Honduras

February 2014

Honduras Photos

Click here to enlarge the photos

At Honduras immigration, we filled in another form, paid another $3 entry and were stamped in again. We walked to the edge of the border area looking for a bus. There was nothing on the horizon. A taxi pulled up and offered us a 10km ride into the nearest town called Nueva Ocotepeque for $2. We were keen to push on.

Rough Guide said of Nueva Ocotepeque (pop 19,100) “In the southwest corner of Honduras, dust blown Nueva Ocotepque (pop 19,100) is a crossroads town, with a lot of traffic to and from nearby borders at Aqua Caliente (Guatemala) and El Poy (El Salvador).” We found a bus company office where a man told us that there would be a bus to San Pedro Sula at 1.30am. That would mean a nine hour wait! Since it was late afternoon and still sunny, we decided to give hitching a go. We walked up the main street to the small market and stood at the top of a hill and I stuck my thumb out. It was a sleepy Sunday afternoon and only local traffic was on the road. No one gave us a second glance and drove past. We stood there for over an hour. A youth appeared on a motorbike and in good English suggested that we walk a kilometre down the hill to a garage. There was a road junction joining our road with a nearby Guatemalan border. He thought there would be more chance of catching a ride there. So we did. We stood there for over an hour as well with no luck.

There was a small shack/shop across the road. I wandered over to see if they sold beer. Returning with a six pack we started to watch the sun dropping. Another youth wandered up. His English was good. He had lived in New York state for ten years but had returned to Honduras. “I made a big mistake coming back” he told us. I think he was suffering from culture shock and missed the advanced American society. We chatted and he apologised for the lack of buses. “Nothing works in this country.”

Another guy pulled up on a motorbike with a girl on the back and they walked over. Brandon, an American, introduced himself and his girlfriend. He was surprised to find a couple of westerners trying to hitchhike. We explained our situation and then he told us that they had set off from West Virginia and had been riding south for the last six weeks through Mexico and Guatemala. They were heading for Panama City where they intended selling the motorbike. We chatted while virtually no traffic came past.

By the time the sun had almost dropped at 6.30pm, we finally gave up on the hitchhiking attempt. There was no choice but to walk back up the hill into town and book a bus ticket. The man at the office gave us a smile and a look of ‘I told you that you’d get this bus’ and sold us tickets. We still had about six hours to wait. He suggested we get a room at a nearby hotel, but when we checked it out, it was nothing special and over priced. We want looking for food and found a local café for a chicken and planta dinner washed down by lemonade. The American Superbowl Final was on TV – the Seahawks vs the Broncos and we saw the second half which passed some more time.

As we left the café, a religious procession came past on the street. About 200 locals were carrying candles and placards and following a small statue carried on a plinth. It looked very atmospheric in the darkness and they were off down the street before we knew it. With nothing else to do, we crashed in the small bus office. I went to sleep on the floor. Trev sat on a wooden bench. By the time the bus rolled in around 1.35am, he had had enough. “Next time, we’re getting a hotel room!” With comfortable seats and lights out, I remember passing through Santa Roasade Copan and La Entrada to pick up more passengers but managed to grab three hours of sleep.

At 6.45am on Monday February 3rd, we reached San Pedro Sula. With a population of 710,000, Honduras’ second city is the country’s economic engine room, generating almost two thirds of the country’s GDP. This is due to its geographical position where originally bananas were grown in the fertile Valle de Sula at the foot of the Merendon mountain chain. These were exported via the port of Puerto Cortes under an hour away. Nowadays clothes weaving factories have replaced bananas as the major industry. This energetic city has a reputation, according to the Rough Guide “more dangerous than the rest of the country and its attractions are few” which generally precedes it, causing most tourists to get in and out as quickly as possible. It is also known as the AIDS capital of Central America. We were just passing through.

The bus terminal was protected by a tall iron fence. Nothing came in without passing through a security check – buses or people. Off the bus and reacquainted with our backpacks, we were adopted by a Honduras man who had been on our bus. He asked where we were going. “La Ceiba” I replied. He told us there was a bus at 7am and where the ticket office was. We had time to get our tickets and a cup of coffee before being checked by security when we boarded the bus.

After 30 minutes, the bus pulled over at a roadside restaurant. It was the ‘breakfast stop’. While it seemed strange to be doing this (surely everyone would have eaten at the bus terminal?) we were able to enjoy scrambled eggs, sausage and planta washed down by ice cold strawberry juice. It also seemed strange that a security guard checked us before we re-boarded the bus. Just how dangerous was Honduras? Once we got going it was a fast bus journey through lush green countryside and old volcanoes inland from the coast.

190 km east along the coast from San Pedro Sula, we reached La Ceiba within three hours This port city of 179,000 people is the third largest city in Honduras and lies at the base of the steep slopes of the Cordillera Nombre de Dios. It owes its existence to the banana industry but now pineapples are just as important. It is also the capital of the department of Atlantida and is the gateway to the Bay Islands, which is why we had come here.

