Honduras

Mar11

After extending our beach stop in El Salvador to allow Gid to rise from his sickbed, it felt good to be back on our bikes and focused on covering distance. Well, some distance – our stops aren’t far apart in Central America, as there’s plenty to see. Most of these countries have nominally a middling population density, but in practice crowded urban areas, and middle density farming on the coastal plain and valley bottoms, leaving very few folks left to populate large areas in the hills or the north, toward the Caribbean coast. Much of which is still roadless jungle. Many of the small communities there are not connected by road to their countrymen. Being roadless, these large areas are not connected to us, either, we’re only in the more populous areas.

Copan Ruinas, our first Honduran destination, was slightly NW from our border crossing. After 2 hours in the border, Aduana, we were fairly focused on making some progress but then reality hit. The road was still under construction. Sections of it were near perfect but for some reason it had 2m bands of gravel every 150m or so. No need for speed bumps here. The views were beautiful but viewing spots are a luxury seldom found. Other parts of the road were very much still under construction but we soon learnt to go ‘native’. Honduras is back to swarms of bikes. At road works they weave their way to the front and beyond given half a chance. On one such occasion we followed the bikers and a family of cyclists through on to the coned-off raised new road. Ten metres or so before the end of this section the lead bikes peeled off to the left, across the approaching traffic, along a dirt track bordering the road, through the petrol station and down a narrow lumpy path and back onto the road. I stopped at the start of the footpath. I wasn’t alone. A man on his bike loaded with wood stopped too. We dubiously looked at each other and the kangaroo jumps the bikers ahead were doing along the footpath. Gid squeezed through. He got 2/3 of the way along with his bike bucking all over the place and stopped on what seemed like a position stranded half over the next lump. After that moment of route planning, so Gid says, (or buttock clenching), the Him bounced through ok. With a subtle shake of our heads the guy and I turned back. We had to wait a short while before we could squeeze out alongside the approaching traffic. Safe and sound off we went.

A little further along the road we took a turning. Dirt road the navigation informed us but – wrong, It was a newly laid 8km stretch of beautiful surfaced road with some wonderful views thrown in as we wound our way up and down mountain sides. Encouraged by this we took the next dirt road too. This 30km short cut bypassed a whole big loop around the top Gid informed me. But no such luck this time. Although a definite road it was dust, gravel, ruts, gulleys, hills, descents and a ford , along which, in the main, a steady dribble of motos overtook us. That was encouraging as it felt as if it was in constant use servicing the villages and other tracks along the way. Nearing the end however, three men overtook us but then stayed just in front. That was unnerving as they should have disappeared into the dust. Why were they hanging back with us? Thankfully it wasn’t too far until we were back on the main road. Our escort went in the other direction.

Copan Ruinas was delightful. Although another cobbled ancient town it had retained some of its charm because it wasn’t so full of tourist shops or heaving with tourists. When walking round the ruins themselves we were two out of four people in the place although a couple of groups were arriving as we left. The main attraction of Copan ruins, another Unesco site, was the option to go down into two tunnels and look at the previous temples. Because the temples were enlarged by successive kings who wanted their temple to be bigger and better, the carvings on the former temples had been covered and were still in very good condition. Somehow it felt magical to glimpse at what had been hidden away.

Archaeological work was very much still in action both on the surface and inside the tunnels which felt as though we were experiencing history as it was being uncovered. The displays in its mini museum linked the Copan ruins to several of the temple sites that we have already visited. Copan is the last major and most southerly Maya site in Central America.

We decided to traverse Honduras along the northern, Caribbean coast. This has a wealth of cultures with eight different languages being spoken. One of which is Garifuni – the Caribbean freed slave culture & its partly creole language scattered all along the Caribbean coast from Belize south. Asking for milk at the local store in Tornabe proved interesting. It wasn’t Spanish or English is all I can say. The place felt a bit like Hopkins in Belize, except zero tourists, as the locals were of African heritage and mooching around on foot. The only hotel, like most of the other buildings, was right on the beach, with our bikes parked on the sand between us and the sea. Locals wandering past. We had a comfy night, although it bucketed down at some point.

To get there, we’d swing by the famously beautiful Lago Yojoa. Appealingly, we could stay in a micro-brewery. When at Lago Yojoa we took another archaeological walk around Los Naranjos. We were warned that the original temple was made of clay so had been left covered but that hadn’t sunk in until we arrived at the temple to see a relatively small grass mound and nothing more. Thankfully a small museum at the site’s second entrance had a display informing us about the ruins and its place in history, being very old in Central American ruin terms.

