Honduras

I know it sounds unbelievable (and we were pretty surprised by this as well) but the landscape changes almost immediately after you cross the border!

Through breaks in the rain, we noticed that the red brick houses were replaced by wooden houses! The mountains are different too - they're much more abrupt and imposing. They shoot straight up and then back down again! The soil is rocky and there are lots of pine trees. The soil and vegetation actually reminded me of central Colorado a little bit ... except that it's greener and there were palm trees mixed in with the pines!

Amongst Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras, Honduras takes the prize for sheer jaw-dropping natural beauty. Just unbelievably gorgeous! But we didn't really get to see much of the scenery our first day in Honduras.

The people are different too. They're taller, bigger, and fairer complected than Guatemalans and Salvadorenos. We even saw a few obese people - definitely not something you see in Guatemala or El Salvador.

There are cows everywhere and the men look like cowboys - they wear skinny jeans, boots, big belt buckles, and cowboy hats! Lots of them even carry guns! It wasn't uncommon to see one of these guys with a 9mm tucked into his belt.

Shortly after crossing the border, our journey took us up into the mountains - and into the clouds! We were literally driving through the clouds! Sounds kinda cool in theory, and for about the first 30 seconds it was pretty neat. But here's the thing about driving through clouds ... you can't see anything. At all.

Let me paint you a picture. We're driving through the mountains on Honduras on a 200cc dirtbike. Our only company on this carretera (highway/road) are semi trucks. We're in a cloud so we're soaking wet and my visibility is about 20 feet if I'm lucky. The only way I can tell if there's a curve coming up (and, indeed, which way the road is going to turn), and avoid careening off a cliff, is to watch the edge of the pavement in order to have a few seconds warning.

Added to this is the fact that Honduras has terrible roads! There are regularly stretches where the pavement abruptly turns into, not just a dirt road, but a field of massive potholes. We also ran across a few mud/rock slides, the occasional downed tree, and my personal favorite - the missing lane! That's exactly what it sounds like. There were a few places where the cliff had eroded to the point that the pavement had crumbled and fallen off the side of the mountain ... and half the lane was missing!

With the driving conditions so poor, we didn't make very good time. We had planned to go to Gracias, but after (I think) six hours on the road, we had to stop for the night in Santa Rosa de Copan, soaking wet and freezing cold. It's a town that is quite literally built on top of a mountain. After finding a hotel and hitting an ATM, we went to dinner!

At the restaurant, the guy at the door patted me down. He told me he was looking for guns! That took me back a bit. But dinner was good! The steaks (and really the beef in general) are great in Honduras!

I don't remember if we did anything after dinner ... seems like I did, but it's not coming to me ...

We had to be back to the hotel by 10pm because the old gentleman who tends the place closes it up for the night! He pulls down one of those metal, garage-door looking things and there's no getting in or out after that. This kinda made Nealy nervous. She was convinced that the hotel used to be a hospital (I helpfully suggested that perhaps it was a children's mental hospital) and she was a bit creeped out. Then, somehow she began to worry about zombies - but after we hastily threw together an evacuation plan she calmed down a bit and we got some sleep.

Oh! Our room was also interesting in that the only thing separating the toilet from the room was a shower curtain. Also, there was no toilet seat.