Honduras

This past weekend, Sara, Emma and I traveled to Siguatepeque, a smallish town in the mountains of Honduras. While a weekend doesn’t give one much time to explore a country, by staying with Sara´s boyfriend, Noel, we at least got to see a bit of the everyday life of one part of Honduras.

On the way there, we traveled in bandega, or a series of local buses. Thursday night we stayed in a little rather airless hotel in Ocotal, a small town on the Nicaraguan side of the border and crossed into to Honduras as soon as we could the next day. The border was possibly the most relaxed I´ve ever seen. Both countries are CA-4 nations so no stamps are given. After paying $5 (2 to Nicaragua and 3 to Honduras), we were given a slip of paper for our passports and then a man in the middle of the road checked to make sure at least two of us had the slip of paper before letting us cross a chain lying across the road that demarcated the border.

The first thing we noticed upon arriving in Honduras, was that the climate was cooler. True, we crossed at Las Manos in a mountainous region (and stayed at relatively high elevation). On either side of the road, one could see coffee plants rising into the hills. But the whole time we were in Honduras, the temperature stayed comfortable and at times almost chilly. The other striking difference was wealth. According to the HDI, the three poorest nations in the Americas are (in order): Haiti, Nicaragua and Honduras. While the contrast is nothing like that between Nicaragua and Costa Rica, driving through the countryside and into Tegucigalpa, one can notice that the houses are in general made of better materials, there are significantly less informal sector workers crowding the streets and everything seems just a little spiffier.

From the little bit I saw, Honduras seems to have come a long from its turbulent past year (military coup, questionable elections, you get the picture). In Tegucigalpa, graffiti can still be seen in some places and the cops/military carry much larger guns than in Nicaragua although this may just be because there is a higher crime rate. In a few places there were military/police checks on the highways and at one point they boarded our bus and checked our passports (didn’t even glance at the Hondurans on the bus).

After having a small party with Noel´s friends and family the night before, we rose early on Saturday to hike to Noel’s family farm. On the hike up, we passed other coffee farms and small land holding. As cliché as it seems, the cowboy hat was popular accessory among the farmers. High up on the top of a hill, the coffee farm commanded a beautiful view of the surrounding valleys and towns. Interspersed with the coffee plants were banana, plantain and wama trees. Noel took me on a tour of the farm and answered my many questions about coffee.

It was carnival weekend so Saturday night we went into the town center where on almost every street corner there was music playing and people dancing. Lining all the streets were French fries and popcorn venders and tents selling fair food and beer. The streets were filled with people and there were lots of games and rides set up but the lines were generally very long. Tired from the night before and our hike, we headed home fairly early (oneish).

Sunday, Noel had a soccer game so we got up leisurely and made our way to watch the game. Sitting in the back of dusty panel van, sipping Pepsi with a father of one of the players, we were able to see a quiet, personal side of Honduras. Monday meant rising early to catch the bus to Tegucigalpa and from there the Tica Bus directly to Managua. Luckily, the bus wasn’t full and we each got our own seat which made catching up on sleep more comfortable.