Both of us enjoy birdwatching and one of our best experiences was on Lake Yojoa. We’d booked onto an early morning bird watching boat trip. Honduras does boast a wonderful number of resident birds but our own efforts to see them have been fairly pitiful. Our guide, Mattias, took us off to the canal armed with binoculars. We hadn’t even reached the water before we were looking this way and that. Two to three hours passed in perfect bliss as we were paddled along spotting various birds. The highlight of the trip for me was the osprey. Sitting high in a tree but clearly visible with binoculars it wasn’t far from a white chested hawk. The pair were magnificent. The osprey flew over which Gid spotted first. Sadly I barely saw it. As we so quickly forget, Gid made notes of the different birds that were pointed out to us, many of them brightly coloured, and announced we’d seen over thirty species. A few of them like the herons and fly catchers were almost omnipresent.

The botanical gardens at Tela was another attempt to see more wild life. It was more of an arboretum but occupied a spacious area with signage informing us about some of the species. We had hoped to see some birds here but in the heat of the afternoon nothing much was evident. We stayed onsite, in a splendid wooden cabin left over from the fruit company days, so the following morning took an amble in the softer light which was much more pleasant but still lacked wildlife. When preparing to leave our host came to tell us that they was some issue up the track. ‘Motos would get through,’ she said, ‘pero no carros!’ True enough! There had been rain overnight and a land slide. Part of the road was missing. Cautiously we went through aware that a lot of the area looked sodden.

Gid hasn’t been interested in waterfalls. To be fair in 2023 we toured Norway where in places there’s a stunning waterfall every 100 metres. But link a waterfall walk with bird watching and we were off. Three toucans almost make up for our cumulative zero quetzals. Our stop here was a guest house focussed on the local rafting tourism on the Rio Cangrejal. Right on the rocks by the white water river, it brought back a lot of memories of our paddling days.

Biking back along the muddy & potholed dirt road from the rafter’s guest house towards La Ceiba I had hoped that some of the slimy mud down the lane might have dried out a bit. No such luck. The drizzle started as we finished packing our bikes. That together with last night’s rain ensured that it had remained a slushy, muddy, dirt and gravel road with numerous pot holes and oversized puddles. Faced with a large muddy puddle and an on coming moto that was going to take the rim around the left hand edge I went for it straight through my side. My bike squirmed a couple of times, some water splashed over into my boots but a bit of adrenaline kept me going and I didn’t slow down. ‘ A twist of the wrist’ so the name sake book says will nine times out of ten get you through a problem. It worked. I was chuckling, the approaching biker, who had slowed to watch the drama, had a broad smile and gave a thumbs up. Who else was on the road? – oh yes – an inexplicably abandoned porker.

Sodden was here to stay – we had a lot of heavy showers in Honduras. We had set off at 9:30 with a 100mi to cover so expected to be there by lunch time. With just a short lunch break we arrived sometime after three. The potholes along the way had disintegrated into large areas of mud and broken road. The traffic ahead of us on both sides was weaving across the road and slowly negotiation the holes. We picked our way along the main road at times behind tired buses, trucks and tuk-tuks. Consumed in clouds of exhaust as yet another overloaded knackered out X tried to pull away from the speed bumps or pot holes. Frequently, at the speed bumps, we sped past. Once we were officially on a dirt road the surface was in a much better condition. Thankfully a lot of the traffic had also turned off by then so we were able to make better progress.

Here’s an assortment of Honduran road photos. We take more photos on dirt roads ‘cos there’s usually more to see, and time to look.

And here’s a few photos of what we could see from the road.

As far north-east as we could reasonably go, a couple of days at the beach at Trujillo was to round off our trip to Honduras. Gid had highlighted the fort and a couple of historic points of interest in the small town. Yes, um, it was indeed small, but attractive enough, once it had stopped pouring with rain.

Leaving Trujillo we soon turned south and headed down a lovely road enroute for the capital city, Tegucigalpa. It was the best road we’d been on for a while so we were merrily cruising along. We soon realised that we had a third rider also on a touring bike tailing us. After a brief roadside stop we agreed to a coffee somewhere ahead. Steve, a Canadian rider, was on a tour to Panama – his version of the Snow Goose descent south for the winter. We stopped together for the night and shared food, beer, and stories. Steve’s BMW RS boxer was five times as powerful as our Himis, but the sporty suspension & position wasn’t so accommodating over speed bumps and potholes. He might have said it wasn’t entirely happy on the low octane gasoline, either. But we’re all doing it, that’s the main thing. Forums are full of “what bike for …” discussions, and journalists pontificate endlessly (with a nod to their advertisers!), but the best answer seems to be “the one you have”. We do seem to be a bit off the moto tourist trail now, we no longer see occasional groups of looming, be-panniered, be-foglamped adventure bikes going the other way, or whizzing past us. Of course, just by time and distance, we’re getting beyond the range of a ride-from-home tour for North Americans with jobs and families needing them back soon.

