Honduras - San Pedro Sula

The road from Tegucigalpa to San Pedro Sula was amazing! It is a four-lane motorway, with tolls (not expensive) and it felt very safe and smooth.

This was a nice place for a stop and a coffee by El Lago Yojoa, we really enjoyed it. And meantime it became lunch time for the four police who had set up a checking point 20 meters further along. So we missed them...

Arriving at San Pedro Sula was easy, we stayed in a safe area in a good hotel so it was straight in there. We could walk around a bit to near by restaurants and there was a shopping mall next door. Nature was still as impressive, with the mountains and the valleys everywhere. There are no earthquakes in Honduras, but the heavy rains when it is the rainy season cause other problems.

So far so good. The second day we got a taxi through the hotel to take us around to see the city. That was a quick thing, there really wasn't much he could show us. But we learned to shop drive-by in a pharmacy (just vitamins, nothing to worry about), and how people do banking in drive-by kiosks.

That green thing is not an avocado, it is a jicara. They can be used for drinking cups, but not to be eaten.

Then we made a plan with the taxi driver to go to Copán the next day to see the Mayan ruins. We were to leave the hotel at 5am for a 12-hour trip. All went well and according to plan. We got money (lempiras) in a cash machine, organised some food from the hotel to take as we would miss breakfast, got up at 4am, and left. After 10 minutes we passed an accident involving a couple of huge trucks, and an already long queue in the opposite lane. Then after about 30 minutes, still in the dark, it all came to a halt. There was a demonstration and the road was blocked. We persisted for about an hour, and then we had to turn around and go back to the hotel. And we got caught again in the clean-up queue for the accident. So it was an adventure with no outcome.

As we were ready, we decided to leave Honduras and head for Guatemala. And remembered the rather large amount of lempiras. The bank didn't want to give us any US dollars, and exchanging for some other currency was only at the central bank. Luckily we found a branch of the bank we use in Costa Rica, and the manager decided to help us out. One day I might put the name of the bank here!

The road from San Pedro Sula to Puerto Barrios was also very good, and we arrived at the border with no problems.

We used the Corinto border crossing and left Honduras.