Decker Trip - Panamerican Highway 1966

Oct 11. It was a beautiful sunrise and morning. The scenery around our stop was breathtaking. Most of the clothes had dried P.T.L., and the rest are spread around the car. Got stated about 8:45.
We drove through lush lowland vegetation all morning with lots of platanales and cornfields. Everything is green, green, green--and wet.

At noon we got to Huetzla and decided to eat at a small corner pension. Back in the hinterland again! Had rice and eggs, and bananas for dessert. The soup wasn't ready yet. Really hot! Shades of Bolivia!
Drove in the afternoon to the border, after stopping at a border town--Tapachula. It started to rain and kept up intermittently as we sat in front of the bridge waiting for the Aduana to open at 3:00. We had no trouble on either side of the bridge. In fact, in Guatemala the woman just went through the car and stuck a sticker on everything she could see--almost on the potty, in fact.
We left the Aduana and passed 2 more checkpoints before being brought to a stop by a landslide about 4 miles farther on. It was raining quite hard, but Ken walked up to see the slide. Found out it was about 4 ft. deep across the road and would take till about 9:00 pm to clear off.

Met a Texan and 2 Germans stopped there. While talking to them, Ken discovered that he'd lost his car registration somewhere--probably at customs. So we backtracked to find it. Must have been the Lord that ordered that slide for us. Ken found the reg. on the floor of the Aduana. It was late, so we walked over to a pension. They had nothing but beans, bifstek, and huevos. We had cafe con leche y pan with 3 orders of meat to go around. Boy-o-boy, that steak was more cogote.
The countryside is crisscrossed with beautiful rocky streams. Every few miles you cross one. The kids are dying to swim. After eating, we put the kids to bed in the car and drove back through the opened pass to the Motel Colonia, just outside of Retalhueleo. We got a room with hot water and showers--a real treat.