Although it was possible to make it across to Guatemala in one day, it would have been a five bus plus one country change, way too much chance of some screw up and being inconvenienced, so I decided to take a stop at the port town of Puerto Cortez. Puerto Cortez is the largest and most important Honduran sea port. To me it was a big ass wall that stretched on for three “as far as the eye can see”. Actually, what it made me flash back to was Syria and the port town where I spent a couple of quality weeks eating great American diner food and watching tv. I had the same layout with a hotel that overlooked the port with another wall that went on forever with a sunset that dropped somewhere behind the white washed ten foot barrier. Since it was my last stop before heading over to Guatemala I decided to spend a couple of nights there soaking up the sketchy port town vibe and which allowed me to do some exploring. Now, the place was a port town, and like most port towns they were built essentially because of the port. I give this information because when you visit these places and as a tourist sometimes it is hard to connect on why a place built on the Caribbean actually has no access to the aforementioned sea. My free day I took a walk to the entry gates to take a photo of the wall, kind of another flash back to Israel/Palestine, just to give the perspective of what you get when you visit a working port town. It feels like a sort of beach apartheid (South Africa flashbacks), with a wall dividing you from the emerald waters of the Caribbean. I kind of stood there and looked down the wall as it extended basically as far as I could see. I figured it was some sort of mirage (kind of a flashback to hiking to the pyramids in Sudan), and that it couldn´t be that far, plus with my fatness, it would do some good to get some exercise, my other option was getting a snowcone and watching tv from bed. So I walked. I walked a long time. Finally after an entry way where I had seen some cars drive in from afar which I had misinterpreted as the end of the wall, I got another eyefull of wall as it kept on going for a second “as far as the eye can see”. That stretch finally ended at a gas station which I thought would be my gateway to the ocean, but turned out to be another “as far as the eye can see” wall that curved towards the ocean, but then straightened out again for another stretch “as far as the eye can see”. Finally, the wall veered to the right and ended at a river. Looking down the river I could see the ocean but it was still far away and there was still no access unless I lept and let the current take me out to it. Walking over the bridge there were a few restaurants right next to the bridge but not wanting to see the ocean but not have to buy a burger to see it, I kept going. There I met up with another wall, this time it was the property of the Honduran Navy. There wall was another “as far as the eye can see”, but this time with barbed wire. Finally though, the damn wall ended and it opened up to a nice grass covered beach with full access to the Caribbean ocean. Man, what a pain in the ass. I took a bus back to town, it was that far.

Puerto Cortez wasn´t horrid, it was pretty much your usual Central American town with the usual central park. On a positive note, they had Pizza Hut, Wendy´s, and Burger King. No McDonalds though wtf. For some reason, I am not craving American fast food. One night I had my usual fried chicken and chips, but my final night as I stopped by the grocery store, there was a girl outside selling tamales. Now, in my family that is actually Christmas food as one of my imported Aunt Lucy brought tamales to our usually authentic Japanese Christmas/New Years feasts. Usually it was mochi making at the ranch but a day was also spent making tamales. Eating those for the first time in years was a treat although they are pretty sparse on the meat, but what do you expect for fifty cents.

The wall.

Finally the beach.

Sunday tamales.

I didn´t want to go to the islands. Sorry again, but that feeling I got with the rocks is just multiplied when I have to spend a shitload of money to see something that I have done too many time before. Now, it is always better once I get there and I always feel better to have done it, but to have to travel half way across Honduras, spending a lot of money on transport, and not caring about the main draw which takes people there, diving, and hanging out in an environment which I don´t particularly care for, exclusive tourist places, it just feels worse thinking about it. Again, Honduras has two major tourist draws, the Ruins and the Bay islands. It´s not like there are tons of highlights so it would seem a waste to miss one of them. But then, God/Allah/Buddha/Big person in the sky, shone down on me and brought forth thy answer to my dilemma. Orphans. What a great excuse. Perfect.