First impressions of La Ceiba were good. It appeared to be a busy but well organised fully westernised town. Just up the road from the bus terminal, we found a shopping mall with decent toilets and a good supermarket where we bought beer and lemonade. It was already hot and steamy and the air conditioned mall was very welcome. We walked a few long blocks while endless taxis stopped to try and attract us and eventually found the BananaRepublic hostel. Supposedly, there was a bus from here to the ferry port. I went inside and they directed me to a stop a couple of blocks away.

The ferries to the Bay Islands operated from the Muelle de Cabotaje Aboy 8km (20mins) east of town. Various buses came past so fast that it was difficult to read the destination before they had passed us. When the bus we needed came past, we discovered that we were on the wrong side of a junction roads and had to sprint over the road to board it. It was full but we squeezed into seats. The driver drove like he was behind schedule and was taking no prisoners.

We got to the port at 12.30pm and discovered that the ferry would leave at 4pm. The ticket office was not open until 2pm. They only took cash, but fortunately, there was an ATM within the complex. We spent the time drinking beer, catching up on our diaries, watching pelicans dive bombing the water to catch fish and also read up on Honduras.

The Rough Guide said “All too often, Honduras receives short shrift on travellers’ Central American itineraries; most visitors either race to see the Maya Ruins at Copan or to the palm-fringed beaches of the Bay Islands, and skip the rest of the country entirely” (which, er, was what we were doing on this short introduction to the country). We had completely bypassed the capital city of Tegucugalpa. The country has mostly mountains in the interior and narrow coastal plains.

The CIA Website said “Once part of Spain's vast empire in the New World, Honduras became an independent nation in 1821. After two and a half decades of mostly military rule, a freely elected civilian government came to power in 1982. During the 1980s, Honduras proved a haven for anti-Sandinista contras fighting the Marxist Nicaraguan Government and an ally to Salvadoran Government forces fighting leftist guerrillas. The country was devastated by Hurricane Mitch in 1998, which killed about 5,600 people and caused approximately $2 billion in damage. Since then, the economy has slowly rebounded.

Its population of around 8.6 million people is 97% Roman catholic and 90% Mestizo (mixed Amerindian and European). Honduras is one of the poorest countries in Latin America and has the world's highest murder rate (this answered our question on the endless security guards at bus stops). More than half of the population (60%) lives in poverty and per capita income is one of the lowest in the region. One reason is that educational quality is poor.

Honduras, a democratic constitutional republic is the second poorest country in Central America, suffers from extraordinarily unequal distribution of income, as well as high underemployment. While historically dependent on the export of bananas and coffee, Honduras has diversified its export base to include apparel and automobile wiring. Nearly half of Honduras's economic activity is directly tied to the US, with exports to the US accounting for 30% of GDP. Agricultural products include: bananas, coffee, citrus, corn, African palm; beef; timber; shrimp, tilapia, lobster. Industries include: sugar, coffee, woven and knit apparel, wood products and cigars” (notes mostly rewritten from website info).

When the ferry arrived from Bay Islands it was a flat low lying structure. The doors opened outwards. Passengers had to board the boat from the front and descend a few steps. When you sat down, you couldn’t see though the windows! We christened it the ‘Prisoner Ship’ because we felt like prisoners inside. Its official nickname was the ‘Vomit Comet’ because when the seas were rough it was bounced around as were passengers’ stomachs. Our luggage was loaded separately. There were around 100 passengers on the 4pm ferry (which only ran twice a day). Today the crossing was thankfully smooth.

The Rough Guide says the Bay Islands are “Strung in a gentle curve 60km off the north coast. The Islas de la Bahia with their clear waters and abundant marine life, are the country’s main tourist attraction”. The three main islands Roatan, Guanaja and Utila lie on the Bonacca Ridge fringed by the second largest barrier reef in the world after Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. Spectacular diving and snorkelling draws visitors from around the world which is why I had wanted to come here.

The island of Utila is the closest to the mainland just 29km away attracts the budget travellers and this was our destination. This small island is about 13km long and 5km wide, with tiny cays dotted on the south side. With a tiny population of 2800 it was originally a Caribbean hideaway for the British elite – its distinct architecture and charming Main St whisper hints of lazy days gone by. The island economy is based mostly on tourism and fishing, shrimp and lobster catching.

We could see the low lying island an hour after setting off from the mainland but the journey took 90 minutes. The luggage was unloaded and when we left the secure area, there was a scrum of taxi drivers with buggies, quad bikes or motorbikes and locals waiting for friends and family to arrive.

