Blogs from Western, Honduras, Central America Caribbean - page 18

Merry Christmas from Honduras! As it turns out, this town doesn´t sleep on Christmas day! Almost everything seems to be open, and I´ve already been offered to go on a horse riding trip at least 4 times! I had forgetten to include a few details in yesterdays blog, so after I am done here I´m going to go back and fill those in....nothing major, but I am writing this mostly so I later re-read this and better remember my trip. Just thought I´d mention it, for those die hard fans out there (anyone? no? ....lol). Yesterday I left La Palma, El Salvador at about 930, and a chicken bus picked me up on the road right in front of the hotel. I had bought some more of those delicious cookies for the bus ride! I got ... read more

We had breakfast at the Picame Cafe & walked for about 10 minutes to Copan Ruins. We hired Saul he was the funniest guide yet, he really knew his history. He related how the art work at the site was from a decadent period in Maya history. The ball court here had carved Paraquet heads instead of rings. The central plaza is the image on the 1 Lempira note. The ruling elite deformed their babies skulls by putting tight wooden bands on them, so they would look different from commoners. This probably caused brain damage & mercury poison from the red makeup they wore & in the water supply, coupled with hallucinagenic drinks & plants did not help matters. The exact reason for the Maya Civilizations collapse can only be speculated upon, deforestation, overfarming, hyperinflation & ... read more

We had a slight problem withdrawing lempiras from the atms, we eventually figured it out, the atms would only let you 2000 lempiras at a time. We had changed a small amount at the border with the money changers but used that up getting lunch & supplies. The currency is named after an native chief who fought the Spanish Conquistadors. At 4pm we hired to pick up trucks & headed off into the back country to the Jaguar Moon Hotsprings. The paved road ended 10ft outside the town & it was good fun bouncing all the way there in the back of a pickup. This dirttrack was worse than the one leading into the Serengenti in Tanzania. We saw a couple of overturned trucks in narrow ravines. The hotsprings had 2 pools , 1 hot & ... read more

An early start this morning at 6AM to catch the 7AM bus. No time for breakfast today either, seems to be a trend with too many early morning starts. But I had brought along a supply of Cliff Bars to hold me over for the bus rides. The bus left pretty much on time for the 1.5hr ride back to the junction at La Entrada. When we arrived there we lucked out as a minibus was ready to depart to Santa Rosa de Copan, the next town where we would change buses to Gracias. The driver was a speed demon, zooming ahead with a boy hanging out the side door announcing the destination. We kept packing in more people, at least 20 by my count before we reached Santa Rosa in a light drizzle. There was ... read more

Its just one thing after another down here,and my brain cannot remember it all. So, where I left off... going to copan. We had a lazy morning, and our shuttle arrived at 1pm for a 5 hr trip to copan, honduras. Well, it arrived at our house at 1, but then we drove all around town picking up what ended up being 14 other tourists-all piled in to what was basically a minivan. It was a little tight, but not too bad. After a stop for gas, i think we finally left antigua around 2 or 2:30. The beginning of the trip was relatively uneventful, minus feeling like I was at the carnival on the scrambler the whole time. Again, I was soooo car sick. We stopped about 4 hrs into the trip for a dinner ... read more