Honduras - Tegucigalpa

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I arrived in Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras, on Saturday with Gal and Lee and stayed one night in a hotel with them before being picked up by my couchsurfing host, Ligia, the next morning. Ligia was an extremely accomadating host who gave me my own room, a key, and a mobile phone to use.

Ligia is the principal of a "school for the rich and famous" in Tegus, speaks excellent English, and is highly political. She filled me in on the political tensions in the country since the constitutional crisis preceeding the general elections in November 2009. The former president, Manuel Zalaya, was alleged to have attempted to change the constitution in order that he could remain in office for a further term, and was then forced into exile by the military who assumed control until a new president was elected.

However, supporters of Zalaya claim the "military coup" was orchestrated by the rich right wing elite who had been antagonised by Zalaya's socialist policies, and potentially troublesome friendships with Raul Castro and Hugo Chavez. Zalaya's supporters have played down the corruption angle posed by the right in favour of the potentially positive egalitarian reforms he was supporting. The distribution of wealth in Honduras appears to be the most polarised and unfair I've seen so far with around 10 families controlling most of the business interests in at least Tegucigalpa and probably the country. They are also responsible for the ubiquitious franchises of US fast food chains. I'm advised that something like 70% of the country are illiterate and 50% below the poverty line.

Honduran society appears to have been polarised into socialist supporters of Zalaya, "La Resistencia", and the right wing supporters of the coup, "Golpistas" causing palpable societal tension even to the extent of breaking friendships. Apparantly at the time of the coup there was widespread unrest and the US and European foreign offices issued travel warnings. I wasn't there but I can't find any evidence from talking to people who were that there was ever any significant danger to travellers to warrant the serious impact that the warnings caused on the tourist driven livlihoods of the people of the Bay Islands.

Tegus was the first large Latin American city that I've been to: sprawling, chaotic, edgy, noisy but with a certain energy and charm. It is definitely the type of place where it is better to know people. Through couchsurfing I had the benefit of staying in a nice appartment in a safe part of town, people to socialise with, someone to take me places, and knowledge of what's safe and what isn't. I haven't met any travellers so far who've like Tegus, but I enjoyed my time there a lot.

I didn't really do a great deal of sightseeing during my stay - one day I took Ligia's school bus to the look out point to take some pictures of the city, and then descended to the museum in the city centre (but left after only about 30mins). I spent most of the days relaxing and catching up on emails/facebook etc in Ligia's comfortable appartment or shopping in the malls, where I bought a laptop, a mobile phone, and some board shorts (in anticipation of my trip to the beach). I had become increasingly frustrated without a phone to arrange couchsurfing etc. I also had realised the benefits of a laptop with the abundant free wifi all over Central America, especially with the time consuming business of writing and posting articles to a blog!

In the evenings I socialised with Ligia and her friends and several other couchsurfers who had offered to meet me for a drink. One of which, Marlon, offered to take me out and show me a bit more of the nightlife and for me to stay at his. I went out that following night to a cool bar with him and one of his friends, Silvia - they were both great fun.

Marlon had to leave the following day for work but trustingly left me the use of his flat. Silvia and her brother picked me up that evening and took me to a concert of a popular local resistance band called Cafe Guancasca. The band played a mix of latin ska and rock with heavily political lyrics, accompanied by anti-golpista chants from the crowd. Silvia didn't speak much English (well she spoke more than she pretended to) and so I only spoke Spanish on the two nights we went out. She also taught me some new slang expressions. Those evenings mark the start of a shift in my abilities to maintain fairly fluid conversations in Spanish.

At 6am the next morning, rather hungover, I caught the Tica bus to San Salvador.....

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Photos

The road to Tegucigalpa...
...was obstructed by a collapsed bridge - presumably from an earthquake. Note the bus at the bottom!

A statue of Christ dominates the skyline
At the lookout point

Cafe Guancasco
(taken with my new phone)

Me, Silvia and her brother
(taken with my new phone)

Comments

[Eric]

I enjoyed your Honduras post. I have always wanted to go there. My blog is looking for travel photos. If you have the time, email us some at [e-mail] or check us out at dirty-hippies.blogspot.com. Continued fun on your travels, Eric