As I descended from the bus into the shadows of La Entrada, I was struck by a lightening bolt of luck. Also disembarking in this dismal location, clearly alone and appearing relatively apprehensive about her choice in destinations, was a fellow gringa.
“Is this…la Entrada?” she asked me hesitantly in Spanish.
“Appears to be…” I replied, and with the exchange of sympathetic smiles and a brief second’s eye contact, an understanding was reached.
Without even discussing the issue we found a tuk-tuk (Moto-taxi) together, asked the man to deliver us to a cheap hostel and eventually got around to introductions. Nina, I learned, fell in love with a Mexican doctor while studying abroad. They met in Spain, her international academic escape from a home country of Austria. After finishing her studies in Europe Nina moved to Mexico, in order to live with this exotic Latin boyfriend. Despite his relative wealth, copious amounts of tequila consumption and to-die-for-secret-family-recipe steak fajitas, Nina only lasted a few weeks before deciding Dr. Mexican was really just an overdramatic mama’s boy. She’s spent the subsequent several months traversing across Latin America solo. Her next destination, just like mine, was Copan. We spent the next week visiting ruins, being stranded together in a tiny mountain town with no money, no food, and nowhere to go, escaping said situation, bussing across the isthmus to the coast of El Salvador, getting surfing lessons from the locals and enjoying plenty amounts of laughter, sunshine and local beer.
The tale of my visa woes takes place between Nina and I marooning in the highlands of Honduras and a Chinese noodle Thanksgiving dinner in San Salvador. We took a series of buses from the map dot town of Santa Rosa to the Honduras/El Salvador border, joining forces with a wanderlusting Aussie surfer in the process. Nina and I had already been tossing around the idea of giving surfing a shot; his (I can’t remember the guy’s name!) intensity with regards to the pastime was both inspiring and intimidating. Like most young Latin-American travelers, he carried a large backpack containing only the bare necessities. Uniquely, he was also lugging around an oversized padded surfboard case, containing two surfboards. Any sport worth putting up with the incredible pain of dragging that behemoth bag through crowded streets, cramming it into taxis and taking it on overstuffed rural and city buses must be pretty great, Nina and I reasoned. Why not try it? With that, we set our sites on the coast.
Our bus stopped just short of the border crossing, leaving a little stroll in the piercing hot, blindingly vivid sun before entering El Salvador. The tiny strip of land traversed in that walk was so confusing surreal that failing to describe it would be a grand disservice. For reasons unbeknownst to us, our glaringly gringo trio seemed to be the only international migrants of the day. We walked down the center of a dusty gravel road, an American, an Austrian and an Australian, eyeing our dubious surroundings as hard as they eyed us. The streets were lined with tiny wooden shacks, thick layers of dust and exhaustion covering the brilliant paint which had been splashed onto the boards long ago. Each and every shack, easily numbering in the twenties on either side, boasted the title “CASA de ADUANAS” on hand painted signs tacked to walls, above doors, propped on cement steps and hanging crookedly from singular hooks which allowed them to demonstrate an utter lack of breeze by maintaining an eerie stillness. What on earth such an impressive quantity of private customs businesses could possibly be doing in this deserted DMZ I’d hate to ask, for fear of under covering a multitude of trans-national contraband smuggling operations. Not one appeared occupied; private “customs officials,” shirtless and sweaty, peered out at us from their doorways or lounged in the shade of a few limp banana trees. On one side of the street, a warped picnic table hosted a half-hearted checkers game, complete with belly-scratching onlookers. The entire scene had the fantastic feeling of being a Wyoming town, circa July 1860, deserted following news that Billy the Kid would soon be arriving, but transplanted in its entirety to a tropical setting. Very Gabriel Garcia Marquez/Laura Vasquez/Jorge Luis Borge/Smashing Pumpkins music video in its magical realism, if you’ll excuse the literary reference.*
Up ahead a heavy iron-link chain lay across the road, apparently marking the border. The closer we got, the stranger the scene became. It started slowly, 75 yards or so from the makeshift boundary. A rotund-bellied man, shirtless, glistening and odiferous strolled up. Smartly unzipping his neon nylon fanny pack, he withdrew the largest fistful of American dollars I’ve ever seen brandished. Shaking it in our faces, he proclaimed insistently “Cambio! Cambio! Do-lars! Do-lars! Quiere Cambio?” Taken aback, we shook firm “no’s” and pressed forward. Melting out of the sparse shadows, oozing from plastered positions on CASA de ADUANAS doorsteps and appearing (very fat) out of thin air, one monetary exchange wildcatter multiplied into dozens. Overwhelmed by their numbers, stenches, dodgy handfuls of greenbacks and protruding guts we quickened our steps. The three of us reached the iron chain and looked around in expectation of an official gatekeeper. Several steps behind us sat a small building whose sign identified it as Honduran immigration; it appeared totally empty and utterly unconcerned with our crossing. Unfettered, we stepped across and continued on.
On the Salvador side, things appeared slightly different. No CASA de ADUANAS buildings soiled the sidewalks, and after shrugging off a few cambio men we were on our own. I had been prepared to employ my most persuasive Spanish skills in order to enter El Salvador, thanks to my expired visa, and was relieved to be crossing without so much as a glance at my passport.
Unfortunately, my relief was short lived. Up ahead in the road was a little guard station, and as we approached a few uniformed, armed men strolled out. Not yet concerned, we handed over our passports. The guard took mine, flipped through the pages, found my current visa, and issued a low, long whistle.
“Sorry, mamita, but you can’t pass.”
