Quest to See the World

On Wednesday I was planning on getting up at the crack of dawn to get the 6:30am boat out of Livingston over to Puerto Barrios, but the hostel ran out of water the evening before and i was all sticky and wanted a shower before i left. I woke up around 7:30, got my shower, refilled my water and was on my way on the 9am boat. Before leaving I asked around to find out how much a bus to the border costs so that i´d have an idea before heading over. When i arrived to Puerto Barrios there were a few guys trying to get my business to the border of Honduras for 50 Quetzales ($6.60), but i was told that it costs 15 ($2), so i told him ´no,´ that i knew it was 15 and he offered 40, still no. he then offered to drive me to the bus terminal 4 blocks away for 15Q and then it would be another 15Q for my bus. Still no. i started walking and stopped in some shade on the side of the road to put on some sunscreen and check out the map again. As i was finishing up, who shows up in his van? the same guy. he got out and again tried to convince me to go with him for 40. i again told him no. after going back and forth he was like ¨listen, i already have a van full of tourists so i´ll take you for 30, but don´t say anything.¨ Deal. I could´ve walked to the terminal in the blistering heat and waited a good while for the hot chicken bus to fill up and make it´s way slowly to the border, stopping a few thousand times, but i elected to pay $2 more, ride in the front seat with the driver, have air conditioning and learn a little about the crops growing along the road along the way.

We didn´t have to pay anything to exit Guatemala this time, and when i asked the immigration official how much it costs, he said ¨just a smile,¨ and i gladly gave it to him. Officially it doesn´t cost anything to leave the country, but unofficially the immigration guys charge whatever they want and pocket it.

Just before we got to the Honduras immigration office the driver asked us if we wanted to change money. Knowing that i would be returning to the country, I saved some Lempiras so that I wouldn´t have to change at the border. All of a sudden some of the other people started whipping out wads of U.S. dollars and handing them over to the driver without asking the rate or anything! it was really shady. I asked the rate and he said 2, which of course was really bad. I told a girl not to change $200 like she was planning because she was getting ripped off and the driver was getting a HUGE cut i´m sure. When she changed her mind and gave him less, he looked at me and asked why she had changed her mind. I just said I didn´t know. Previously during the trip I was acting as the interpreter between the other tourists and the driver. I know that people need to make a living, but he was just ripping the poor girl off too much and i had to say something to her, so i did. We then went through Honduras immigration smoothly and quickly.

A few hundred feet from the immigration office were the busses to Puerto Cortes and some food stalls. We had to wait there for about a half an hour before the bus left. While we were waiting I found 200 Quetzales ($26) that i didn´t realize i still had and changed them directly with the money changer guy, no driver getting his cut in between, for 2.45, not bad at the border. I went to a food shack to see what they were selling and they had chuletas (pork chops), which up until now (as in since i´ve been in Central America) I only ate when I´m in Puerto Rico which isn´t very often, for 35L ($1.84). This comes with rice, beans, tortillas and cheese. what a deal! It was only around 10am and that would be quite a heavy meal, so i got everything else besides the pork chops for $.79.

Shortly after i ate we were on our way on the yellow and black chicken bus. The thing was soooo slow and went through 2 small towns along the way looking for more passengers. Soon enough it was filled up, which here luckily meant 2 people per seat instead of 3 like in Guatemala. I sat beside a nice lady selling good cinnamon bread. When we got to the next town, Puerto Cortes, we quickly changed busses to an an air conditioned direct shuttle to San Pedro Sula, which was still cheap public transport. Again I sat beside a very nice lady that helped me with where to get off once in San Pedro so that i wouldn´t have to walk around lost looking for the next bus station. Along the way to San Pedro there was a weapons check on the side of the road and a guy on the bus pulled out some sort of hand gun from inside of his shirt, but apparently he had a permit for it. I saw the cop pull out the loaded clip, scary.

Taking the chicken bus is pretty entertaining. I imagine the expensive, air-conditioned tourist busses to be rather boring. Yeah, they have movies, but do they have loud reggaeton and chics chirping in baskets? It´s also convenient because when it stops to pick up more people, people come on selling food and drinks so you don´t even have to starve or be thirsty along the way. the only thing that i could do without is the guy who gets on at one stop and preaches his beliefs about religion and then sells pens that say ¨Dios te bendiga¨-God bless you, then gets off at the next stop. Selling the pens is just fine by itself, the preaching i don´t prefer.

