Comment by cft

I recently took two years off and drove from San Francisco to Panama. I spent a lot of time in El Salvador and in Honduras and made some observations. Police in those countries are invisible (non-existent?). You can pretty much do what you want- Honduras just built a new highway system, you can drive as fast as your engine allows. But when you get to know people, the owners of small businesses will tell you that there's another kind of protection. I would call it racket. In San Pedro Sula especially, when you stop paying for protection, your troubles start. Even on the smallest personal level: there are no meters in the center. We parked on a public street, and a 15 years old teenager came and asked 20 Lempiras for parking. My very experienced German companion wanted to ignore him, but then the teen's "supervisors" showed up. They looked like people you don't want to mess with. They politely offered the schedule: 1h is 20, 30min is 10 and left. We opted tor 30min, and the teen timed us to a minute on his watch. In exchange, he "guarded" my California plated car and blocked the upcoming traffic so that I could leave the parking spot (and that he could get another "customer"). I believe some people would actually prefer that system, but so far I liked the American system better.