El Salvador post is up. Papusas! http://ushuaiaorbust.com/2018/05/04/el-salvador/

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Adventure travel update! I'm currently stuck in Bluefields on the sparsely populated Atlantic side of Nicaragua for an extra 5 days (hopefully not more) due to mass protests and roadblocks that basically block all car traffic from the Pacific to Atlantic side. The roadblock at Nueva Guinea went up at noon Thursday. I showed up at 4pm.

If my flight from Corn Island hadn't been delayed from morning to afternoon - I probably would have just made it. Or just missed it by like 5 minutes, which would have been really painful.

I spent the first night in my car along with everyone else - hoping they'd open up at some point. Btw in case you're wondering my 2007 FJ burns about 4 gallons of gas over 12 hours idling with the AC running. Then in the morning I gave up and went back to Bluefields. The minimum I heard for the roadblock was 2 days. There seems to be a word-of-mouth schedule to these things, but it changes a lot and no one really knows for sure.

The only thing I know for sure is there's a Managua/Bluefields bus trapped in Bluefields. When that moves I know the road will be open. I've got a local guy here keeping me up-to-date, for which I'm buying him a few meals. He also told me there's no panga boats to La Rama - not that that would help me much. Although he told me there were no flights to Managua, which is wrong. But he knows the panga captains so I think he's accurate on that.

Nueva Guinea to Bluefields is about a 2 hour drive but through some gnarly construction that gave me a flat tire the first time. I have since aired down to 20psi and been fine. This time it was raining on the super-slick clay mud. The mud is so slick literally you can barely stand up on it. I drove on a small patch and all 4 tires spun for a bit when I got back on the pavement, until the mud burned off. They were towing cars uphill to get through it. I saw a road-grader towing a bus towing a car.

So there's another fun factor to worry about - might get trapped by the rains. The cool part was they picked my car out of the whole line to be the first one down the hill. People were walking by remarking - "cautro por cuatro". It would be fun to try to get up it sometime. When I came back the next day they had spread rocks around and it was much better.

I went back to the front lines today and saw all the same people - no one's moved - even people in nice cars. The line was actually shorter than when I left the previous morning - as like me plenty of people gave up and went somewhere else. There are makeshift campsites all over the place. Multiple people said 3 more days. So I came back to Bluefields again. So frustrating because it's like a 5 minute walk from where my car is stuck to where I want to be. They don't block foot traffic, bicycles or horses - only motorcycles, cars, buses and trucks.

Myself and my car get a lot of attention in that line as the only gringo with a weird car they never see, and with USA plates - and people get drunker and want to joke around with me more as the night goes on. It's good natured and I'm sure it's most likely safe, but I felt a little like a sitting duck. I did see my drunk neighbor who kept calling me gringo and was making me a little nervous from the night before. He had gotten a hotel room and cleaned up, and was very nice during the day.

It's hard to tell the spectators and trapped people from the protestors - maybe that's by design. Except for a couple guys walking around with makeshift rocket launchers. They fire these throughout the night as fireworks - but were also firing them at cops (and getting shot at for it) in the protests a few weeks ago.

So by my guess it's maybe 30 protestors, a few of them armed with glorified fireworks. I didn't see any other weapons. But I did see some people in the back of a truck with a serious military rifle - driving towards me, about 20km away from the scene this morning. No idea what that was about. If everyone who's stuck just banded together I bet they could push these guys off. But maybe then hidden weapons come out or something. I've heard most of the other roadblocks at least let people trickle though - not this one.

Hopefully I get out of here Tuesday or Wednesday - if civil war doesn't break out.

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Hanging out in our new home away from home. I moved the tanks to upright, but they were empty until now. I filled them just in case of emergency, and now they're denting the roof a little. I think I can put one of the extra roof slats under it. Or try to find a 1x4 tomorrow.

But on the plus side I'm getting caught up on my blog. I'm finishing up on the blog posts now. http://ushuaiaorbust.com/2018/05/13/honduras-pt-1/

Where else can you get beautifully shot food porn like this?

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Also there's a weird naked guy story - but sadly no pics.

My daughter was supposed to go on a mission trip to Nicaragua next month but they’re going to Ecuador now instead due to the unrest.

Yeah it doesn't seem to be a one time thing. A lot of people are talking civil war. I think if Ortega agrees to run again it will end. The military and police aren't backing him very strongly. So who knows.

Stay safe. Good luck.

So far nothing's made me fear for my safety except my concerns about getting all the attention as the "wtf is this gringo with US plates doing here?". The protestors aren't targeting me.

But yeah I'm just looking to get my car out of the country ASAP at this point. In retrospect driving across to the Atlantic side, and then ignoring warnings about protests on May 10th was a bad move. But literally the only kind of protest that could have affected me is this - blockading one side of the country from the other. No one was predicting that.

The owner of the hotel I'm at says I should have gone up to the front and asked them to let me pass as an American. From every other gringo roadblock encounter I've ever read about, that wouldn't go anywhere, and would just draw a lot more attention to me. He also said I should call the US Embassy. So I emailed them tonight. We'll see what they say.

I know, right? Can you imagine no air conditioning and people who can’t even speak English. Why not just shoot yourself!

New blog is up. Almost caught up to present. http://ushuaiaorbust.com/2018/05/14/utila-pico-bonito/

I'm still stuck in Bluefields with my car. Current plan is I'm going to head back to the roadblock at Nueva Guinea tomorrow. Hopefully it opens then, as they were saying on Sunday. If not, thanks to help from Oasis Hotel in BF, I have the owner of a hotel in Nueva Guinea who has said he'll *try* to help me. I also will have a cooler full of ice cold beer as a propina/peace-offering/goodwill gesture. Heh. I figured it might be welcomed after 6 days of manning a roadblock in steamy heat.

My plan is to head to the Costa Rica border at Rio San Juan/Los Chiles and get across as soon as possible. There could be more roadblocks but hopefully if I can get through one I can get through the rest. I just want to get out of the country before my visas expire. Hopefully that will get some sympathy.

Wish me luck!

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Good luck!

Watch your back and keep your powder dry.

One of your pics was too dark to be seen. Just so you know, I downloaded it, only to open it in Photoshop to lighten it to see it. Then I thought I do you a favor and just restore the color as an exchange back.

Don't know how it will look on your screen but it looked good here. Here it is.

Thanks!

You're welcome.

Possibly the best thing I've ever seen on the Planet. Possibly. Kirsty Tynes is the only thread that gives it a run...

Suzzer is more likely to post naked pictures of himself. Does that factor into your analysis, burt?