Belize to Tegus

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So we left off in Dangriga. I left Dangriga to check out the other seaside villages down the coast, made my way through Hopkins and to Placencia. There I met a Hunduran named Isaias and he invited me to check out San Juan, a village just across the lagoon, and stay with his family. It may sound really sketchy but as he told me about his experiences travelling I decided that he sincerely wanted to help a brother out. So we took a boat across the lagoon and I spent a few days with him and his family in that middle of nowhere town. It was really an unforgettable three days. We hung out watching movies with the local crew, went to a waterfall (a two hour walk through a Mayan village and then a path through the woods, including a free horse ride on the way back), visited a bar that ran off a generator because the village, named cowpen, had no electricity, and saw the banana plantation. The banana finca was a real heart of darkness experience for me, if you take that analogy. Its something i'll never be able to forget. The working conditions were pretty abysmal, the pay was less than two dollars an hour, there were pesticides everywhere I'm sure. Isaias was pretty intent on me feeling uncomfortable as an American, which was a bad dynamic. What could I say? I was in the middle of nowhere with no way out and felt trapped. Despite the incredible Latino hospitality, really good food and laundry service included, I had to be on my way. Exchanged info, they gave me way too much money for busses, and I hit the road to Cayo. Its a tourist town, but it served for a one night pit stop. The next morning I crossed the border to Guatemala. I was back. But not for long. I was on the fast track to Honduras. I took a bus to El Remate, recommended by some French guy a ways back. Damn hippy travelers. It was boring. Sure its a nice lake but I'm not trying to meditate. Its just a couple hostels on a paved road. I checked out flores. Its beautiful with really skinny winding streets, but totally overrun with hotels and restaurants. Santa Elena was more gritty. The next day i hit the road to Rio Dulce. Three collectivos, like five hours. Hit up the market for some food to cook up, then the hostel didn't have a kitchen. Didn't matter. I got sick in a serious way, the way that comes on in like half an hour and before I knew it I had a splitting headache and my forehead felt like a radiator and my digestive system felt like a science experiment gone wrong. I drank water and moaned and groaned in bed. Nothing to do but keep rolling. I woke up and went to puerto barrios, from there to the border. By afternoon I was in Honduras. Took a chicken bus to Puerto Cortes, the first town of significance on the highway. Found a crummy hospedaje, and collapsed on the bed, still burning up. I spent the rest of the day in recovery mode, drinking orange juice and water. The port was just as secure as veracruz, as I found the next morning. My dream of hitching a ride on a ocean liner was not to be. So I rolled south to San Pedro Sula. Its a big city. Modern. The city center is one fast food joint after another, but the thing is in honduras fast food is fine dining. I can see why. It's because the restaurants are modern, clean, air conditioned. The food is prepared in a modern kitchen. It's the developed world transplanted to their doorstep. It is also really expensive by local standards. I stayed in a hotel a couple nights there, ate some baleadas and had lunch in the market, read beowulf and kierkegaard, walked around town. I got bored out of my mind after one day and rolled down the highway to Comayagua. Its a colonial town, but not exploited for its beauty. The market was a breath of fresh air, the churches were picturesque. But there was nothing to do there. I went up north again to Santa Barbara. Let me tell you Guatemala has volcanoes, mexico has the Sierras, but Honduras has mounains in a serious way. They're big, on the Carribean side they're lush and on the inland side they are bone dry. The mountain highway didn't bore me even though i crossed it three times. Santa Barbara had some sequestered charm, a nice park and good views of the mountains, but there wasn't anywhere to stay really. Right across the street from my hotel room there was construction going on. Twenty four seven apparently. It felt like I had a buldozer in my room. Thankfully the owner let me move to a room away from the street. My head was exploding. I got out of there the next morning. I was at a loss for something to apply myself to other than crisscrossing western honduras. I made it to tegucigalpa that night. Searched for a hotel for an hour, totally dissoriented by unnamed streets and a tiny guidebook map. Found it. Ate some fantastic baleadas with grilled steak on the street for a dollar. The next morning I checked out the town, in the afternoon I went to the market. Found some skype and talked to the fam, finally, all of them, Mom, Dad, and Claire. She told me all about her trip to Milan, her figure skating, the Olympics. By the time we said good bye I felt homesick again. I picked up some feaux ray bans from a street vendor (I sent my sleeping bag and glacier gogs back home from San Pedro) and headed back, it was getting dark. There were clowns in central park, i left when they started their money pitch, and met this old fogey who introduced himself as a lawyer. He had awful teeth. He started talking to me about his studying in washington dc and russia, and whipped out his calender slash notebook. Every old man down here has one, it seems. I gave him fake contact information. Then this other guy showed up, a young looking guy who was apparently thirty five, started telling me about how things were dangerous, that sort of thing, about his time in LA. He told me the old guy was lying to me, that he was a fake. Damn, who can you trust, the drunk seeming younger guy who's telling you you're getting played, or the old guy who says he's a union lawyer and showing you the letter he sent to Obama. So i ditched them both. the next day i went out in search of volunteer work. I checked in at a micro finance place and the secretary of health. The health people were really helpful and sent me to the faro nacional, an AIDS organization, and by the end of the day I was moved in on the third floor. Yesterday I spent studying up, reading a bunch of sources from their library, but i'm eagerly awaiting work. So far i'm just hanging around the living room, making quessidillas in the toaster oven of the kitchenette. We'll see where this goes.

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