The island’s principal main road was a 20 minute walk from end to end, and it ran along the seafront from The Point in the east to Sandy Bay in the west. While quad bikes roared past us, we walked past lots of hostels, restaurants, two of wooden churches, dive shops and small stores. There was a combined fire-station ambulance and a one petrol pump garage. There were no cars on the island although we did see a couple of pick up trucks. The main road was a single track and so narrow that they had to squeeze past.

There was a wonderful orange sunset over the sea as we walked through the town. We reached Gunter’s Dive Shop which is the longest established dive shop on the island. A wooden shack lay by the water with a wooden platform on stilts. We were welcomed by Nate, a young friendly American and I booked some diving for the following day and snorkelling for Trev. “Awesome” said Nate.

Nearby was the Margaretta Ville Beach Hotel. This was an old wooden colonial house and looked wonderful with a wide first floor balcony. The lady owner gave us a spacious first floor room with a large ceiling fan and a fan each by the bed. We booked in for two nights. Recommended. After it got dark, we walked back down the main strip to the ‘Buccaneers’ restaurant for Beer battered fish and chips, salad and bottled beer. It was full of American tourists and the island prices were obviously higher than the mainland.

Around 8.20am on Tuesday February 4th we walked 3 minutes to Gunter’s Dive Shop and were welcomed. It had a laid back relaxed atmosphere. We sorted out our diving and snorkelling gear and met Alan, an ex-Vietnam Vet and Chaplain who was doing his Dive Master course. He had learnt to dive back in 1978 and had always said ‘fuck you’ to PADI, the major dive association. But he said he had got too old to fight them anymore and was doing their dive courses. Nate was an Instructor. There was only one other diver and 4 snorkelers joining Trev and me. The captain, Steve was late. They called him and woke him up. He was there in ten minutes to the amusement of everyone.

My dive logbook notes say we started with a 45 minute dive at ‘Labyrinth’. The warm, clear Caribbean water temperature was 27’c. There was excellent visibility. Diving to 25m, I saw a ‘Southern Ray’. We then did a wreck dive at the ‘Haliburton’ down at 30m. Exploring the ship inside and out, I saw Fireworms (Grisleworms) and large mutton snapper fish. Diving at depth, the dive was only 35 minutes long.

Returning to the island, Nate arranged for us to go out in the afternoon. We walked down the main strip in blazing sunshine and took lots of photos of the colourful flowers. In the afternoon, there was only Nate, Trev and me on the boat along with the captain.

The first afternoon dive of 48 minutes was from ‘Ted’s Point to Airport Gardens’. There was a lovely range of fabulous coral inclding a long circular swim through. Spotting a Flamingo Tongue was a new small creature sighting for me. There was also a shoal of Mutton Snapper. The final 45 minute dive was at ‘Silver Gardens’ where there was more spectacular coral including banded coral. Trev had a great time snorkelling on the surface during the day and saw a lot of fish and coral as well. I would thoroughly recommend this dive school and would like to go back for a week’s diving.

Back at Gunters we sat and had ice cold beers with the dive school crew chewing the fat as the sun sank. Nate recommended the ‘Driftwood’ restaurant across the road from our hotel. It had been closed last night. So after a shower, we headed over to sample ‘Good Old Pork’ which was a huge pork steak, mashed potatoes and salad, washed down by 3 beers. We were served by an attractive young waitress who had come from the USA to learn to dive. Recommended.

We were up at 5am the next morning and walked back along the strip to catch the 6.20am ferry. We bought a ticket when we arrived at the secure area. The return journey was rougher. Every passenger seemed to be sleeping in their seats. Back at the port, there were taxis waiting. We knew the price into town and that was what the taxi driver quoted so we jumped in. He took us to a bus company called ‘Diane Buses’ which had an 8.30am bus to San Pedro Sulu. Every backpacker/tourist seemed to know about it.

We retraced our three hour journey but 50km from our destination, there was a loud bang under the bus and we slowed to a stop. The bus driver crawled underneath with his son to discover that the drive shaft had broken. Everyone stood around unsure of what was happening. I assumed that the driver would have called HQ to tell them that the bus had broken down and another would be sent (hopefully not from La Ceiba which was over two hours away). I took a walk up the road and found a garage which sold ice cold beer. Walking back with a 6 pack, Trev and me stood and watched the driver tinkering away. The replacement bus appeared an hour after we broke down, which wasn’t bad. We continued onto the terminal at San Pedro Sulu and found a connecting bus to Copan Ruinas which was three hours away. We passed through attractive mountainous landscapes covered in lush green vegetation.

