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Published: February 27th 2011
Slept in until 7:15! It's practically a record for me! I still was a cup of coffee in before Geoff woke up, but at least it wasn't 6am. The shower this morning was the best since home. Somehow the water pressure improved like a million times & it was so hot. Seriously, the things we take for granted on a daily basis are the basics. Hot shower, with great water pressure = an absolute luxury in this part of the world. I took a long shower. I think the hot springs did some sort of cleansing for me. I was exhausted after the hot springs, but I feel great this morning!
We did our usual pack up routine & headed out to the bus terminal, which in this town is basically a large 2 stall garage. I forgot to snap a photo. Darnit. We easily found our bus, it was the only one there. When the old man put our bags on the roof he asked Geoff if we were carrying rocks in them. After the translation Geoff told him we had the Copan Ruins in our bags. Everyone got a good laugh out of that. I don't know how
A delicious lunch...
though the locals were very curious about the two gringos. : ))our backpacks feel heavier, we are definitely carrying less these days. We sent home a box of stuff from Flores, Guatemala that should have lightened our load (it still hasn't arrived in the US, keeping fingers crossed...).
This bus was essentially a Toyota minivan with rows of seats. At one point there were about 30 people on the bus. It was nuts. The driver had to drive so slow to go over any bump or speed bump. Nuts. I had to sit backwards behind the driver, essentially in Geoffs lap for a long while, until we got to a town where a few people got off. At least it wasn't the whole ride. At one point one of the babies on board starting crying & fussing, probably because his mom was standing in front of another guy in a row & hunched over holding the baby. Once he started fussing & grabbing at her boobs everyone was giving her the advice that she should feed him. (Also we decided she looked at most 16). So, she whips out her boob & the kid quiets down. The best part of this to me is that the Honduran women won't swim
in the water with a bikini because it shows too much skin. But they wear clothes that leave nothing to the imagination & breastfeeding is acceptable anywhere (which I love but why don't they wear bathing suits? I can't wrap my head around it). The baby fell asleep on her boob & she spent the rest of the bus ride with her little "chi chi" out for all to see. Poor thing.
We arrived in La Esperanza after an hour longer than we were supposed to spend on the bus. Oh well. Apparently Honduras is just as mountainous as Guatemala. Lots & lots of windy mountain roads. But the forest is lush & more jungle-like here. Beautiful. And the flowers are amazingly bright & everywhere. I love it!
La Esperanza seems bigger than we were expecting it to be considering it's supposed to be smaller than Gracias. There seems to be a lot going on here. Lot's of buses & people in the streets.
After getting off the bus it took us awhile to find a hotel. I guess we shouldn't complain about the helpfulness of the randoms who usually help us find rooms. We found a
little hotel with semi-clean rooms. Hotel Uruquai. Our first room with twin beds! Awesome! Every hotel room in Honduras comes with a tv, whether you want it or not. We weren't expecting that. We settled in & headed out to find some food. We ate a little comedor in the market. Chicken & steak with rice, mashed potatoes, tortillas, & salad. Hello carbs! Always.
We then headed out on a hike to see Los Hoyos, which are apparently these unexplained perfectly circular holes located in the mountains near here. After asking for directions about 5 different times (typically everyone's answer was "just keep going straight on this road"). Since that seemed too easy, I had to keep asking different people for directions. After about 1.5 hours of hiking uphill (& being severely winded at this elevation, 2nd highest town in Honduras, approx 1900 meters), we were directed to continue uphill. The views from up there were amazing. You could see the entire valley surrounded by lush green mountains. Beautiful. Up on the top of the hill we were on were many many farmers. We walked & walked & walked & never found any holes. But we did find a
bunch of obsidian pieces littered along the road. We gave up on our quest for holes after the sun started getting closer to the mountains & we still had to walk back. The walk back to town was much much easier, all downhill! 😊
Along our walk up & down the hill all the drivers who passed us would give us a little honk hello. It's a common thing around here. You say hi with your horn. Also, people on motorcycles wear helmets! First we've seen in Central America. I think it's super cute how you wave hello & get a little "meep meep" from the horn.
Back in town we got some water & changed clothes. Sooo warm now! The bathroom is too icky for a shower so we'll have to suffer through. We headed out to walk around town a bit & find somewhere for dinner. We walked for quite some time & were sent in all different directions for the couple of restaurants we'd heard were good. This one guy gave me directions in Spanish then at the end asked me if I understood the word for street blocks. I thought it was funny. I
just understood everything, but why wouldn't I know the word for blocks? That is how everyone gives directions. Go two blocks that way, turn right, go three blocks more. It's very common. Probably because barely any streets anywhere are labeled by their names. If I ask what the street name is I often get blank stares.
There is a big tomb built into the hillside & a cave in town that we walked by & had to snap some photos. I talked with a Honduran man who was sharing all of his stories about the States in the US he'd visited & the countries in Central America that he knew. So far many Hondurans are well educated, travel, many speak a little English. I guess, naively, I thought the further south we got in Central America, the less developed the countries would be. Untrue.
For dinner we had sandwiches at a little restaurant. The power kept going on & off all through the city. There were a ton of street repairs going on. I don't know if they were messing with power lines or what. At one point, as far as you could see the city was pitch
black. Many places had generators. Prepared!
On our way home we decided to have a Honduran beer taste test. We bought one of each of their 3 beers & sampled. They're all not great but the winner to me was the Barena & for Geoff the Port Royal.
We laughed about being in twin beds. Pretty funny stuff. Off to sleep...
We decided tonight that our favorite tortillas so far are in this order: Mexico, Belize, Honduras, Guatemala. Guatemala's were too wheat like & thicker.
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