Guatemalan quetzals from the money changer, temporary import permits from the customs office, 90 day visa from the Migration office and they were on their way; although the ninety days was to include time spent in the other C4 countries. Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua had an agreement making for restriction free travel between those countries but giving foreigners only ninety days. Bringing your own vehicle complicated border crossings and two hours was about the average time.
Meeting the MAN on the road just after the border had not been anticipated but was a welcome bonus for the women. Gunther suggested Belize had been humid and boring, just another stamp in the passport; all the others nodded in agreement and under the leadership of the confident German, they all set off for Tikal. The Mayan ruins had not been on the bucket list of Kevin and Rufus but they were soon as impressed as the others; climbing over the ancient pyramids and in awe of how it had all been put together. They camped in an adjacent field alongside a Swiss registered Iveco overlander. Now they were a convoy of four and the eight bonded among the sacrificial alters and ball courts.
The MAN and the Iveco took the initiative from there on; the Leyland Daf and the International hiding in plain sight with safety in numbers. Mayan ruins were a reoccurring theme as they crossed into Honduras and explored Copan Ruinas with it’s attendant flight of scarlet macaws. Honduras didn’t have much more to offer, soon they were in Nicaragua and on the ferry across to the island paradise of Ometepe with worries about the Tijuana cartel rarely on there mind. Indeed, the brothers and the henchmen never came back from the Belize Central Prison; suffering at the hands of the Bloods, the local gang aligned with the mighty Sinaloa Cartel, sworn enemies of Tijuana.
Costa Rica was expensive but that didn’t concern our flush travelers as much as the German and Swiss couples. Overlanding was expensive in big four wheel drive trucks, income was limited and outgoings were never ending. They pushed on to Panama, where Kevin and Rufus were surprised to find that the national currency was the balboa but American dollar was accepted absolutely everywhere. With three million dollars in cash, it would now be possible to live like kings. They researched the possibilities of of permanent residency and found Panama most welcoming. The quartet eventually split-up with the MAN and Iveco taking a ro-ro ferry to Colombia and continuing their journey to Ushuaia at the southern tip of Argentina. Rufus and Missy, Kevin and Gabby went to the town of Boquete, where the year round climate in the mountains was like an English Summer’s day. They rented villas, parked the trucks in a covered storage facility and kept a low profile amongst the big American ex-pat community. Slowly laundering their cartel dollars into their Panamanian bank accounts they soon had locally registered pick-up trucks and an idyllic lifestyle.
Kevin told me all this story when we met again about a year after our first encounter in the desert. I was riding my motorcycle two-up with Cheryl as my pillion on a tour of Central America. We too had discovered the high cost of overlanding in a big thirsty motorhome and were on a KTM 790 and staying in AirBnBs for half the price of touring in the Mack. It was at KM 59 on the tunnel road that I saw the Leyland Daf parked at a beachside bar. We were staying at the Surf Farm B&B, just north of El Zonte on El Salvador’s Pacific coastline. Kevin was with a pretty young Venezuelan woman who he had picked up while she was on a journey from her home country to a new life in the USA. One of many refugees making the dangerous crossing of the Darien Gap and heading north through central America.
Gabby had returned to Wales, totally stressed by the adventure, leaving Kevin alone and drinking too much with Rufus at their villas in Boquete. So what was he doing on the beach in El Salvador? Answer: Bitcoin!. The crypto currency was now legal tender in El Salvador and Kevin was exploring the possibilities of changing his Us dollars all into Bitcoin and getting back to the UK before converting back to good old Pounds sterling. Carrying all that cash about had become a burden but as I knew zero about crypto, I couldn’t help much. We sat about, mostly at the bar, where I heard this story as we watched surfers tackling the right hand break of this black sand beach. A week later Cheryl and I started out for home, leaving Kevin and Feleena as indecisive about their futures as when we arrived. Before we left he gave us a megalodon tooth.
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