Arriving at Copan around 5.30pm, we walked into town. I had stayed here back in December 1995 and remembered how pleasant it was. We had opted to stay at an upmarket Bed and Breakfast but it took a while to find it as we strolled down various cobbled streets. The Casa de Café Bed and Breakfast lay on the edge of town. Impeccably decorated, the rooms were adorned with carved wooden doors and Guatemalan masks. It was our most expensive accommodation on the trip and a bit of a treat. Outside our room was a lawn and a view over the valley. Tea was brought to our table. There were a couple of hammocks available as well. We went to explore the town. Copan Ruinas is a beautiful tranquil little town of 38600 people and according the Lonely Persons Guide “the most traveller orientated and pleasant town in Honduras.” The charming town of steep sloping cobbled streets was full of white adobe buildings and red tiled roofs. Set among green hills, it had a relaxed atmosphere, clean air and rural setting. It was centred around Parque Central which was lined with banks, municipal structures and a simple, white washed Baroque-style church. In the evening, we went for another stroll and ate huge pizzas. CNN on our TV was full of the death of the actor Philip Seymour Hoffman.

On Thursday 6th February, we rose early at 6am and packed. Breakfast was on the patio. We were brought fruit, orange, juice, scrambled eggs, bread & jam and coffee. The famous Copan ruins were only a kilometre away and it was a pleasant walk out of the town.

The Lonely Person’s Guide says of Copan “One of the most important of all Maya civilisations lived, prospered and then mysteriously crumbled.” During the Classic period (AD250-900), the city at Copan culturally dominated the region for centuries. The Rough Guide added “Set in serene, rolling hills, Copan is one of the most impressive of all Maya sites.” It’s pre-eminence is not due to size – in scale it’s far less impressive than sites such as Tikel, but to the overwhelming legacy of artistic craftsmanship that has survived over so many centuries. Copan now ranks as the second most visited spot in the country after the Bay Islands. It is thought that droughts in the 8th Century wiped the city out and left its remarkable sculptures and hieroglyphics to get covered by jungle until it was re-discovered by the Spanish in 1576. Excavated, it is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Entering the site, we first visited the Museum of Maya Sculpture which had a good collection of stalae, altars and panels. We learnt that the Mayans had great names for their emperors such as Great Sun Lord, Water Lily Jaguar, Moon Jaguar, Smoke Jaguar, 18 Rabbit, Smoke Monkey and Smoke Shell. Armed with an idea of the history, we walked into the grounds to explore it for the next two and a half hours. This report just highlights some of the more famous bits of the complex.

Through an avenue of trees lay the Plaza Central and Gran Plaza which were large rectangular arenas strewn with the magnificently and exceptionally well preserved stelae that are Copan’s outstanding features. Many of these are to do with 18 Rabbit around 731AD.

The Ball Court (738 AD) was an I-shaped structure with the sloping sides of the court on either side lined with three sculptured macaw heads. When we had entered the complex there were numerous large colourful macaws flying between the trees and looking for handouts.

On the western face of Temple 26 pyramid, the ‘Hieroglyphic Stairway’ was protected by a vast cover. It comprises of 72 stone steps made up of around 2200 glyph blocks forming the longest known Maya hieroglyphic text. South of the Hieroglyphic Stairway, monumental temples rose to form the acropolis. This lofty inner sanctum was the reserve of royalty, nobles and priests where religious rituals were enacted, sacrifices performed and rulers entombed. For over four hundred years, the temples grew higher and higher as new structures were built over the remains of earlier buildings.

Other sights with nice decoration included the Popol-Na which was a governmental building with interlocking brick patterns and Temple 22 which had intricate stone work around the door frames. The decoration is apparently unique in the southern Maya region. The East Court had stepped sides. It was a graceful plaza with life sized jaguar heads. Finally Temple 16 built (776AD) on top of the Rosalila Temple was at 30 metres, the tallest structure in Copan.

There were newly excavated tunnels on the site which cost a separate admission charge equal to getting into the main site. We skipped this. Having visited the site back in December 1995, I was pleasantly surprised that it hadn’t really changed much in the intervening two decades. The maccaw parrots were wonderful. If you want a pleasant relaxing half day in lovely grounds, Copan Ruins are a great place to visit. Recommended.

Walking back to the hotel, we picked up our backpacks and then walked to the Via Via hostel. Last night we had booked a shuttle bus to Guatemala City which left from this hostel. I went hunting for some beer for the ride and seemed to end up crisscrossing the town getting very sweaty with no luck. By the time I got back, the shuttle bus was loading and I discovered a shop next door which sold beer/ Doh! The bus was full of mostly Americans and Canadians who were not overly chatty. We drove through the hills to the Honduras-Guatemala border less than an hour away and passed through with no problems. Somewhere we stopped for a late lunch and enjoyed delicious meat tortillas as well as picking up more beer.

Although we had 4 nights and 5 days in Honduras, I didn’t really do it justice. We scratched the surface and did the two most common things. The reputation of violence in Honduras precedes it but we didn’t see any evidence. It is a very scenic country and the people seem friendly enough. I would like to return for a proper dive holiday on the Bay Islands in the future.