68 Hours In Honduras

  Copan, Honduras
Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Week 5
Tuesday, it was a rush to make the bus to Honduras stright after my last Spanish lessons. I needed some cash to make sure I could got through the border crossing but as usual the queue was quite long and I could not afford to wait. The further south I travel the more difficult it seems to be to find warm water and ATMīs that accept any of my cards. I reckoned I had enough cash for the border but it always seems to be more than the guide books advise.  The bus arrived an hour late with the obligatory crazy bus driver who hadnīt looked like he has slept in about 5 days. He honked the horn so regularly Iīm guessing it was just to keep himself awake. I chatted to an American couple on the bus and they agreed to get me through the border if I didnīt have enough cash. Happy days....

I turns out I had exactly enough to get through and thought that would be fine I could get some more in Copan, Honduras. We approached Copan as dakness fell. When arriving in the town it didnīt get any brighter, strange. The driver spoke to the locals and found out they had a power cut a few minutes earlier. The driver said this was normall and the power should be back in a few hours. The difficulty of the situation only began to dawn on me when I got out of the car in pitch darkness. I was accosted by people wanting to bring me to their hotels and hostels. I couldnīt see anything, and didnīt know where in the town I was, I had no money and couldnīt find my light. I had no phone signal ( I was later to discover my phone didnīt work in Honduras). I knew Olly was staying in a hotel or hostel beginning with the letter M and it was $5 a night. I picked one matching that description in my giude book and after eventually orientating myself with the map I walked towards the direction of the hostel.  No good. Too dark to go any further and every so often I could hear movement and whispering in the darkness. I went back from where I came and stopped under a random light of a cafe. The cafe was shut but they must have had a generator running. I sat for a while thinking about what I should do next. Eventually I plucked up the courage to carry on in the darkness. I literally could not see anything and stopped where I reckoned the hostel should be. Up a little laneway I saw some candles and there was a restaurant with some children there. I spoke to them with my now improved Spanish and they kindly brought me to the hostel.

Next step, presuade them to let me stay without giving them money... There were very few guests so I think they were happy to have another customer and agreed I could pay when I got some money, i.e. when the ATMīs came back or the banks opened. Ok so I had a place to stay but was starving I hadnīt eaten since 7 A.M that morning. I explained to a Guatemalen couple there my predicament and they were willing to lend me a little money to buy food. I didnīt really want to try find my way around the town in the dark and try to find some food so I managed to persudae them to let me have their leftovers. We chatted for a while and turned in early. The next morning power hadnīt returned so I waited for the banks to open and changed a travellers cheque. The hostel was that plasant and when I returned the Guatelmalean couple were moving out to a hotel they found beginning with M and was $5 a night. I reckined thats where Olly was. So off with them I went and managed to track down Olly. He had suffered some similar faith and still hadnīt managed to find any money. He wasnīt very impressed with the place so we both decided to leave that afternoon for San Pedro Sula, the second city of Honduras and the main employment and wealth centre.

5 hours on bus later welcome to San Pedro Sula. If Copan was difficult due to no power San Pedro was simply chaotic, rough and dirty. We picked an affordable hotel, though it had no hot water and was in a dodgy part of town. The most trouble we got however were from the local gay population whistling and calling to us. Remember the white look is a delicacy in these parts. After an extensive seatch to locate cash we eventually managed to find a machine willing to dish some out. One sub standard meal later combined with the general feel of the place and the previous 24 hours experience we decided then to get out of Honduras as soon as possible. It would mean another 2 days travelling by day and not many exciting activities.

Street Scene Tegucigalpa

The next day we were on the road early again towards the capital Teguicalpa. Reputation had it that this city was a bigger, rougher version of San Pedro Sula. I would say there were about on a par. The bus dropped us off in a badpat of town and the taxi journey to the centre through the crowded streets was unnerving. The hostel we wanted to stay was full so we had to settle for a nearby hotel,

Nice Accommodation

which was very cheap but extremely basic. We didnīt care. We just figured it was somewhere to get our heads down. The next tasks were to find figure out to get to the border and to find enough cash to get us to there. 2 hours later, I managed to get some cash but Olly had no luck. We ate in a Burger King for some confort food (I didnt want to mention sooner for fear of ridicule from Brian but I have been having stomach problems since Flores in Guatemala). Sticking to more "normal" food seemed to be helping a little bit. Ironically it was in Burger King that Olly found a machine that would give him some cash. Right that should be it, just get up eary to get the sole trans-border bus to Managua and all would be good. We arrived at the Ticabus station in good time (unusual for me which shows how keen I was to get out of there) and lucky we did. We were told the border fees would be more expensive than we expected from the gyude books and after the bus tickets we reckoned we had enough money for the border and one meal.

Tegucigalpa

Given the previous 3 days troubles of arriving in new places with very little money, we had a tough descison to make. Get a taxi back into town through rush hour traffic to get more cash and risk missing the bus or stay put get the bus and risk having trouble in Managua in the dark. Taxi it was. After a very nervy slow journey back into town we jumped out near the centre, ran into the beloved Burger King and back out into another cab. Never I think I would be in a situation appropriate to shout "ĄArriba! ĄArriba! ĄÁndale! ĄÁndale!". Luckily the traffic wasnīt as bad, we made the bus by 15 minutes and even had time for a soggy sandwich.


68 hours in Honduras

Leaving Honduras

Arrival: December 2nd 6 p.m.
Departure: December 5th 2p.m.

Time spent travelling: 27 hours
Time spent sleeping in crap accomodation: 24 hours
Time spent looking for the above crap accomodation: 3 hours
Time spent looking for sources of cash: 5 hours
Time spent plotting the best ways to get out: 7 hours
Time spent trying to communicate with the ouside world that I was still alive: 2 hours