Beating Nemo in Honduras
Travelling on a budget
rarely goes according to plan.
Much like life itself, success depends largely on dealing with the
unexpected, and going with the flow. This might explain how I came to be hitting a pi–ata with
red panties on my head, having selected a playlist of rock songs under the
armed supervision of a very small man with a very big gun. As opposed to, say,
snorkeling with dolphins and descending in a submarine along the world's second
largest coral reef, as was my original intention for Honduras. As usual, I'm tripping ahead of
myself, so lets pick up where I left off, near Antigua, Guatemala, hiking along
the sharp coral-like granite of a solidified lava flow. Pacaya is one of three
active volcanoes in Guatemala, a dead-ringer for Mount Doom if there ever was
one. The lava here has been
known to shoot out the crater in kilometer-high bursts, which is why tourists
are no longer allowed to hike the cone to the top of the crater. Instead, we carefully made our way
along the blackened volcanic rock towards little holes in the earth where the
blood of lava flows thick. It's kind of like exploring the spotty face of a
teenager, marveling at the pimples while staying well clear of the chorbs to
avoid being covered in acne gunk. Or, in this case, avoid burning to
death. The heat is
incredible. I jammed my
walking stick into a crack and within moments it had lit up like a match. The earth visibly moves, floating upon
a river of pure heat. I got close
enough to poke my stick into a pool of lava, expecting it to sink or burn, but
lava has weight and the stick, blackened like grilled Cajun fish, joined the
stream flowing downhill.
Meanwhile my eyebrows were beginning to melt (I've really got to cut
down on eating plastic). The
last time I climbed a volcano was in Chile, the day Villarica threatened to
erupt and helicopters were circling overhead in case we needed to be evacuated. The ground was shaking beneath
the my crampons, and I barely managed three minutes at the rim before the guide
insisted we get the hell down, or we'd be certain to blow the hell up. So the good news is that the old
adage "climbed one active volcano, climbed them all" is as realistic as OJ
Simpson's hunt for justice.
Antigua is the most popular
tourist town in Guatemala, loaded with hole-in-the-wall bars, restaurants and
boutiques. Spanish schools
and travel agencies line the narrow streets, still containing the original wobbly
cobble of the 16th century.
On the emailed suggestion of a Danish traveller I met in Argentina last
year, I popped in to see a pony-tailed Danish expat named Jesper at his tiny,
candle-lit bar-restaurant named Travel Menu. Like many other foreigners, Jesper fell in love with Antigua
(and a Guatemalan), settled down, started a family, and opened his dream
bar. I asked him about
dealing with life in Guatemala. "The key is to be...flexible," he tells me. Judging by the amount of foreign owned
businesses, it appears many Americans and Europeans are. Where there are tourists, there
are peddlers, and it didn't take long before a young local girl entered the bar
selling postcards. I dismissed her
with a friendly yet firm "no gracios" but it turned out that Jesper's friend Irene, visiting from Nicaragua,
recognized the girl from her previous stay in the town, and, in warm
conversation, it emerged that this poor, peasant girl had received a
scholarship to study in Spain. It
was a much-needed and rare chance to interact with someone behind the cheap
souvenirs, and if I had time, I'd probably take some Spanish lessons here like
the rest of the gringos to help communication. I had to decline Jesper's offer to check out the first
Jamtigua, a music festival happening the following day, but I left his Travel
Menu joint well inspired, and just a little jealous of someone who actually
opened up a dream bar in a dream town.
It was a farewell of sorts
as my group was splitting, some of us making our way into Honduras, others
circling back to Cancun. We
picked up a couple of new folks, including an American couple who work for the
Centre for Disease Control (handy when dealing with biological warfare, such as
the stomach bug/food poisoning that took down half the group over 48 hours),
two pert English girls, a venture capitalist from Calgary, and the first person
I've met with a more confusing nationality than me: Vikash is a Scottish
Mauritian. We celebrate our
last/first night at Riki's Bar, and I'm surprised to learn that, despite all
the foreigners in town looking to rip it hard on $1 drinks, Antigua pretty much
shuts up shop at 1am. So we
find another hole in the wall, which locks us inside just as the cops are doing
the bribe rounds. A
twitchy bartender named Jesus offers us cocaine, but its clear he's done enough
for several people already.
