Honduras

Our first day in Honduras--like so many first days--was a test in patience and endurance. We woke early to catch a 5 a.m. collectivo (shared minivan) in the filthy port town of Puerto Barrios (Guatemala), where we had passed a sleepless night fending off a fleet of kamikaze mosquitoes. Tired, and a bit cranky from the start, things looked up quickly as we neared the Honduran border by way of countless thousands of acres of banana fields. I began a mental list of companies I recognized in the signs of each plantation we passed on the highway. Dole, it appeared, was by far the heavy in this region. Fun to know that the bananas we were seeing that morning would likely appear at our local grocer in the near future. We were joined in the van by a crowd of local workers being shuttled to their respective plantations. Crossing the "frontera" (border) was a cinch, as we didn't even have to get out of the van -the driver's assistant grabbed our passports and ran past the border post, collecting stamps and jumping back on board in no time.

The van dropped us off at the Honduran post at the far side of the frontier, just as the sun was thawing the early morning mists and the temperature climbed noticeably. Three bucks in fees at the post had us on our way, hoofing the few hundred meters to the fork in the road where took in plates of typical breakfast (the

ubiquitous tortillas, beans, eggs, chorizo, cheese and cream bit) before hopping a bus headed east. At Puerto Cortez, we switched rides for a bus on to San Pedro Sula (Honduras' industrial workhorse), where I cashed up and Tatyana hunted for food. She surprised me with four slices from Pizza Hut, which by noon was quite welcome. At one o'clock we caught a bus on to La Ceiba, a northern port town with ferry access to the bay islands of Utila and Roatan. But not content to stop there, we made a 5pm bid for a bus to Trujillo, three hours further east, figuring that we would start our trip as far east as we planned to go, and work our way back. Our fifth vehicle of the day arrived in Trujillo shortly after 7. Our sixth was the cab, whose driver we fought tooth and nail with for a decent fare, which carried us the last 8 kilometers out the main road from town and down a dark dirt stretch

to Casa Kiwi. We hauled ourselves in the door, at around 8pm, and plopped down on a couple of stools at the bar, where frosty glasses of Honduran beer appeared out of nowhere. Casa Kiwi, a beach side backpacker oasis run by a motley crew of extremely hospitable New Zealanders, was exactly what we felt we deserved at the end of 15 hours of hard, dusty travel. After more beers and a couple of amazing "Kiwi Burgers", Tatyana retired to the room and I stuck around to drain just a few more brews while chatting up the staff. I followed later, stumbling past the night watchman and into a steaming hot shower, where I found just enough energy to crawl into bed for the big sleep. Tatyana was passed out on top of the bed, fully clothed. Tired girl. It was a great room, 30 meters from the water, with floor to ceiling windows, loads of hot water, and the extremely rare one-two punch of a toilet having both a seat AND the ability to accept paper -all for ten bucks.

We woke in the morning to a chorus of tropical birds, and the tree outside our room housed seven different species of iguana. Following a grand breakfast, we

grabbed some snorkeling gear and walked a few kilometers up the beach to a shipwreck, a couple hundred meters off shore and laying in 3 meters of water. It took about 30 minutes to swim out to it, dodging hoards of jellyfish along the way, but was well worth the effort, with many tropical fish and

some fun "terrain" to navigate as we explored the ship. We fought the current on the way back, again picking our course carefully among the endless supply of pulsating jellyfish. Trujillo, while home to amazing AMAZING sunsets (a geographic rarity, as the town lies on the north-eastern Caribbean coast of Honduras), is also home to a literal plague of mosquitoes and sand flies, and our walk back from the wreck saw us feasted on by the lot of them. Locals use repellent for the skeeters, followed by a thick layer of baby oil, which drowns out the sand flies. Needless to say the next day we were a topographic map of painful bumps.

We spent the afternoon exploring the town of Trujillo. We

lunched at the famous Playa Dorada restaurant, where for 13 bucks we feasted on a bucket of fresh ceviche and a seemingly bottomless bowl of king crab soup. The beautiful little cemetery where the American marauder William Walker (A-hole extraordinaire) is buried happened to be closed that afternoon, so we walked and hitched back to the hostel in time for cocktails and an incredible sunset.

Early the next morning the owner of the hostel drove us into town to catch a 5am bus back toLa Ceiba, where we caught a ferry to the island of Utila,

known for its cheap (if uninspiring) dive scene and the occasional spotting of somewhat elusive whale sharks. We hung out for a few nights, deciding not to dive after making the rounds of the dive shops and concluding that the chances of seeing one of these magnificent beasts were not as good as we had been led to believe. However, if you ever want to get your diving cert on the cheap, there are direct flights to the bay islands from the U.S., and many folks go there for that very reason. The upside to Utila, for us, is that it is a hotspot for the drug trade, given its remote location, a little used airstrip on the far end, and the absence of law enforcement personnel.

We were given a tip by one of the locals (a funny old hippy named James, originally fromTennessee, I think) that a drug plane had missed the runway

a few years back and crash landed in the thick jungle near the airstrip. While the nearest police (from La Ceiba) had "destroyed" (riiiiight) the cargo immediately, the plane was still there to be found--suspended in the trees

--if you poked around long enough. We packed some water and made the long walk to the other coast to check it out. After several hours picking our way through some very dense jungle and finding nothing, we eventually decided against further exploration. It did make for a nice walk, and we found lots of little treasures to enjoy along the way. Interestingly, it is supposed that Utila is also the island of Robinson Crusoe, though I must say I read the book just last year, and, to me, the terrain doesn't match up with the descriptions from the book. Who knows.

From La Ceiba, we made the long haul south to Copan Ruinas, home of Honduras' famous Mayan site. After seeing so many ruins on this trip, the buildings of Copan were a bit disappointing, but people don't go there for the buildings. They go for the carvings, which are among the best preserved

stellae in the Mayan world today. And the carvings were impressive. We got there early, and had the local wildlife and the tranquil ruins to ourselves before the tour groups showed up. Beautiful parrots were in abundance at the site, and we enjoyed them in flight from one branch to the next. Also, there were quite a few Paca around, which are known as Gibnut in Belize -we ate them there, and they were very good.

After Copan, we spent a few nights between the mountain towns of Gracias and Santa Rosa de Copan, before hopping a long-haul bus to San Salvador. Before going to Honduras, we had heard so many negative things about the people and the culture... and the political events of the last year have been portrayed very negatively in the international press. What we found in-country was so different -the people are wonderful, the food generous, the countryside lush and beautiful, and the country is very stable politically. All told, Honduras ranks in the top two of our favorite countries of this trip. My top pick, of course, is El Salvador, which we will write about next. Stay tuned.

For pics, see the following...
Honduras