Honduras’s capital Tegucigalpa was busy but pleasant enough. After all the usual online warnings about crime, the biggest threat was clearly as a pedestrian trying to cross the roads. Maybe it was our location, but the traffic seemed more cramped and more urgent than either Mexico or Guatemala Cities. Tegucigalpa is not reckoned to be much of a tourist destination, although we did visit a few places. We were in the city because it had a Royal Enfield dealer, one of only 2 in Honduras, and I had discovered some loose spokes in my front wheel. I wanted to be nearby when I had my first ever go at a motorcycle spoked wheel tweak. In the event, the adjustment seemed to go smoothly, and no parts or help were called upon.

Although our Honduran visas were for 60 days, we were aware that the CA4 group of countries only gave us 90 days from entering Guatemala, so we had to exit both Honduras and Nicaragua, by 29th March. East of Tegucigalpa the Honduras/Nicaragua border hove into sight all to soon, after around 3 weeks in Honduras. Another border to cross, another country to plan. But just before that, Gid misunderstood what he was told about the nightly rate, and our last night in Honduras was rather a splendid indulgence, and a bit of a moto museum, too.

Entering Mexico – Baptism by Fire and Paper

Oct22

We’d spent the previous afternoon filling in the forms at the campsite. Gid’s android translated the info into English. Mine didn’t. I felt as though I was signing my life away with a blindfold over my eyes. He was feeling challenged with his own form and didn’t need me constantly quizzing him. We finally got there. Paid up, two forms. Copies of this, copies of that. But one of them said we needed a paper copy and please arrive at the border with it. We were crossing the border on a Sunday and suddenly we needed a paper copy.

On the way out of our Palomar campsite we’d called into the local convenience store. The part time lady cheerfully said she’d ask the manager for a print as they did have a printer. It all seemed quite hopeful. The manageress arrived flushed and in a considerable flap. ‘I do wish you hadn’t offered to do this,’ she admonished her assistant. Despite three heads trying to solve the problems it was not going to happen – passwords, signals, connections – the list goes on.

Gid was keen to try the few random shops we passed. I was more, ‘Of ‘cos they’ll let us in. Are they really going to send umpteen tourists away?’ One more failed effort just before the Mexican border left us with no option. We progressed forwards. It all seemed very relaxed. There were a few officers there in uniform but they just waved us through. Gid exploded. ‘We can’t just go through. We need our paperwork stamped and the bikes need to be registered.’ He conveyed this to one guy who casually pointed to the office at the side and told us to go through the barrier and come back to do the paper work!

The Mexican immigration office was to the right on a one-way street. With no access to it we had to park further down the road and walk back. The señor in the office was very patient as we tried to locate, from among the umpteen forms we’d saved, the ones that he wanted. We emailed them to him so that he could print them out. Stamped and dated off we went. The vehicle importation was equally trouble free once we’d sorted out which paperwork equated to which bike and whose it was. Our recently hard-won, but very elementary Spanish hadn’t really been challenged, but it had had a little outing.

In. Now we needed some Pesos. Going down the main drag I spotted an ATM sign. We pulled in behind a car. Gid jumped off his bike and in he went. Moments later un hombre policia appeared pen in hand opening the pages in his ticket book. He pointed to the writing on the side of the kerb and said what must have been, ‘No Parking’.

‘Un momento, Un momento,’ I cried, calling to Gid through the intercom that he was about to get a parking ticket.

‘I’ve just put my card in, I can’t come now,’ he anxiously replied.

The policia was gesticulating that Gid’s bike needed be to moved. I indicated that I would move it. But of course as I swapped bikes mine was now illegally parked. I was trying to wiggle Gid’s bike round mine when Gid reappeared. Thankfully the policia seemed to despair of this comedy act and walked away. Two bikes two riders, money, we were off.

As we set off down the road Gid informed me that a high proportion of the population have never taken a test. Pay a little extra and the licence was yours is what most Mexicans did. Somehow I was sensing that and the signage wasn’t as clear as we’d got used to either. There were stop signs used in the same way as in the US but the accompanying stop line had been erased – some of the signs had suffered over the decades of time. I ploughed straight through one. Thankfully no one was coming. Later we learnt that irrespective of red lights, Alto signs and what ever, ‘Get eye contact!’ before progressing, that’s the important thing. Things seem a little “loose” compared to the UK, Spain or USA, but it works on civility yet is not remotely in an Indian or Indonesian league.

