(Daniel) Having endured the most stressful border crossing to date, and driven all the way across Honduras yesterday, most people would have slept in this morning.  But for some reason I couldn't, showering and walking downstairs for breakfast.

The poor quality of the hotel had been almost forgotten in the wake of the excellent shower in the room.  But I soon found myself frustrated again by the internet not working, the hotels card machine not working, and just a general case of most of the staff not working!

In my frustration I phoned Elmer, the guy who I had met yesterday at the border in the midst of my scary experience alone at the hands of forceful ‘assistants’  who had helped to make my experience an unforgettably poor one.  “Don’t worry.” said Elmer, “I will be there in 5 minutes, I have internet at my house, and the boys will be ready to go out for a drive in the mountains at 10am.”

True to his word, Elmer arrived five minutes later with his girlfriend in tow.  I followed him in the Wolf to his house, in a nice part of the town.  In the daylight I could see that San Pedro was a quite modern town, with spacious roads and an American feel to the place.  It didn’t seem dangerous or ruthless in anyway, framed by the cloud draped mountains all around, the place seemed odd in comparison to it’s almost fantastical surroundings.

Elmer had a huge Ford F250 pickup outside his house, and in the alleyway alongside it, a Jeep Cherokee 4.0 with huge mud tyres, the whole vehicle was heavily modified for offroad use, lifted high off the ground with winch and ARB bumpers front and rear.  Inside he had fast internet, and a spare room which he offered me immediately to use for as long as I liked.  I only intend to spend another day here after today, and so accepted, probably a little to eagerly I am ashamed to say! 

Once I had spoken on Skype to Nii and Nicky regarding the various issues going on in the other corners of the planet that affect me, we were ready to go.   Climbing into our vehicles and heading into town once again.  In his vehicle Elmer had his two Nephews and his Girlfriend, I was alone in the Wolf for a change.

Our first stop was at KFC, to pick up some food for a lunch stop in the mountains.  After that we drove to a workshop a few streets away, outside I could see three land rovers in various states of readiness.  Inside the workshop was an Aladdin’s cave of offroad vehicles and equipment, 1940 and 60s Land Rovers and Toyota Land Cruisers sat nose to tail, some of them vey heavily modified.  The mechanics inside spent some time looking over the Wolf, then we headed on to a house a few streets away.  Outside was parked a monster of a Jeep, with 44” tyres adorning its cut back and lifted presence.  This was Elmers competition vehicle. 

Guiltily I realised that I had not asked Elmer about his profession, and having now seen three extreme vehicles in his possession, chose this time to enquire.   It turned out that he had an offroading supplies company, importing winches and other equipment from the states.  I had met him on the border, having abandoned his Isuzu truck in Gautemala after the gearbox had failed on it’s drive back from Los Angeles.

From the house poured out a multitude of people, they all began to pour over the Wolf, as I began the guided tour.  A Land Rover 90 pulled up with a man who was introduced to me as Honduras’ best Landie Mechanic, not long afterwards an old but heavily modified Toyota Land Cruiser arrived, sitting next to the newer one which was already parked behind Elmers monster Jeep!

I mentioned that the steering on my vehicle had been a little hard since the wrenching tyre burst a few days ago in Coban.  Instantly there were two men under the Wolf asking me to rock the steering, I did so, and to my surprise and embarrassment the bottom plate from the newly fitted ball joint fell out from under the vehicle. Considering that I had driven many miles off-road, and several hundred on road since the ball joint was fitted, I was amazed that it chose this moment to dislodge itself.

Instantly the two men were looking for tools and fitting the plate back in place along with its retaining clip.  I hesitated a helping word of advice regarding our method of fitting the plate before, but was answered from under the vehicle in Spanish with something about fifteen years!  It seems that Landie mechanics are the same the world over!  I could have retorted with something about fifteen years of doing the same thing doesn’t make it right, but decided that discretion was a better course here.

With the tour finished, and my ball joint housing intact once again, it was time to leave, I picked up a co-pilot, George (Horhej) as four vehicles drove first to a fuel station, then a few streets further towards the hills, leaving the tarmac and entering steep farm tracks climbing high into the mountains.

Having not rained yet, the tracks were grippy enough, although I could see that a good rainfall would leave all but the most capable offroad vehicles winching up certain sections of track.  As we climbed from 600 feet to 4000 the air became cooler and moist.  The cloud line approached fast, and the scenery just became more and more amazing.

