Steve Momot Gallery

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	the road was rough, and so bad in spots that one of us has to dismount to guide the driver onto the high spots--or else you'd have run aground. my father is wiring the exhaust pipe up, it was torn away by contact with the road. note the small slide just ahead of us... in some places, large sections of the road were gone, and boulders the size of the car had rolled into the road.

	this is another view of the highway in Costa Rica, closer to the panama border. keep in mind...this is the MAIN HIGHWAY. when you came to the proverbial "fork in the road" it was quite usual that there were no signs...it took an examination of what seemed to be the most worn path to pick a direction of travel.

	this is the scene that my father was filming in the previous shot...in western Costa Rica the road got somewhat better...you could go pretty fast... but had to watch for giant potholes that could swallow the car, and break the suspension.

	this was the road in Costa Rica--there was about 200 miles of this, and often much worse than this, between the panama border with Costa Rica, and San Jose, the capital. animals in the road were common...

	sights like this were common along the road... this was in western Costa Rica

	we spent Christmas eve in San Jose...pulling the engine on the mgb to repair the clutch...the whole job, labor and a new clutch, was $21.00...that was to remove the engine, and replace it...they also fixed the exhaust system. San Jose that night was a big street festival...this photo was taken at sunset on Christmas day as we neared the Costa Rica -- Nicaragua border.

	Pan Am highway in Nicaragua. as can be seen, the road was in much better condition there

	Honduran license tag...going between Nicaragua and Honduras we were fumigated...even inside the car, for what, I don't know.

	animals of all kind were all over the road...free running. Needless to say, great care had to be taken...imagine hitting this thing at about sixty miles an hour...

	to say that the pace of life is slower in Central America is without doubt an understatement...here a "two ox power" wagon rolls down highway one, probably in Honduras.

	This was by far the most challenging of the borders we had to cross...between Honduras and El Salvador. A few months before this photo was taken, these two countries had what amounted to a small war --it started over a soccer game, and ended with the Honduran air force bombing the highway on the El Salvador side. the Hondurans had moved their customs and immigration back from this building about a half mile...it was in a mud-walled hut with a palm-frond roof, dirt floor, with fruit crates as furniture. the typewriter was one of those old style ones that was about a foot-and-a-half high. when we actually drove down to the border station, located on a river, we couldn't help but notice the bullet holes in the wall. we crossed --carefully-- and on the Salvadorian side were made to remove EVERYTHING from our car...when we got it all out, and i do mean EVERYTHING, they said we could put it back in. we drove off, and about a mile down the highway came across the biggest pot-holes I'd ever seen...they covered the entire road, both lanes!!! it turned out that they were bomb craters, courtesy of the Honduran air forces...I couldn't help but think of our own army SSgt Miguel Padilla and "his country" Honduras.

	this is yet another well worn highway sign... from the inter-American highway in El Salvador

	yet another shot of the highway, and how "well traveled" it is. this scene is in El Salvador, nearing the border with Guatemala.

	this handsome building was the "aduana" or customs facility on the El Salvador side of the Guatemala--El Salvador border. If you arrived before 8 a.m., between noon and 2 p.m. "siesta," or after 6 p.m., you had to pay an "overtime" charge.

	this was the Guatemala customs facility on their side of the Salvador--Guatemala border... although the locals seemed to pretty much just walk through... we were looked at pretty closely. when you entered a country, an inventory was taken of the vehicle...how many spare tires...radio, etc., etc. if you were missing something as you exited, a duty could be charged. also, if you entered the country by car, that was stamped in your passport...if you attempted to fly out...you paid duty on the car.