Not particularly surprised or perturbed, I explained in my sweetest possible Spanish that yes, actually, I could. I told him that I’d consulted with both Guatemalan and Honduran border guards, and had visited the immigration office in San Pedro Sula, and the overall conclusion drawn was that I’d just need to fix the little teeny tiny misunderstanding once I got back to Guatemala. In truth, the first Honduran immigration officer I spoke with had told me that, and the Guatemalans were so cavalier about the whole issue that I believed what I said. Furthermore, I’ve come to understand that down here, anything can be up for negotiation if you want it to be badly enough. I had already mentally prepared myself for bribing if necessary, although I wasn’t exactly sure how that process should work.
I did my best to calmly elucidate the fact that, despite the official stamp in my visa, officials elsewhere had given me the green light to cross. The guard gave me a long, hard once-over and, apparently satisfied, took a second to ponder what I was telling him. He waved over a supervisor, and together we explained the unfortunate confusion. The boss nodded sympathetically throughout the story, and waved us out of the middle of the road, away from Nina and surfer boy. Had there been a single car in sight that would have seemed reasonable. However, since there was not, nor had there been since we’d arrived at the border, it seemed a bit sketchy. He began asking questions, clarifying the situation. I gave him honest answers to the numerous inquiries, and only furrowed my brow when he waved us slightly further away from the rest of the guards and my travel companions. Why is this auditory isolation necessary? I wondered. Looking back, the answer is rather crystal clear. Had I truly possessed the spirit of an officials-briber, I was being handed the opportunity. Instead, naïve to the ways of the illicit world, I simply followed him towards the ditch.
Having achieved a further degree of isolation, el comandante and the lesser-ranking guard began re-asking the same questions, perhaps giving me a chance to change my story. I re-told it, identical to the first time, starting with my first visa renewal in Guatemala City in August and ending with my arrival at this border crossing, El Poy. When I finished, el comandante shook his head several times slowly before beginning to speak.
“I’m sorry. But you’ll have to stay here.”
“Here?!?” I asked, incredulously. I knew I was trying to bend a rule, but up until this statement I’d been confident I’d get across. I’m young, polite, foreign, and, most importantly, feminine. Surely these ogling creepers could be persuaded to do as I wished!
“But! I can’t!” I replied, firmly. Stating the obvious, I added “I’m on my way to El Salvador.”
“No, mi reina, I’m afraid you’ll have to stay here in Honduras.”
Obviously that was ridiculous – what was I going to do in Honduras? Take up residence? Try and sneak out through some other border crossing? I’d already been flatly denied a visa, so I wasn’t exactly sure what else I could do. Of course now, calmly sitting down and writing out the story, adequate legal paths come to mind. Clearly I could have gone to the US Embassy in Tegucigalpa, where my little blue passport would grant me access to all manners of diplomatic assistance. However, sweating and stressing in the dreadful piercing sun of an uneasy, desolate border town, the thought didn’t even occur to me. Arguing, however, did.
Wanting to help me, searching for an excuse to make things work, el comandante leafed through my passport once more. Upon arriving on the page of my Guatemalan visa stamp he stared down hard, willing it to produce a solution.
“Gua-te-ma-la…” he drawled, dragging out each syllable as if one of them may hold the key. “What, exactly, did you say you’re doing there?” he asked.
Well, I hadn’t yet said, but in the most saintly tone I could muster I replied “Doing volunteer work with a Catholic community in Suchitepéquez.” Considering the supposed piety of Latin American cultures, I hoped that this answer may be my golden ticket to freedom. Sure enough, the jefe raised his eyebrows in surprise, glanced at my slightly low-cut shirt, passed his eyes over my nose ring and then said “Oh really?”
“Yup.” I answered, and then, to prove I wasn’t fibbing, I added “I teach in a school for Indian children.” Since not many people could handle a job like that without some level of Divine Assistance, I thought it ought to prove my point.
“Eres religiosa?” The boss asked, clearly interested in my reply.
Since that question means “Are you religious,” and I’d just said I work for the Catholic Church, and people like to make a big show of how very religious they are down here, it seemed that the only logical answer was yes. So, that’s what I said.
Seconds after the word escaped my lips, I realized the mistake I’d just made. “Eres religiosa?” actually has dual interpretations. One is “Are you a religious person,” and the other “Do you belong to a religious order?” The latter, when written, would capitalize the word “religiosa.” Sadly, no such punctuation is possible in conversation, and I misinterpreted as a result. I had just declared myself to be a nun. Theoretically, if they bought it, this should make them more likely to cut me a break, though, so I decided I’d just go with it. After all, changing my story by taking it back would look pretty wishy-washy, and the last thing I wanted was for them to doubt me at this point. They’d probably send me to the dungeons of a Honduran prison if they thought I was toying with them, a fate I didn’t exactly embrace.
As I suspected, this admission of religious affiliation changed the situation a bit. Although the men interviewing me clearly had their doubts that I was actually a nun (fair enough…) they seemed willing to work with the idea.
“Why don’t we step into the immigration office…” suggested el comandante, gesturing through shimmering heat towards the derelict building we’d passed at the border-cable. He began to stride in that direction, and after a quick yearning glance and “I have no idea what’s going on” shrug of my shoulders towards my traveling companions, I scurried to catch up with him.
…we’re almost finished…..
…One more installment to go….
*I fully expect that Lauren Grahm and I are the only people who would understand that sentence, and I don’t even think he reads this. I wrote it anyways, because it’s the perfect description of the escenario. Don’t worry if it was nonsense to you.
