Honduras, (Oooh, It's Scary, Kids!)

Honduras was an unknown for us even though we had previously visited and very much enjoyed Roatan, an Honduran island off the Caribbean coast.  Roatan is a world class dive destination and an English speaking enclave, being a vestige of British Colonial rule in the West Indies. However, on that same Caribbean coast is Honduras' second largest city and as recently as 2015, the murder capital of the world.

Looking across a valley into Honduras

Conflicts between rival gangs smuggling drugs between South America and the US had made parts of Honduras into a lawless 'wild west'. Recent news from Honduras had been similar to parts of Mexico where narco gangs were openly challenging local authorities in some regions. In the Honduran case even the capital city of Tegucigalpa had a questionable safety record.

That said, many travellers who had recently been in Honduras were giving us mixed messages, some glowing and some foreboding
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Our plan was to travel from Antigua to the border near Copan, where one of the most important cities of the ancient Maya lay just inside the Honduran border.  A day to visit the Copan Ruinas would be enough, leaving us a quick trip to a lake in the interior of the country where word of a safe and peaceful hotel at a micro-brewery enticed us.  A few day layover at the D&D Brewery near Lago Yojoa was about all we were prepared to commit to Honduras, sight unseen.

We left Antigua before the crack of dawn to headed for the Honduras border. These Central American countries were so much smaller than Mexico. It would be possible to cross them in a day,  but not recommended. Border crossings themselves can take several hours and one cannot trust Google Maps to be accurate on estimated travel times due to road conditions and a myriad of other impediments.

Google Maps steered us straight through Guatemala City, which we did not want to do. As it is in France, all roads lead to the capital,.  We opted for an alternative route might take a bit longer but would take us south of the city centre.

Little did we realise how the capital sprawled across the valley and congested every passable road. As we crawled through what turned out to be the suburbs, we realised we had also hit the morning rush! After about an hour and a half, we finally cleared the heavy traffic and were able to make better time.

With the chaos of the City behind us the drive through rural Guatemala was a pleasure.  Dodging the odd pothole was a small price to have the suicidal maniacs of Mexico behind us.

The border crossing into Honduras was at El Florido. It turned out to be a very time consuming crossing, in some part because there wasn't a gaggle of  'assistants' ready to help you through the process for tips. We actually waited in one line up for about half an hour before we found out we were in the wrong line. After that, it was pretty straightforward. Immigration to have passports stamped and pay a small fee; go to the Aduanas to have the car temporary import permit done up; look at the car and check VIN and license plates.

The town center at Copn Ruinas, Honduras

To date none of the customs inspectors have had an appetite for looking at the contents of the SUV.  Perhaps the 2-page manifest in English has been enough to dissuade them, but it has not been necessary to unload everything in the blazing sun, yet.

One thing we noticed right away in Honduras was the roads. They were in much poorer condition with MANY potholes! There were many people walking on the roads as well. Only an hour after leaving the border we arrived at a quaint and friendly hotel in the town of Copan Ruinas.

Cobblestone streets at the hotel entrance

Copan Ruinas would be the first of many surprises in Honduras. We pull our vehicle right into the courtyard of the hotel and went for a walk around the town to look for a bank and a place to eat. At a restaurant near the central square we ran into a nice young teacher from Minnesota who was in the middle of a one-year practicum in Honduras.  She filled us in a bit about how-to and where-ats in the town and positively glowed when she spoke about the people of Honduras.

An artefact on display in the Centro.

So far we found the locals to be friendly but spoke very little English. We really had to dig deep into the Spanish skills to communicate and get our questions answered. They were very willing to listen to our broken Spanglish and always genuinely eager to help us out, no matter how crazy we appeared to be.

Iglesia Catolica graces the Centro of Copan.

On arrival to Copan Ruinas we were too late to go to the ruins so we just went to the Central Square (aka: Zocalo, Centro) downtown while the light was still good.

The Centro had several pretty Christmas decorations that were lit beautifully at night. By day there were some interesting historical buildings and many good restaurants serving local and international fare.

In the morning we got up early and  hit the ruins.  The next morning we took a tuk-tuk to the Copan ruin site and spent the next few hours with an English speaking guide learning about the large and extensive site. Well worth a visit! The cost was $30 Cdn for the two of us and the same for the guide which we shared with a German lady. We would like to go back as we couldn't spend the time really necessary to see and hear all about the site.

Fidel, reciting his doctoral dissertation on Ancient Maya hieroglyphs

Our guide was a local character, Fidel, and was very, very knowledgeable on many aspects of Mayan culture and history. He has been doing this since 1982!

He was however quite slooooow, and even though we kept reminding him that we needed to go by noon, there was no way to speed him up!

We took many photos, some of which we've shared below.

Copan was probably the most extensive of the many Mayan sites we have visited to date.  It's footprint was easily the biggest of the cities we had visited and it most resembled a 'city', i.e.: a place where thousands of people had lived and worked.  We resolved to come back on our return trip and give it the time it deserves.

If we were to make the trip to our reservation at Lake Yojoa that evening we had to leave immediately but just as we were readying to drive out, our guide Fidel asked if he could get a ride home. He lived about a half hour down the road on our route but his ride would be twice that on the local bus.

We learned a little about he and his family, a wife and 11 children! He has a farm up in the hills where he grows a lot of his own fruit and vegetables.

Turned out that Fidel's English was pretty good relative to the ruins but not so good in a broader context.  The conversation was entertaining, but fractured at times and not always coherent.  We enjoyed his company and the time spent did not hurt our travel schedule more that it had already been stretched.

We were then on our way to the D&D Brewery. Weirdly this was one of the first places in our research that came up for Honduras that we really wanted to see.

There were great reviews about it and it was in a location that worked for us on our route to Nicaragua. We arrived in the late afternoon after an uneventful drive through the countryside, happily.

Hasta proxima!  B&L

PS:  Just an FYI that our blogs are really behind due to bad internet connectivity and our daughters coming to visit but we will endeavour to catch up so much more to come!