Comayagua, Bus Adventures, & Cousin Situation Update

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Next stop was Comayagua, the former capital of Honduras, known for its colonial architecture. I stayed two nights here. It was a bit underwhelming, but there were definitely some nice churches, and a cool cafe or two, that made the stop not a total bust.

Stayed at the "Hotel American Inc.", with nary an American in sight. Somewhat generic, with broken internet, but clean enough, with actual working hot water.

Saw very few other tourists during my stay, only perhaps three or four, which was kind of neat in some ways, but one of the times when I felt a little bit more lonely than usual. Normal enough while travelling solo, and hanging around in the main town square was good for people watching.

The city hall and main cathedral are the focus points of the square, typical for Latin America. The cathedral was large, well decorated, and in good repair, but the point that drew me to Comayagua was the clocktower, which houses the oldest clock in the Americas. It was brought over from Spain as a gift in the late 16th century, but was originally an Moorish clock from Granada, Spain, and was probably built in the 13th or 14th century.

Sadly, they used to have tours up into the clocktower, so you can see the inner workings of the clock, but I found out after I got there that they are now cancelled. This was a disappointment, as I seriously love old clocks (very steampunk!), but the church itself was fine on it's own. I went in while a service was going on, (though, most churches in Latin America seems to never be empty) which felt slightly awkward, but interesting.

I'm an atheist, so I don't exactly understand organized religion, but there was definitely a sense of peace and calm in the church which was nice to see. I've been to places of worship for most of the world's religions, (Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Islamic, Christian, Sikh) and there are definitely common elements. Indian temples are still the coolest in my books, and I'll take science and the natural world over gilt figures and candles for inspiring sense of awe and wonder, but I can understand it, in some ways.

Getting to my next destination was a bit more of an 'adventure' than I was hoping. Taking buses in Third World countries is always interesting... They are rarely on time, often break down, have accidents, or are simply unreliable or not going to where you need to.

Discovered that it was not possible to go straight to Gracias (a small mountain town and my next stop) directly, but I instead had to backtrack past Lago de Yojoa to San Pedro Sula to catch the bus.

The bus I meant to catch left early, and the next one wasn't for another hour and a half, and was then delayed, and something or another blocked the road... And I got into San Pedro Sula's main bus terminal ten minutes after the last bus to Gracias left.

Okay, that's fine, I can deal with that. I'll go to Copan Ruinas first, which I had been considering, anyway. It has more to do, so I can figure out how much time I want to spend in Copan, with Gracias as the last stop at the end of the Honduras trip, before heading back to San Pedro Sula to fly out of the airport. It'll work!

Oh, shoot. There's no buses going to Copan Ruinas either? You've got to be kidding! I seriously did not want to spend the night in San Pedro Sula again, it is not a nice city, not in the slightest.

The San Pedro Sula bus station is large and labyrinthian, full of shops and a food court and I swear at least twenty different competing bus companies. One of them had to have a bus going where I needed to...

Finally found a crappy old former schoolbus with absolutely no legroom that the bus driver told me was "leaving for Copan Ruinas, five minutes". Had time to run to the bathroom and grab a snack before hopping on.

A couple hours, a creepy clown show on the bus, loud, tacky music, and a cramp in just about every muscle in my legs, the bus stopped by the side of the road, and everyone started getting off the bus. I looked out the window. It looked like a VERY small town, so I asked the same bus driver "is this Copan Ruinas?"

He laughs.

Oh, no, this bus doesn't go to Copan Ruinas! It goes to La Entrada, two hours away! He thought I meant Copan PROVINCE, not Copan Ruinas the town, which is in Copan province.

I hate Latin American place names.

"Is there are bus to Copan Ruinas tonight?"

"No."

Fuuuuuu......

"Oh, that's okay, this couple and their elderly mother are renting a car to take their sick mother to the hospital in Copan Ruinas. You can ride with them!"

So, considering there didn't seem to be a hotel in the town, and it was nighttime, I didn't have much of a choice other than to go with them.

I just had to think of it as "ridesharing" not "oh god I probably technically am hitchhiking and thus breaking all rules of travelling be ready to jump out of the car at any point and run away eek."

It was nothing to worry about, though. The mother was sweet, and the young couple was nice, and we had a bit of a conversation in my broken Spanish.

The road was completely unlit and the driver was not the safest in the world, but I got there in one piece, and they even refused to let me pay, and got the driver to take me to my hostel, La Manzana Verde. (the Green Apple)

So, I arrived in Copan RUINAS, finally. Lovely town, I could tell even at night. All the roads are bumpy cobblestone, which added to the picturesque charm of the old buildings.







Have not mentioned this yet, but I did finally get an explanation of sorts from my cousin for his behavior in Ecuador, in the form of an email two and a half weeks later, after a great deal of prompting.

Sounds like he got lost in the airport, wandered off, tried to find directions, came back, didn't see me for some reason, and left to go catch a bus to Mindo on his own, where he apparently asked at a few hostels and at the bus station in Mindo if they had seem me, and tried calling the hostel we were going to stay at in Quito (Casa Helbling) to leave a message for me.

He didn't meet up in Quito because he hitchhiked early that day on a milk truck that took unexpectedly long in its route, and subsequently missed his bus, so had to catch a later one, which was delayed due to roadwork (fair enough) and got him into Quito so late he simply went to the airport rather than the hostel, as he needed to be at the airport in a few hours (to check in at 4:30 am or so), etc.

So, sounds like less willful abandonment and more a string of him getting lost/making the wrong decisions, so I am no longer angry about that part, and I am still very thankful that he travelled with me and funded a significant part of my trip, which was very generous of him.

I am still confused why he did not try to email me to make contact, when he knew I had email access, or why it took two and a half weeks and a great deal of prompting to explain the situation to me.

I somewhat regret jumping to hasty conclusions, but as he did not supply any other information, I'm not sure how else I could have interpreted things, which I do feel guilty about, but mostly the whole situation was just a confusing mess, and I'd rather get over it than harbour resentment over anything to do with it.

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