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Our ride across the main land of Honduras to Roatan via the Galaxy Wave was a turning point in our adventure. We are back to what would be considered the "typical traditional vacation." Beaches, swimming, restaurants, shops - many other tourists and a selection of day tours.
I won't go into too much detail about this leg of the trip because it's just that - a normal vacation (pictures posted in next blog).
On the other hand, I will reflect and provide more details about the cities as it seems to have drummed up a lot of inquiries from concerned friends, family members. Now that you know we are back to normalcy and safe - here goes.
Along the way, we enjoyed some touristy destinations such as Granada and San Juan Del Sur and then stopped in some "not so touristy destinations "- Managua, San Pedro Sula and La Ceiba, which I refer to as the city portion of our tour.
To avoid worrying family and friends, and now that everyone knows we are fine - we will now share this additional information.
We knew going into this we had to be wise in those areas,
especially with our transportation to and from. The standard "chicken buses" are safe in certain areas but not in long distance stretches, especially in Honduras. During the big stretch, we took the Tica Bus with an armed guard and felt very safe.
It is not uncommon for drug cartel and gangs to rob buses (drivers and the people who collect the money) and sadly sometimes people are killed. Of the few buses this happens, hundreds more travel daily without occurrence. In everything in life, there is a calculated risk. We were willing to roll the dice as I've been on numerous travel blogs researching the safest routes and best accommodations.
Unfortunately, in San Pedro Sula we made a few mistakes and entered this portion with blinders on. The cities were unavoidable since we were traveling very far with our end goal of finishing in Roatan.
We had some choices. In doing my research, I pulled information from other travel blogs and backpackers. Many of them indicated Teguc was too dangerous so we opted for San Pedro Sula instead. Travel books I came across didn't seem to have many negative things to say about San Pedro Sula. Upon
La Cieba
Park below our room where we could see many crimes in action. arriving into the city, we took a cab what was supposed to be a direct shot to our nice hotel in a safer area - San Juan Boutique Hotel. Our cab driver dropped us off at the wrong hotel , someplace called the San Juan Hotel. I suspected something was wrong as it looked nothing like the pictures on the internet. I even thought to myself, wow- pictures can lie. The cab driver quickly departed. We were there stranded.
We were in a terrible part of town, a crazy man ran down the street towards us waving a four foot iron crow bar - and sketchy people were everywhere, it was dark - we were clearly out of place. The hotel wasn't even a hotel - or wasn't even open. We walked up a dark, dirty smelly stairwell only to be greeted by more unsavory folks. We were clearly in the wrong place - we knew we had to get out of there and fast!
Back on the street again - backpacks and all, we started walking and we found a very nice young man and inquired about our hotel and our situation. He then went above and beyond but not letting us walk, getting us the "safe cab", calling our hotel and negotiating our fare and ensuring the driver took us directly to the correct hotel.
The hotel was nice... At the hotel, we asked where the nearest grocery store was, which was a short block and a half away. The security at the hotel insisted on following us to the store. We told him were fine but he
was adamant about following us. We didn't understand why. We do now!
San Pedro Sula holds the uncoveted title of "Most Dangerous City of the Americas." We also read the US has withdrawn our Peace Corps from San Pedro Sula because of the extreme danger and sadly a murder of a female US Peace Corps worker on a bus. As much as we tried avoiding being in the thick of it - we somehow ended up there anyway.
That being said, we wouldn't trade any part of it for a second.
Travel backpacking is very common and many people do it daily with our itinerary being well traveled. This is nothing to be considered outrageous or insane. In fact, just the opposite. Traveling the way we chose, we were able to see more of the beauty of two amazing countries than we would have ever seen. The landscapes along the way through the countrysides, the homes and even witnessing the extreme poverty of such kind and gentle people profoundly impacted us forever.
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