Vagabond and Beyond: La Vida es corta DISFRUTALA! (Life is short, ENJOY!)

A honduran saying, it says "life is short, ENJOY!"

La Vida es corta DISFRUTALA! (Life is short, ENJOY!) is displayed in this poster we saw a few times in Honduras, it's a motto we found a little harder to follow in a country thats not all too enjoyable outside of a couple of nice towns (a harsh statement but regrettably it's true that Honduras was our least favourite country so far). Things are tough in Honduras with a recent coup leading to political instability and a rise in crime. The country also has the not so great titles of AIDs and murder capital of Central America but we tried to look past them and explore a bit more of mainland Honduras after not enjoying the unsafe city of La Ceiba and the ghost town of Omoa too much. We decided to take a bit of a detour off the beaten path and head to D&D Brewery in central Honduras to sample a few microbrews while visiting some waterfalls and exploring some marshlands around Lake Yojoa. We met a Dutch couple travelling after university (Joao and Paulina) on the bus from San Pedro Sula out to a brewery in the middle of nowhere and they had the bad luck of attracting the attention of a very odd character. He was a loud American who was flying to Colombia from Miami but was now on a chicken bus in central Honduras. How did this come to be…..apparently the flight he was on had been grounded due to terrorism and security wouldn’t give him his bags back, so for some insane reason he decided to visit distant relations in a town called Las Vegas that he had never met before with nothing except a plastic bag with clothes. He later borrowed a mirror off a local girl and proceeded to shave on the bus and throwing the razor out the window when he was finished. He scared us all by flirting with the idea of getting off at the brewery with us but the Dutch couple cleverly persuaded him that this would have been a bad idea. I checked later about the grounded flight etc. and predictably it was all bullshit. He was too dumb to be a con artist and it still baffles me of what the hell he was actually doing there.

All ya need at D&D Brewery. Staying at a brewery = good idea!

In our hostel/brewery (great combination) we sampled a few of the beers such as blueberry and amber ale. We visited a local archaeological/ecological park nearby and got away without paying the $6 fee as we went in using the side entrance and luckily we did as there wasn’t much to see or do there; just a few birds, giant rodents and one nice view of the lake from a raised boardwalk. We met a guy working for the Peace Corp who was doing a little bit of travelling before he had to leave as the U.S. government had decided to pull all Peace Corps volunteers out of Honduras after a couple of serious incidents against volunteers. He told us that no one wanted to leave but that a couple of headline grabbing stories meant it was inevitable.

Free(illegal) entrance to Ecological Park and Lake!

The next day we got a bus out to the Pulhapanazak waterfalls which were better than expected. At the entrance there were two monkeys and a racoon that had obviously gone crazy being locked away in a small cage for who knows how long? It was a sad scene and I can’t see any travellers wanting to see a clearly disturbed racoon constantly running from one end of a cage to the other in an effort to get out. I think Honduran tourism need to reassess what are actual attractions and what is just cruel.

Pulhapanzak Waterfalls

Poor little monkey at entrance to Pulhapanzak Waterfalls

On the way back we hitchhiked by getting 3 pickups, all of whom refused any money for bringing us part of the way, so that was a bit of an experience and shows how genuinely friendly the people are off the tourist path. The last driver also recommended a great little local eatery with local cheap and great food. Sarah also got chatting in Spanish to a local guy who was working in Texas and had travelled home for Christmas and was working his way back to Texas overland to save some money on flights.

Hitchhiking back from Pulhapanzak Waterfalls

After the effort of getting to the brewery we decided to skip the other nearby towns as they were also a bit nightmare to get to so we went back to San Pedro Sula for a third time (apparently the most dangerous city in Central America according to the UN) and got a connecting bus to the famous Copan Ruins, what I would consider as being the only true tourist site in Honduras excluding the Bay Islands.

It’s always great to get off the main trail and see a few places that not too many people visit but it’s also great being somewhere where the shops and restaurants stay open past 6pm and there is more than one option for staying the night. Copan Ruinas town (reminded us a bit of Guatemala and is close to the border) was a nice change from D&D Brewery, beautiful place with good places to eat and the ruins themselves (an easy 15 min stroll from town) were great to walk around, especially on such a cracking day that we got. At the entrance we got about 10 macaw birds all to ourselves and took a good few photos. As you can see from the picture just below Sarah wore her macaw camouflage to fit in with the local bird population so I think that helped us get up close and personal!!

Two colourful birds!

Among the ruins there was an impressive ball court and a stairway covered in inscriptions and there was also massive tree roots sprouting from the top of the largest temples. There were no sellers either which made for yet another relaxing day.

Copan Ruins

We finished up our time in Honduras with a trip to Santa Rosa de Copan, unfortunately the only thing to do in town was a visit to the local cigar making factory. This would have been ok except for the fact that the guy who gave the tour was off for the week and they didn’t have any replacement! So I would only recommend staying in Santa Rosa De Copan as a pit stop on the way to El Salvador. So that was pretty much mainland Honduras for us as we wanted to make tracks and explore a good bit of El Salvador. The only other part of Honduras we would visit but skipped out on is the Mosquito Coast on the Caribbean side that was meant to be beautiful but is also very difficult and expensive to travel as the main infrastructure is by river. Also I’m not too sure we want to visit a place named after the mosquito.

From Santa Rosa de Copan we got a direct bus to San Salvador (only realising at the border that we didn’t need to change buses at all). The El Salvadorian border guards are by far the most security conscious of all the border police we have encountered so far asking when we entered and left countries etc. while the majority of other borders only concern is that you pay the entrance tax. Still no issues and we continued on to San Salvador, la capital, where we caught a connection to Santa Ana. There we stayed in Casa Verde, the best hostel of our trip and also our base for another volcano (also called Santa Ana) hike and a trip to a local football match where we got to see the riot police in action. Anyway that’s all for our next blog, whenever I get around to updating that one, a little behind I know!! : )

We liked Honduras but neither of us loved it. The surrounding countries all appear to be friendlier and more beautiful, to us anyway. The main cities all give you a fear factor and we can see why it is a ranked as the most dangerous Central American country. Also talking to fellow travellers this feeling is shared amongst most of them. Maybe when they sort out their political issues things will get better but for now give us Guatemala, El Salvador or Nicaragua any day.