On the walk home, the colonial ruins that make Antigua a World Heritage
Site were lit up fetchingly. All I could think about was that the town has been
destroyed twice by an earthquake, and will probably be destroyed again one
day.
Cooperation between Central
American countries now means faster borders and less paperwork. As a result,
you no longer get any cool additional stamps in your passports when crossing
between the seven nations - Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama , El
Salvador, Belize and Costa Rica.
There's talk of introducing a common currency, not unlike the euro, but
Central America has never been the most politically stable of regions, never
mind an economic one. In the
meantime, free trade ensures the rich get richer, and the poor get brainwashed
with soap operas, just like everywhere else. At the Honduran border, the only guard I could see was
asleep under an umbrella.
Money changers held thick wads of cash, as the Guatemalan quetzal gave
way to the Honduran lempira (named after an Indian tribe that resisted the
Spanish conquistadors). And so,
farewell to Guatemala, the land of many mountains, and hello to Honduras,
another land of many mountains.
Honduras is the second largest country in Central America, population
around six million, the tongue busting capital city is Tegucigalpa. The country does not have nearly as
many indigenous people as Mexico or Guatemala, is not as religious, and prides
itself on being somewhat political stable since the 1980's (although the
Nicaraguan civil war did spill over).
It proudly refers to itself as a true Banana Republic, in reference to
its chief export, and the fact that US fruit companies pretty much ran the
country in the early 1900's. The
US also had a sizeable military force in the country for decades to "protect
its interests", and secretly funded a civil war in Nicaragua in 1980's through
illegal arms sales to Iran (remember Ollie North?) The U.S, clearly, is not averse to meddling with local
politics to ensure there's no holdups in the fruit, coffee and lately oil
production lines. Of
course, plenty other countries have become banana republics since, with more
corruption and less fruit.
First stop in the country was just 15kms from the border, the small town
that sits alongside Honduras's most famous Mayan ruins, Copan. After seeing Chichen Itza and Palenque
in Mexico, I was a little "ruined" out, and while the last great city that lay
to the south of the Mayan empire is impressive, most tourists stay only stay a
day or two and beeline for the Caribbean north coast. But Copan rewarded us with a great guide at the ruins (and
someone to jam guitar with later), and magical night swimming in a thermal pool
about an hour's drive into the countryside. I waded across the river where boiling hot spring water
merged with freezing cold, soaking in the sunset until it was time for dinner
in the main pool. Candles
were lit around us, fireflies streaked from tree to tree, we ate while we
soaked, and drank a few Imperial beers from the cooler. It was just about the most
romantic setting I've ever come across, a great place for a new group to get to
know each other.
Later, we watched a DVD - The Spanish Apartment - a film in French,
English and Spanish, set in Barcelona, and hysterically accurate in its
portrayal of life in a foreign country. Two Gonzo thumbs up. Tucan also
supports an orphanage in Copan, so we pooled some cash to buy supplies and went
to meet the kids. Erik and Caroline
are in the process of adopting a child themselves, and tell me about the
endless red tape and fees needed.
"There are so many desperate kids around the world, you'd think
governments would make it a little easier," says Erik. It appears there is a fine
line between protecting a child's interests and old-fashioned extortion. Just ask Madonna. We played with the kids, some
abandoned, some born to young mothers unable to care for them. Heartbreaking, rewarding, and
more important, I felt, than another visit to a ruin.