In San Pedro two other tourists got off the bus with me to go to Tela, Tim from England and Lilian from the Netherlands. The bus wasn´t leaving for another 1.5 hours so they went to get something to eat and i stayed at the bus station reading about Tela. Unfortunately, later i found out that i missed a good opportunity to take a picture of an old steam engine for Dave because they saw one around the corner from the station. Oh well, they went to McDonald´s anyway and I wouldn´t have eaten there. The bus to Tela was 2.5 hours I think and not air conditioned. It was a big greyhound type of bus-pretty comfortable for $2.90. When we got to Tela it was nearing dusk. Tim, Lilian and I decided to share a room so that it would be more economical. We checked out a few places that were pretty dumpy and overpriced for the dumpiness. We then checked out the splurge options suggested in the lonely planet book at Maya Vista Hotel. It was luxury compared to other places-$40 for a very large room with 3 beds, hot water, fluffy towels and fancily folded toilet paper-just $13 each. Unfortunately I had to use my roach spray here for the first time, but they were really tiny and in this climate they can show up anywhere. We were all pretty tired from the trip and sat on the balcony of the restaurant and got dinner there. I got the cheapest thing on the menu-spaghetti for $2.50 and they both got ´Filete Mignon´ for only $8.68. Beer was $1. While talking over dinner, Lilian and I figured out that she slept in the exact same bed as me one night later in Rio Dulce at Bruno´s. She also had a picture of a gigantic Tarantula that she took in the bathroom there. It was big, black and furry! I´m so glad I didn´t see that thing.
The next day we had planned to rent bikes and ride over to a national park a few kilometers a way, but the rental place only had one bike. We then checked out kayak rental to get there, but the travel agency that claimed to rent them didn´t have any. no tour was being offered that day and for the next day it was $32, but you need at least 2 people and Tim and Lillian were headed to the island of Utila to dive the next day. I thought that maybe we could find a random guy with a boat to take us there, but there weren´t any around, so we just went to the beach to swim instead. I was so disappointed because there are monkeys over there and toucans. Now i have a reason to come back.

When we went to beach I told them to go in the water first and i would stay with the bags. I was there reading and after a while a teenager came up to me and asked me if i had money and i said no. he was like, ¨You don´t have any money?¨ and I told him that we just came to swim and didn´t bring anything. He kept looking at the bags and I thought that he was maybe going to grab one and run or something. Again he asked if I had money and again I told him ¨no¨. He then was like ¨Dame 100 pesos¨ (Give me 100 Lempiras which is $5). With attitude I told him that we didn´t have anything and he finally went away. I seriously thought that he was going to either take one of the bags or just flat out rob me, but he didn´t . About a minute later 3 other guys came up on their bikes with a soccer ball and started playing nearby. I was glad, in case that kid decided to come back. The water was really nice though, nice and warm with some waves. It was fun. After that I went to the old train station and searched for some old steam engines, but was unsuccessful. We had pizza by the water, then ice cream and went back to the hotel to shower. Once again we went down to the restaurant, played cards and had a frozen Margarita, mmmm. Around 10pm we decided to check out the night scene in town and at first couldn´t find anything open except some really shady looking place on the beach. We walked a bit more and could hear 2 different types of music coming from around the corner and searched it out. One place was a dance club with an admission fee of $1.50 and the other place was an open air establishment with Garifuna music playing (music with a lot of drums with African influences-good stuff.) I went into the club with the permission of the bouncer to check it out. People were dancing and some sitting and the music was just regular latina music. Tim said that he´d have to have a beer before he could dance so we went to the Garifuna music place first. Somehow we found the only gay bar in town. We had our first beer and hopped over to the the club. There was a 3 man band playing different types of music: merengue, salsa, ranchero. We stayed for a bit, danced to one song and headed back around 1am.
The next morning, as in yesterday morning, we caught the 11:30 bus to La Ceiba, about 1.5 hours. The lady sitting beside me again was very nice and asked where we were headed, where from and wished me a safe trip as she got off. People on this side of Honduras are much friendlier than in Copan. They´re really helpful and smile a lot more. When we got to La Ceiba they headed to the ferry dock and I to the town center.

The hotels here are pretty dumpy too. Finally I decided on hotel granada for $8.50 for a private room with private bath. it´s manageable, but i prefer something nicer. it would be better if they had a communal balcony, but there´s nowhere to sit outside. i was going to change to a place by the beach today, but i´m leaving at 6:15 tomorrow morning and it´s easier to get a taxi from where i am than from the beach. I´m taking a day today to update this and upload pics, so you can check out new pics of Xela and Mexico. I´m going to come back in the evening to upload more from tikal and Honduras. I also updated my map. Tomorrow I´m headed to Tegucigalpa to see a soccer game at 3pm. I´m really excited about it. it should be pretty crazy!

Tags: Central America 2007, Honduras

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 21st, 2007 at 2:51 pm and is filed under Central America 2007. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.