At around 4500ft we leveled out, driving through coffee fincas past children and adults on foot or horseback waving as we passed.  Occasionally we would pass a packed old Toyota Land Cruiser all in amazingly good condition.

As we reached the top of the hills,   the views were astounding, looking out over a cloud line sea, broken by islands of mountains tops, covered in lush plant life.  Tracks running along the tops of some of the hills begged to be explored, and the temperature made for a comfortable ride, despite the searing heat in the valley below.

From here the tracks just got more amazing, and the views more fantastic, I wish I could put the hundreds of photos which I took on these pages, but they would never load!

After an hour or so, we began to drop down, letting the gears do the work on the slippy mud tracks, steeply leading down into the valley towards a river which zigzagged the track.  At the bottom of the track, we drove straight our into river, following the lead car.  George was surprisingly knowledgeable on all things offroad, despite his 16 years.  He plied me with information about the tracks and area as we continued on from one river crossing to another, never once getting stuck or hitting rocks too hard.

At one point we actually drove upstream along the river for around 100 meters, before exiting on the bank, and negotiating a particularly tricky rock section.  Just after this, we found ourselves at a wide section of river where we stopped for lunch.

Having filled ourselves up with KFC and coca cola, the group headed across the river and began to climb up the other side of the valley as the heavens opened and rain began to fall. 

The tracks on the other side of the valley seemed a little slipperier than our first leg, but still posed little problem for the Wolf on our meaty new Cooper Discoverers.  As we gained altitude the celestial views returned, making me think that I had really done myself a raw deal by spending so little time here in Honduras.

Just farther along the track, and not more than an hour into the second leg, the challenge for the day presented itself.  I used to say disaster when things like this happened, but any body with so much disaster in their life would begin to feel jinxed, so through a simple process of re-definition, I have improved my luck no end!   The older white Toyota driven by Bruno, had stopped dead in the middle of the track, halfway up a muddy hill.  As George and I pulled up beside it we could see George’s father with his head under the bonnet looking puzzled.

After some deliberation, it was decided that the issue was probably a distributor based one, and therefore unfixable.  The other Toyota would tow the vehicle to a house farther up the hill where we would leave it for the boys to return tomorrow to carry out repairs.  

Using a tree strop, the Toyota pulled the stricken vehicle up the muddy hill, it’s gearbox whining under the extra strain.  George and I climbed into the Wolf and began headed after the disappearing pair of vehicles.

Just farther along and on a particularly steep section of track, we found both vehicles now stuck in the slippy wet mud. We exited once again to survey the scene.  Having used it many times in the jungle mud of Guatemala, I elected to use my KRR (Kinetic Recovery Rope)  to pull not one but both Toyota at once up the hill.  The boys decided it was worth a try, and we hooked up the vehicles in a chain, with the Wolf at the front and the two Toyotas attached with the tow strap behind.

I wished that the various Toyota addicts who had been bending my ear over the last few weeks could have been here to see this, a Land Rover towing not one but two Toyotas up a muddy hill.  With a smile of pride I selected second gear and applied the power.  The KRR stretched absorbing the force of my momentum, then pulled tight on the train of vehicles behind me, jolting them into movement, and dragging them along behind.  I climbed at a good pace up the hill to a wide corner taking the track as wide as possible, but halfway, stopped to shouts as the first Toyota had been dragged into the apex, and required moving before we could continue.

I looked at the situation infront of me, realising that these guys didn’t want to ask me to tow as I was guest of theirs, and offered to pull the stricken vehicle up the rest of the way myself.  The others agreed.  First we would need to winch the Smaller Toyota to a better position to clear the corner.  The various helpers pulled out my winch cable, asking around for a pulley block to double line the pull.  Having used the Superwinch many times before for worse than this, I told them that I could do a straight pull on the vehicle.  They were doubtful but allowed me to try.

The Winch pulled superbly, bringing the Toyota all the way to the point of the corner, where we removed the cable, reattached the KRR for me to maneuver infront to drag it to the house which we could now see further along the track.  Second gear was not quite man enough for the heavy pull, but first easily hacked away at the mud pulling the vehicle to the next corner, where after a few more tugs, we had the Toyota safely parked.

The rest of the way back was beautiful, and having got used to the grip level of the mud here, I was able to push the speed up without fear of problems on the downhill sections.

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