Everyone was getting excited
for the Caribbean, if not for the hard days of bus transport it would take to
get there. After passing through
San Pedro, Honduras's financial center and second-largest city, we spent a
forgettable night in a pit-stop town called Tela, significant only because it
was the first time I saw the Caribbean, and ate a delicious chicken, fries and
salad lunch for $1.70.
Oh, and there was hard-core porn on channel 98. Apparently. Em, moving on...which we did, a lot this past week. 16 hours on a bus over 48 hours,
although the Honduran bus networks did have English movies, only the sound was
usually softer than the sound of the air-conditioner freezing everyone
rigid.
Last year's hurricane season
was the busiest in recorded history, with the US Weather Bureau running out of
letters for their names. In 1998,
Hurricane Mitch practically destroyed Honduras, killing 7000 people and wiping
out crops, roads and most of the economy.
Mitch sounds like a high school jock prick, so what did they expect
giving it a name like that?
Point being, I'm here in hurricane season, and fortunately there hasn't
been any significant ones, yet. "A cold front is keeping Ôdem at bay, man," says
David, the weathered night guard at the hotel in Tela. As a result, the sea is rough,
the sky overcast, the streets wet with piddles and puddles. Our 6am bus ride two hours to the
ferry to Roatan Island was rewarded with a postponed ferry. Four hours to sit around and
wait, while a construction crew banged away on top of us. As we watched a few episodes of
Scrubs on Val's laptop, bad news seeped in like a flooded bathroom above your apartment. First, the weather has been so
rough there hasn't been any ferry for three days. And then, finally, the ferry is officially
cancelled. On top of that,
some fraud outfit has taken the group credit card and maxed it. And so, as with all challenges,
you take a deep breath, and forge on. We found a strange hotel with a caretaker
who looked as friendly as a dog with rabies, the one and only place to stay
near the ferry terminal, and headed into the nearest town of La Ceiba to
celebrate Fran's 24th birthday. Travellers were hanging around the town waiting
to get on the island, while in Roatan, travellers were hanging around waiting
to get off it. With
the wind and rain, nobody was winning either way. The forecast was looking
gloomy, but there's always hope.
Val finds a pi–ata, and the
two of us head into the center of town to find a cake, iced "Happy Birtday
[sic] Frantastico! There's
really nothing to do but drink, and it's no accident that the biggest beer in
Honduras is called Salva Vida - literally, Life Saver. Soon enough, the pi–ata is out,
tequilas get slammed, the red panties we bought for the stuffing (along with:
plastic frogs, candy, a Shakira toy cell phone, hair ties, grape and strawberry flavored condoms,
and a party popper cap gun) gets turned into an impromptu blindfold. The bar, much like most of
off-season Honduras, is empty, and has a reggaeton playlist on repeat. I manage to persuade the bored,
quasi-useless staff to let me take a crack at the music, which is how I came to
be programming a playlist while the big boss (who was actually quite little)
counted thick wads of dubious cash with a silver 9mm gun sticking out his
shirt. He projected no love
for the gringo whatsoever.
Then things got stupid, as they usually do when you want them too, and a
few of us ended up in one bar after another, feeding jukeboxes (carefully
avoiding the dozens of US country music artists), dancing with big, black
beauties, each other, and fate, when we took a long taxi home. Sure enough, I awoke with a
hangover and the news that the ferry was cancelled again, thus ending my
Caribbean adventure before it even started. No dolphins, no deep sea submarines, but hey, once you
tango with an orange-and-black pi–ata, its tough to be disappointed.
So back on the bus, seven
hours and change to Tegucigalpa, arriving late at night to empty streets and
balaclava-wearing army soldiers on street corners carrying machine guns. I would spend a short night at the
Hotel Boston, freezing in its huge rooms with just a thin sheet to keep the
cold, mountain air at bay. It's
fitting that unpredictable weather would be my lasting impression of the
country, but it's not all bad.
It just means I'll have to come back one day to see what I missed.
Hotel Los Balcones
Antigua, and Rain Delays Play in Honduras
Leon, Nicaragua
24 November, 2006