Carretera de Muerto, through Olancho

Day 2 (290 km)

     Early start and we had to backtrack from Olanchito a few kilometers to reach the infamous "Carretera de Muerto', I have been hearing about for the last 30 years and if you look on the map is actually the shortest road to get to the south, wasn't it, it was all dirt, but were looking forward to it and wanted to get in the mountains.

     After passing the police check point, just outside Olanchito, we made a right turn and then hit the gravel road and started to climb to higher altitude, eventually over 1600 meters and after a few minutes, we were in the department of Olancho, but of course there was no sign, that stated it. the road was hard gravel in the beginning, but soon it became a wash board with dry rivers in it and we had to slowdown plenty. Half an hour later, all bolts were loosening up in Scotty's bike and had to stop to fix this, then I start getting problems with the fuel and the engine kept cutting out. draining the carburetor  loosening the tank cap, clearing fuel lines,  the problem continued to persist. Anyway it was a nice 160 km  ride, but a nightmare at the same time!  Around midday we reached finally the paved road, had some lunch in a road restaurant and after lunch we were trying to get to Tegus, but the engine kept failing me, but after topping the tank off with gas, it seems it was doing better and finally reached Tegus around 4 pm and there was a traffic jam throughout the City. We reached the hotel and I had to get rid off all the dust we caught from all day and a shower did good and were soon ready for dinner again in town! The hotel Granada 2 we stayed by coincidence many times in the past and was a decent and cheap and you do not need A/C in this time of the year!

      We had to do some serious paperwork to do here on Tuesday (Getting finally our license plates!) and we wanted to leave before midday, to see if we could end up in Nicaragua, before dark and didn't want waste more time in Tegus as necessary, we still had to catch a cargo plane leaving Panama on Sunday!