After the ruins, I needed some decompression time so I figured I would bypass my normal little fried chicken shack and have a sit down meal at a mamas place. Most of the places in Copan were the tourist variety set up to make the visiting foreigner feel comfortable. Not what I wanted. I wanted a little place in some local grandmas house with no frills just good old mama cooking. I wandered around town but couldn´t find one. Finally on the way back to my chicken shack which was next to the bus stand, I saw a dark entry way with a couple of plastic tables and chairs with one of the tables having a small bottle of hot sauce sitting by itself. I figured what the heck and went in and asked the Senora if she made food. She said sure and offered up an almuerzo (lunch). As usual it was massive, hearty, and perfect. While I was eating, a asian guy came in and he gave me a bit of a sideways glance. He chatted with the mama for a bit and then came by and said hello. He asked the usual if I was Japanese or Korean getting out the usual introductions. He was very confused at how and why I was eating there and I explained to him what I like and how I travel. He was very interested and he had a seat and we ended up talking for a bit. His name was Chin (Shwen) and he was from Taiwan. He was an art major who dropped out of University instead wanting to donate his time volunteering in Honduras. He was staying a year and the place where I was eating, the lady was the person running the orphanage where he was volunteering. Usually when I hear the volunteer part I start biting my tongue as I am a pretty disenchanted NGO person. I have had my fill of people who had the best intentions bit were really basically getting more benefit than the people who they were presumably trying to help. Chin was a bit different and I was really impressed.

His story is kind of common, but with a slant that I felt was refreshing. Back in Taiwan he knew that he wanted to do volunteer work to try and be “helpful”. He did the normal internet research and found an organization that fit the bill. It was a German organization that placed volunteers all over the world. For their service he had to pay $7000 plus the cost for the flight @$1000. That is one of my huge problems, but like everything else, NGO´s are a business and they only survive by creating income. For me I think it is crap, but if you web search volunteering, you will see that it is fairly standard and no different than if you were looking for information about buying a car. Your results are basically the same with all the front pages being “on sale now” “low price” “budget”, etc. Volunteering is not cheap. Now imagine how much of that money actually gets to the people who need it. But hey, just my perspective. Anyways, he got set up and they placed him in San Pedro one of Honduras biggest towns. He was placed in a homestay, basically living with a host family. His work was what he wanted which was in the arts as he taught handicapped people to create sellable art. The problem that arose with him was that he was placed with a very well off family in a well off enclave and rarely had the chance to see the people whom he thought he was there to help. He stayed in a large house with all the amenities including housekeepers and with a family who were westernized to the point where just going a few blocks to the store involved a car ride. He wasn´t happy and felt like he wasn´t accomplishing anything. After a month he requested that he be moved to somewhere that was a bit closer to something where he felt he could be more beneficial, so the company had him come to Copan. There, he was put in an orphanage with 22 kids and 6 babies. Now he had his hands full and was getting his ass handed to him. He was having a blast, but he was also filling a bit frazzled. He originally didn´t speak spanish and no one spoke English. He was the only volunteer so there was nobody else to hang out with and the other people at the house were four single moms and a 18 year old guy who spent a lot of time with the single moms “wink, wink”. As you can imagine, his helpfulness turned into getting taken advantage of and he was finding that a bit of a challenge and with 28 kids vying for his attention, he had his hands already full. Even then, he was pretty happy and I was very impressed. While we ate, some of the kids came in and he had them do some homework as he usually did this until mid-afternoon when he would then walk them back to the orphanage for night duties. I got to spend the afternoon helping with the homework and then he took me back to the house to check it out and meet the kids. Like usual it was fun chaos as you are pulled in all directions with all the kids wanting your attention. I left exhausted after only an hour. I definitely had respect for Chin after that and I think he felt a lot better getting to talk to another foreigner and especially about the whole organization thing.

Now, for me, it was great fun to hang out with the kids and basically play, but something important also came out of the experience. I didn´t want to go to the islands but I would have felt bad missing out on something that is rated so high as a must do. With the kids, came a perfect excuse. I could hang out a bit more and help out, but more importantly what if I took the money that I would have spent going to the islands and give it to the kids. So later when people hear that I had been to Honduras and they ask how the Bay Islands were, instead of getting that crazy expression because I didn´t feel like going, I could tell them that I felt it was more important to help out some orphans rather than sitting on a beach somewhere. Also, giving to help out orphans definitely is worth a God point so it helps out my future endeavors as well. And so that is what I did. I spent my island budget on buying a bunch of arts and crafts stuff which would hopefully help Chin with his orphan juggling, and later on a bunch of school supplies for the local school which was just about to start classes (one of the ladies at the restaurant explained to me that there is a lot of money to be had in Copan but it strictly is for the tourists and that they see very little of it). So in the end, I got to have some fun, I felt better for helping out, the kids got some fun stuff to play with (all arts and educational stuff with the exception of a big ass bag of balloons), Chin got some distraction help, the school got some much needed supplies, and not one penny went to some piece of shit who makes money on the backs of orphans. Oh yea, God points and I could bypass the islands without a touch of guilt (don´t worry though as my next stop is the Cayes in Belize and I heard from a dive instructor they are by far better than the Bay Islands).