Further down the road I was overtaken on the hard shoulder. A car just came careering past me on the inside. Wow! What was that? The next half hour was a sharp learning curve. The hard shoulder albeit much narrower than the road lane was regularly used to over take. One vehicle straddled the solid white line that demarked the hard shoulder while the overtaking vehicle straddled the central solid yellow line. All sorted then. One good thing was that as the hard shoulder served as a lane, of sorts, it wasn’t full of debris. The crap was piled high in the pull outs and off the side of the road. No $1000 fine here for littering.

Another surprise was the trucks passing along through the towns and along the highways with armed soldiers masked and in full uniform standing in the back. Regular check points along the roads also told of the extent of the drugs problem in Mexico, a lot of it driven by the trade over the border in the USA. The nearest we got to being searched was one bored pair of young military guys asking where we had come from and where we were going. Other vehicles, mostly northbound, had numerous inspectors with torches pawing all over their trucks. The bigger the vehicle the more extensive the search. We settled into the new regime. The road to Ensenada passed through a scenic wine making area, and wasn’t heavily trafficked – a great introduction once we’d worked out the hard shoulder plan.

Ensanada was our first destination, for very prosaic reasons. But it was a joy to visit. The internet-booked motel was just fine, and after months in the western USA and Canada we could again wander around a town. While none of the pavements were consistently flat it had a centre we could amble through enjoying the atmosphere. Gid could have stayed a few more days, but after all the delays I was keen to get on. The plan was to travel the length of the Baja peninsular, then ferry across to the mainland. Interestingly, it was two weeks before the famous Baja 1000 desert race. We decided not to enter.

We’ve visited Spain a number of times and the similarities here were stark. In some towns with buildings set back from the road, many things were broken down or in need of repair with the occasional thing half built while others had large murals and were brightly painted with bougainvillea adorning the walls. Whereas the western USA has almost everything in town concreted over, in the pueblos the road had a wide apron of dust – of course, everything was coated in it unless it moved.

We’ve travelled fairly extensively across the globe, and it was a pleasure to see again local, improvised, low key services along the road. Home made as well as printed signs are common, and as Baja California is both very sparsely populated, and not highly developed, sometimes we needed to see that “man with a can” gas stop, or the little stall selling burritos (we hadn’t even been entirely sure what a burrito was). And every café had a “wifi” sign – the wifi may well have been the most reliable service. There were many “proper” gas stations, but interspersed with can men whom we really needed at least once pricey though he seemed. Very sugary pop is also always available, more difficult is avoiding it!

Another change – to us – is an expected one. In the USA we tended to avoid the trafficked and expensive megopolises, and skip from scenic park to scenic park, camping. In the less developed parts of the world, there are fewer campsites, debatably less safe, and our pounds go a lot further. So we tend to reverse the pattern and skip between cheap hotels in towns. Cheap hotels here can be jolly nice, usually best not booked through a big website – local rates are cheaper. El Hotel Frances was a memorable 19th century historic building, in rather mid-western style (but of probably tropical hardwood), but most are pretty new, Hispanically concrete. None has yet approached in cost the San Diego campsite!

We still felt very wary of much adventure in Mexico and there’s only one main road down through the Baja peninsula which was generally ok, two lanes, little traffic, and relatively few slow bits through pueblos. Occasionally it was a pristine new surface but at times a pitted pot-holed mess – no worse than our home town in the UK, but that’s not a 60mph road. On our Himalayans we didn’t need to lose much speed to plough through whatever the road surface threw at us. Along the grotty sections we even overtook some cars and trucks. We passed a road repair team on a couple of occasions. It was a truck loaded with tarmac and some spades. The truck stopped. Out jumped the team. One filled the hole, another raked it flat while a third flagged the approaching traffic. All sorted. Move on. They had their work cut out! More dangerous than the overtaking, and the potholes, was probably the occasional livestock, rare in the first place, that had gotten out of the fenced ranches and now munched at the roadside.

But plenty of the roadside was also lovely to look at, and especially in the north, quite curvy with fabulous views.

The country side we passed through changed from sparsely covered desert to a rich environment with many desert plants thriving. Despite my resolution to not camp in Mexico on the grounds of personal safety we did camp at Cataviña. We’d just passed a police station next to a deserted motel when we came across a small community: a campsite with two motorbikes and a tent inside a perimeter fence, opposite a taco shack and a fuel stop. Encouraged by the gated entrance and bikers already camping we went in and were enthusiastically greeted. We were staying then. Alexandros spoke reasonable English and encouraged our efforts in Spanish. He’d also done the southern half of our planned trip and gave us the book he’d written pointing out the pages that recorded his crossing of the Darien gap. ‘Three weeks for the bikes,’ he said. ‘Three hours by plane for us.’ We spent a fabulous evening sharing tales. A surprise bonus was the campsite’s tour of the desert by truck to see the painted caves just up the road and off in the desert.