The mountain

Honduras

What a surprising place Honduras is. As beautiful and lush as all the other countries we have travelled through and even more friendly and welcoming. It has major problems with gangs, corrupt officials and the incessant tinkering of the US, but it still retains, at its heart, vibrancy and optimism.

It would appear to me that the most oppressed and poverty stricken nations of the world seem to manage to remain happy and focused on just getting on with life despite their desperate circumstances. 

Tegucigalpa is a sprawling metropolis to be avoided at all costs. It is sketchy and gangs prevail here. We literally passed through and just stopped once to get some grub at a mall. Every kind of shop has its own security guard with the obligatory sawn off shotgun dangling from their necks. It is a sobering place to be. 

But then, leaving the city, you hit the countryside. And it is beautiful. The roads are good generally but the father away from the urban areas you get the more they are prone to disappear or be carpet bombed with cavernous potholes. You have to be vigilant at the wheel. Hit one of these and either your suspension is wrecked and you are stuck in the middle of nowhere or worse you crash and I don’t even want to imagine what a Honduran hospital is like but that’s only an option if anyone ever rescues you. That said. It was a pleasant drive to laguna Yojoa. 

Here we stayed in a place owned by a Virginian ex peace corps worker who came, settled and started a micro brewery. Beer? It doesn’t take much else to drop a pin in my map. So we stayed in this wonderful place for a couple of nights rented a couple of kayaks and had a very tranquil afternoon paddling out into the lake. Again, I was reminded of Technicolor Tarzan movies. Giant white egrets gracefully gliding across the water or posing silently waiting for their next meal. It truly was an amazing, Amazonian day. 

After this we headed further west almost to the border with Guatemala to a famous Mayan temple complex called Copan. This was the furthest south they came. I didn’t know that. The grandiose city stretches for kilometers into the jungle. Mostly undisturbed and, as yet, undiscovered. The city fell in roughly AD 900. Nobody knows why but it was over before the conquistadores arrived so it wasn’t the disease they brought. Probably they just got too big, used up all the resources and it couldn’t sustain such a large population of 25,000. History repeats itself I fear. 

After a wonderful week in Honduras we have now crossed into Guatamala, my, previously, favourite Central American country. The crossing took a frustrating couple of hours of needless beurocracy but we did it in the end and now have a sticker on the windscreen to prove it. Patience is essential here. No one is in any kind of hurry! 

And right now I am writing this blog whilst sat in a traffic jam at a roadblock set up by the locals to protest against the government and the need for improved roads. It is annoying to say the least. One of the main security measures you always, always follow here is to not drive at night. But, today, it looks like we might have to. The road block is set to last five hours!! So we are sat here in the sweltering heat entertaining ourselves as we wait for the protest to end. Welcome to Guatemala! But at least they are doing what they can in their own way to try to influence change.

(B)Addendum

We sat for 4 hours in that queue, chatting, joking, snacking and generally killing time but then we discovered that the protest was going to continue all night and possibly the next day too. So after looking at our map we found a tiny white road that looked like it might bypass all the blockages, of which we were told there were at least seven!! The only problem was that the detour would add at least two hours to a four hour journey! Night riding looked imminent.

So back we went and onto what looked like a reasonable back road. But it didn’t last for long! The road became treacherous quite quickly. Steep hills, boulders, landslides, everything you could possibly imagine really. A cross between Indiana Jones and Apocalypto. And to top it all it started to rain. And when it rains here it doesn’t just rain, it’s is a deluge of water, the sky just opens and dumps its entire contents on you! The road quickly worsened, if it ever possibly could! Rivers started forming and crossing the road. Thick brown sludge pouring from everywhere. In places you just had to drive through them hoping there was still hard ground underneath. Add to that the fact that we were steadily climbing a steep mountainside. The road precariously perched between said mountain on one side and a sheer drop of hundreds of feet on the other. We passed various teams of local peasantry returning from work in the fields, the looks suggested the idiocy we were entering into. I don’t think many vehicles pass often, maybe a mule or a cow or two, but certainly not a huge 4×4 and definitely not in a torrential downpour. Gringo nutters!.

I was a little trepidatious to be sure. We travelled about seven kilometres through all this before coming to a point where, true wilderness explorer style, I had to get out and walk the trail to see if it was passable. It wasn’t. Not even in the dry or a million years was I going to attempt to pass. Several torrents of water had converged and gushed over, under, and through the road. And on the edge it looked like it was about to collapse. One slight misjudgement, a wheel spin or just the weight of the car could have sent us over the edge in an idiotic instant. Nope! Not at all worth the risk. So we had to reverse back down. Scary enough in forward let alone reverse! But we survived and eventually, after a very cautious 20 point turn and a very tentative descent we found ourselves back at the bottom and back at the bloody roadblock. Which had now been set afire!

We had, by now, resigned ourselves to an uncomfortable night in the car when, after an hour or so, a 4×4 came through and the driver, who seemed to have some importance in the area, went to speak to the picketers. He came back and, amazingly, the road block was lifted. It was my moment. As he drove through I started my engine and sped after him, lights off, til the last moment. When I switched on the lights. The group of men realised too late and started shouting to close the barrier and stop us. They were quite pissed off I think. But I carried on, careering through the flames with a nonchalent smirk on my face like a bat out of hell. Well, it wasn’t that dramatic, but that’s how I am going to remember it. Burning rubber and flames!

It took a while to steady our nerves after that, but we were through and on our way. We passed several other barackades but they were unmanned and easily passable. Until finally we came to another more formidable affair with many men hanging around looking pretty hostile and carrying machetes. 

We were just thinking that this was the time to get the back seat bed ready when Dani just took it upon herself to approach all the guys. Off she went all cute and sheepish. I saw her surrounded by lots of men and chatting to them. The man from earlier, in the 4×4, was let through again minutes before so I guess this was HER moment. I watched as the desperate little girl, fearful and tearful, and tragic and helpless, plied her trade. And, miraculously, within a minute or two they opened the barrier. My what it is to have a pair of breasts with you when you need them. 

Once through this one we were in a little town where we drove past about ten police cars in a row paying no attention to what was happening. In a bar I guess. Or maybe cartels are more pressing to them? They just told us to sit and wait. Thanks guys.

After the town, another roadblock. AAAGH! We inched our way forward as people gave up and turned round, waiting to get close enough so we could use our most deadly weapon again. Dani was ready to bombard them with her glorious damsel in distress reenactments. However, at the stroke of nine things started happening, the guys began to clear the blockage. I readied my steed, determined to break through at any opportunity. But my second moment of glory evaded me as it became clear the protest was at an end. I was genuinely a little disappointed but relieved as well. Now we could begin our four hour trip to the hotel. What a day! We arrived at 1.30 am, exhausted and just a little overtired. A bed, a debrief and a warm cuddle sorted us out and both slept soundly, comfortable in the knowledge that together we can do anything.