Chen with the usual array of little kids strapped to him.

Copan Ruinas was my next destination. It´s location caused a bit of backtracking but I was on a roll with buses and the three transfers went without a hitch. I had actually thought of bypassing the ruins as it was slightly out of the way and I could make up a few days by heading straight up to the Caribbean where I could…. drum roll…….. go to another island. I thought about instead of backtracking, I could keep heading east along a route that is less traveled which would include more old colonial towns with a bit more of the indigenious culture. From there I could rocket straight up to the islands. I finally decided that doing the central route would end up taking twice as long as there were a lot of small towns in which I would have stopped and would have taken probably an extra week. The other issue was that Honduras had really two main sites. Copan Ruinas and the Bay Islands. Missing one would probaby seem like a travesty to any Hondurans I met in the future even though culturally the central route would probably be more conducive to learning about real Honduras. In the end I stuck to my guns and figured that I really havent seen any of the Central American rock formations and with Copan being one of the highlights I shouldn´t miss it. So off to see the rocks I went.

Copan town was nice as it was a heavy tourist destination and had all the amenities which make it a pleasant place to catch your breath. It draws international big money travelers so everything was spit shined up as the influx of foreign currency has pushed the average income up quite a bit. I got a really good deal on a new hotel with all the amenities and was more than willing to lay low for a bit. My originaly plan was one full day of rock visiting followed by one full day of scanning the channels to see if I could find a program airing information on the aformentioned rocks. Then I could be on my way to the islands.

Once I got to town I was actually getting a bit excited about traversing through some pyramidal structures and doing the archaeological thing. It had been a few months since I had done some rock walking and these being my first latin american rocks in a really long time I was surprised to feel a bit of anticipation. The layout was perfect, about a kilometer walk from town along a sidewalk created for the touring crowd although most people are shuttle the one kilometer. Apparently, people are not capable of walking for fifteen minutes with the amount of buses and tourist shuttles. Once in the entry way I paid the fifteen dollar entrance fee (again feeling fine about dropping that much money on some rocks as it was going to be cool.) There was a bit of walking through some tree lined paths before the view opens up and you are in a manicured grass field surrounded by rocks. Shit. All at once it hit me. I really dont care about rocks even if they are piled up in formations or chipped away into rough statues. Damn it, now I had to walk around and look at them as well. Yea, spoiled brat, I know, but it is what it is and I doubt that most people would have different feelings unless they were real “Tomb Raider” or “Raiders of the lost ark” freaks. That or if it was your job, ie. archaeologists. I think the main issue that I have is that I know how not difficult it was to make these places (watching the guy in Machu Pichu make those perfect blocks and taking about two minutes to figure out how they built the Pyramids in Egypt (start one level of blocks, fill in with the center with dirt to the heighth of the blocks, create a dirt ramp which to drag blocks up to the next level, fill in with dirt, create a larger ramp, use ropes to drag the new blocks up to the next level and repeat until the pinnacle is reached. When done excavate out the dirt. Finished. Not so difficult when you have unlimited resources.)) Anyways, I did my duty and walked all the different ruins and checked out all the stellae. The layout was nice, the area was maintained nicely, and there were plenty of nice places to take a break in the shade. The best part of the place was actually just before you entered the ticket booth as they had a bunch of colorful macaws and some tailless kangaroos. And with that I was done and retreated back to town.

Now, was Copan Ruinas a must see. Yes, if you were only visiting Honduras. Maybe if you were doing a tour of Central America and are interested in the different ancient cultures. No if you have seen other rock formations and not interested enough to really want to know the backgrounds of such. My takeaway was that I was going to put on a cap on the number of ruins that I was going to visit as I think it is important to see some, but not so much to have to see a lot of them. For this section as I am entering a highly rich rock formation territory and i want to get home relatively soon, I figure three more will be my threshold. I´ll have to talk to a few southern headed travelers to get some recommendations but no rush I have time.

The hot water springs were located about four kilometers out of town out in the middle of some forested areas kind of in a little ravine. They had carved out and created a half dozen pools ranging in size and temperature. I ended up getting an early start and was able to take advantage of the pools with only a couple of people. By mid day the local tourists had come and it got fairly packed with families making a day out of it. I spent a half a day soaking and then a nice amble back to town.

