response

I have to disagree with you about the Southern Highway. The Southern
Highway isn't up to U.S. interstate or major high-traffic highway
standards, right, but for the volume of traffic (literally a few
hundred vehicles a day, usually) it's a damn good road, and personally
I've not noticed any deterioration or slick spots.

I've only been on a few roads in Guatemala and only the road from the
international airport to San Salvador in El Salvador, but I will say
that the richest country in Central America, Costa Rica, has mostly
[#%!]-poor roads (even though the Southern Highway was paved by a Tico
company), Nicaragua's and Honduras' generally are awful, and the
secondary roads in Panama, while generally very good, aren't any
better than the Southern Highway.