tire repairs on the road - always good for drawing a crowd
Welcome back to Honduras...the border is its usual chaotic mess of bureaucracy and today we have to deal with a money lender who tried to rip us off (the old inaccurate calculator trick!) until Lori put him in his place! Although we have heard that he guidelines regarding immigration have changed in Central America the bike paperwork seemed close to the same as when we were riding south.
Our original plan for Honduras was to take some new roads to the north-east coast and spend some beach time before heading into Guatemala. Our ride to the east coast was quick as the weatherman kept us good and wet.
The scenery here is very different than Nicaragua with tall mist covered mountains where we actually ended up wearing all our cold weather and rain gear. The capital of Honduras (Tegucigalpa) is well known as a dangerous run-down city and ``run by gangs`according to `paranoid planet`(aka Lonely Planet). The ride around the perimeter of this rather colorful and beautiful city was something we will always remember. The roads were in total disrepair...at several points we were riding in the wrong lanes (or else the oncoming traffic was in the wrong lanes!...who can tell!), the road changed from 4 land blacktop to single lane rutted, rock blasted gravel in several places at at one point a stream flowed across the road and hundreds of people were washing their laundry in the middle of the Hwy! All this and a total lack of signs...we definitely breathed a sigh of relief as we cleared the city!
We really didn`t have the luxury of really enjoying the gorgeous scenery as I was in a little pain after doing a good slide down the rain drenched Hwy. A dog jumped in front of me and took out my front wheel and I was very lucky to escape serious injury when I slid towards the ditch instead of oncoming traffic! A few new battle scars was nothing compared to what might have been...someone is looking after us!
However the fun for the day wasn`t over as we entered the large city of San Pedro Sula (another one of those places you really don`t want to be!) at dark and were unable to find a place to sleep. Nothing to serious except I do not have a headlight...good thing the police and drivers don`t care if you have no lights after dark! We did eventually find a `no-star`(actually Lori rated it as a -5 star)
We eventually made it to the beaches of the sleepy little fishing village of Omao... a very nice relaxing place to spend a couple of days! Life revolves around the beach, dock and fishing just off shore. The beaches themselves are looking a little rough after this years hurricane season which is probably the reason that there were no tourists. We managed to keep busy exploring the beaches and enjoying cheap food and beer as well as well as checking out the impressive Spanish ruins of the Fortaleza de Omao. To top it off we finally got some sun and gorgeous sunsets...this definitely rates as one of the places we really enjoyed in Honduras.
So now that we have been through Honduras twice what are our thoughts....people are really friendly (although we did have some problems in central Honduras on the way south) and helpful...the cities are pretty rough with lots poverty, and general chaos. We found that there really is not a lot to do in Honduras...the Bay Is. seem to be the big attraction but the cities are not enjoyable to visit like those in Nicaragua. The countryside is very beautiful...lots of mountains and everything is really green.
Next stop....GUATEMALA!