I guess I would characterize Gracias as a chill place as that is pretty much all there is to do there.

Honduran fast food. Fried chicken, chips, and tortillas.

French fry sweat shop. The older boys ran the fried chicken stand out front. The little kids worked in the back skinning potatoes and cutting them into fries. Who says child sweatshops are all bad.

A shot of Gracias from the castle.

I know, another church, blah…. but wait.

They had two.

My room during full moon.

Walking out to the hot springs which were hidden in the forest.

Hot springs after a long walk are excellent.

They reminded me of the pools on that volcano island in Nicaragua.

Surrounded by trees, hot steamy water, floating around, ahhhh…

Being sunday brought a lot of local families out.

Gracias from a far.

More cobble stone streets although Gracias is more rural than tourist spot. More of a sampling of small town Honduran life.

The segment of leaving El Salvador for Honduras was important as it broke my streak of bad bus rides. Now, it wasn´t hugely difficult, but it did require three different buses and every time you add a new connection, the risk increases significantly. From La Palma, I just had to jump on a passing bus as we were pretty close to the border already so any bus heading north would stop somewhere at the border town. The crossings have become significantly easier with the CA-4 agreement as all I had to do was track down the Honduran official whom input my data into the computerized system and charged me the $3 entry fee. Outside of that, I spent the small amount of US coins that I had on a little icey and I walked up a bit to a waiting minibus. That minibus took us to the first town of Nueva Ocotepeque where once I let the helper know where I was going, he took my bags and loaded them on the waiting bus which would take me by my first stop of Santa Rosa de Copan. The ride to SRC was surprisingly through some pretty rugged mountain ranges. Fortunately it was only a couple of hours of a roller coaster ride when we pulled up to the somewhat large town of SRC. As buses usually stop a couple of times on its way through a larger city, I grabbed my bag and walked up to the conductor and told him that I wanted off by the town center. It turned out to be somewhat a no brainer as SRC had a terminal right on the main highway. The only downside was that the town center was on top of a surrounding ridge which required a two kilometer up hill walk. Now, it would have been easy to just take a bus or a taxi up the hill as pretty much all the locals did, however I still stick to my guns on walking pretty much everytime no matter the distance because in reality backpacking in the normal sense really never materializes as most “backpackers” never walk with their packs farther than the doorway to a hostel to their room. It isn´t really all that difficult for me anyways as I am traveling really light and the weight is fairly not a factor.

It surprises me that these different countries although similar that they are right next to each other and are culturally rather similar (latin), the feel can be rather different. SRC right away felt more modern and cultured. Cultured not in the sense of ethnicity, but more in the way that they people and the way the town felt was more civilized. It really felt kind of like a college/upper class town. The layout was easy, the town was clean, the people were all really well dressed, their were more boutique type shops and quaint stores, and a very impressive functional town center/central park. Probably the most impressive thing about SRC was the central park. The generalities were the same, church on one end, fountains, seating, lots of greenery, and plenty of people taking advantage of the shade. One main difference was that they had built a tourist office right in the center of the park and kind of made it the centerpiece. It was octagon shaped, two stories, and made out of some nicely painted and trimmed panelings. The bottom was the tourist office and the top was a sort of seating area gazebo. In the office they had a pretty receptionist with pamphlets about the surrounding area. What really impressed me was when I asked about places to stay. She brought out a binder which had laminated photos of each hotel in town along with prices and directions. Very helpful. Also, along the outer walls they had new computers which were utilized for web access. It was the first really functional tourist that I had seen since Asia. Another plaza positive was that they had a very nice food court lined with mamas places serving different types of typical Honduran foods and drinks. These were not your normal sort of sketchy looking food stalls, but more white table cloth and sanitary looking eating spots. The pricing was better than at the fancier restaurants throughout town so I ended up eating there for my meals.

The only downspot was finding a place to stay. There was really only two economical places to stay in town as things were a bit more upscale . The first was a basic but clean place ran by a grandmotherly lady who also had an adjoining pharmacy. For whatever reason we didn´t get off on the right foot. She seemed a bit annoyed when I asked to see the rooms first as I am imagineing since she got good reviews in the guidebook most people just drop bags and thats it. I was actually looking to see what a few bucks more might get me somewhere else (tv) and told her I wanted to look around the town a bit. I went back to the tourist agency and the girl gave me the name of a place close by the first one. Well, it turned out to be pretty much right next door and I am assuming the old lady saw me scoping out the other hotel. It turned out to be closed for renovations so I ended up going back to the tourist office for more suggestions but turned up fruitless as there was no real mid-level budget places. I ended up walking around some more and passed by the old ladies place a couple more times as I zigzagged my way around the town. Finally, I said screw it and went back to the cranky lady and arranged a room. By that time she was pretty pissy and almost scolded me for not picking her place the first time. Oh well. Once I got checked in I didn´t have to deal with her anymore.

