Just Getting Into Honduras was a Nightmare!

It started out so well. It only took an hour to get from Rio Dulce to the Honduran San Pedro Sula/Cortez border. The roads were great and the Guatemalan exit process was well organized and efficient. It was a whole different story on the Honduras side. You won't believe what they have you go through to enter. Our first encounter in Honduras was a lasting one. While clearing the dogs at immigration, we met Juan, a Honduran truck driver who was very proud of his English. His huge truck was chock full or oranges. He surprised us with a large plastic bag full of some of the sweetest oranges I have ever tasted. We gave him a Canada hat as a thank you. We had been warned about how dangerous Honduras was.

498 homicides occurred in Honduras in October 2009, bringing the total so far this year to 4,214, an average of 421 victims monthly and 14 victims daily. The crimes, including 92 kidnapping cases, are attributed to organized crime and gang rivalries. (November, 2009)

On 11 November 2009 unknown attackers set a Honduran government civil registry ablaze in Juticalpa. The attackers reportedly used Molotov cocktails, causing heavy damage before firefighters arrived. No injuries were reported.

(source: Southern Pulse Networked Intelligence ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it )

A Retirement Haven???

I am not sure why so many people said “Tela is beautiful, you will love it”. The main road was under what looked like permanent construction with fifteen-year old kids plunking down warning cones and redirecting traffic seemingly at whim. Lines of traffic were created every time one of the graters or trucks wanted to turn around.

Not our idea of a Retirement Destination

La Cieba is a much larger version of Tela (see article on North Coast of Honduras:First Impressions). Teeming market, roads under construction, walled/gated houses, armed guards, and a dismal beach.

The Perfect Storm

The roads are climbing into the mountains higher and higher, and it is getting darker. We have no hotel booked, and it is starting to rain. Mountains. Dark. Rain - the perfect storm - the trifecta of bliss. My forearms are starting to throb.

We had battled the rush-hour traffic through Progresso and now I was mano-a-mano in my little 6 cylinder white Honda Odyssey up against these huge diesel trucks lumbering up the pot-hole filled roads past dimly lit towns, farm animals wandering aimlessly out onto the highway. The corpse of a newly killed horse reminding me that these animals are not “used to it”. These are huge, big dumb animals and I have to avoid them while dodging the “Express” buses to hell. The roadside tribute of twenty or thirty crosses clumped together reminds me to watch out for these buses. They are killers.