The rest of my time I spent wandering the pretty interesting town bumping into a missionary who lived in Las Vegas. She was with her local friend and I think she was kind of embarassed when I started talking about Vegas and it being sin city and all that.

Altough I clicked really well with the town, I wanted to head off a bit to an area known for having a quaint local town rich with cultural and most importantly thermal swimming pools. I figured I would be passing through the town again I could just make another stop over so I really wasn´t worried about doing a one and out.

Whats cookin.

The food stalls in the central plaza. At night it was packed out with people buying plates of food and then hanging out in the park having dinner. Nice.

I had this for lunch and for dinner some good old nachos. I prefer my nachos with cheddar and jack cheese though. These have those excellent hardy chips.

I was tracking along the Pacific coast side of Central America so in order to jump to my next destination country of El Salvador I had to cut through a short swath of land owned by the Hondurans. It was possible to make the throughway in about three hours less transportation wait times, but I am really not the type who likes a full days itinerary of anything. Although the town of Choluteca was considered non-touristic, it would provide a chance for me to get my usual break in day of a new country. Getting the switch to a new currency, local interactions, and food choices are a big part of changing countries and I usually like to drop anchor for a day or two at a close to border town in order to get acclimated. I would be returning back to Honduras after El Salvador so it would save me time when I crossed back. The reason for the hop skipping is better understood if you look at a map of Central America. Most things of interest tend to be on one of the two coasts, Pacific or Caribbean. Luckily, the direction I was traveling would only require a “S” curve in order to end up hitting the important sites without having to do much backtracking as well as entering Mexico without having to visit the Yucutan Peninsula which I have already traveled before albeit only the highly touristic parts.

Choluteca was what it was, lacking in tourist things to do, but it was great for the everyday life that most people comment on wanting to see but usually tend to zoom right past. For me, it was a nice hotel which had the well sought after hammocks in a courtyard, a laundry area which was much utilized by me as it was very hot and sunny and my clean laundry dried in about a half an hour, a bank to change some money enough so that I would have a small bank roll when I reentered Honduras, and excellent tortillas (not the heavy corn meal style, but more the thinner almost flour tortilla like style that you buy at the grocery store (Bimbos here).

Honduras as well as El Salvador where I am now is somewhat different between even the neighboring countries like Nicaragua. I guess partially it depends where you are at in the city, but for one example, in Honduras and El Salvador, lunch is the biggest meal of the day while dinner is more moderate snack more than anything. Also, when the sun goes down, things lock up to the point where it is only a few security guards and packs of dogs roaming the streets. It makes it a challenge especially for me now as I am on a diet again and only one big meal a day at night time. Sundays as well can be a challenging task for food gathering especially if you are staying in the Central part of town or by a central market that is only open on weekdays through saturday.

Pictured above are my takeaway of Honduras so far. These are the tortilla ladies that set up shop on most busy corner streets especially the evening time. Those baskes are stacked full of those tasty thin tortillas I love so much. When I saw those I knew I had to buy some fried chicken, avocadoes, and some salty cheese. My spanish is okay and when it comes to normal conversational stuff like buying things/food, I can do it fairly seamlessly. Well. I wanted to buy some tortillas for dinner so I asked the girl how much. She said something that included 2 and 5. Now not knowing the correct verbage for which way the cost went I figured I would just go for a monetary amount. I told her 15L figuring it was 5L for 2. Well, tortillas are a great purchase as it turned out to be get 5 for 2L. Well, I ended up getting two big smiles from the girl and her friend as they started grabbing stacks of tortillas and packed my 40 tortillas in some paper and then into a plastic bag. I started looking for a homeless person to give a stack to, but then I started thinking that it might be an insult as tortillas are so cheap that they are almost free. It would be like handing out pennies to homeless people. Might get them thrown back in your face. So, I took my stack home with me and ate 35 that evening and night and the final 5 for breakfast.

Outside of that, it was a nice place to relax and catch up with chores although there really was not much else to do there.