Thursday, June 19, 2008
We're Back in Honduras, Baby
Day 70 Wednesday June 18
Left
Temp: 30 degrees C
Sunny, light cloud
Met the owner after a great breakfast and complimented him on the high quality of the lodging, food and service. For the price it was far and away the best we’ve had yet. It turns out the owner was an insurance broker on wall street for about thirty years until he was bought out by Prudential, at which point he returned home and converted his deceased mother’s home into the Hotel Casa Del Sol. (His mother was born in that house!) He lives in a lovely home right next door, and was headed out golfing! No regrets about retiring either!
The maps being woefully inadequate, we had to pull over and try to decipher some way out of the center of the city in the morning rush hour. Just as I had the way figured, a traffic policeman on a motorcycle pulled up with lights flashing. I thought “Oh, oh!” We were sort of obstructing part of the outside lane and I was getting ready for “una multa!” (fine)
“Hay una problema con su navigacion? A donde va?” he asked!
Si Senor…vamos a
So we end up with a police escort all the way to the Pan-American! Muchos gracias senor. Le estoy muy agradecido!
What a great way to leave
We crossed the border at El espina inside of an hour with absolutely no problems and headed for the Honduran border town of
We probably would have made it but Denis got quite q ways behind in the crazy downhill switchbacks and lost sight of us. On the way to Choluteca, there was a sort of traffic circle where we had to go straight through, but there was no signage…. Denis got lost on the wrong road. We pulled over just before choluteca and waited for about a half hour, then decided to turn around and go back to find him. Fortunately we had only gone about ten Km when we saw him head at us. He doesn’t speak Spanish but managed to make himself understood when asking locals at the intersections and the round-about if they saw another “grande moto” go by and was eventually pointed in the right direction.
Everyone notices our bikes. It is often a problem because they crowd up next to us in traffic to stare and give us the “thumbs-up” or honk repeatedly or blow those “special central American car whistle-horns” that say “Bueno! Bonita! Guapissimo!” (they use the same approach to anything that impresses them!)
People crossing in traffic on the run stop right in the middle of the road and stare and grin, whistle , holler, or hoot and wave, and very often nearly get run over, either by us or the other traffic.
The upside is that we don’t often get cut off at intersections as without fail, the drivers from both sides who would normally dart out and cut off even their grandmothers without a second thought stay put and grin and honk or flash their lights at us as we go by! We’re a parade!!!
We made the Sunset Hotel by sunset. Sun and light cloud all the way and no rain!
Dinner was a sort of pizza, bananas, pineapple filled cookies, home made coconut and strawberry popsicles (pallettas) and a litre of real orange juice from the little local village for under $3 and more than enough to feed Susie and I!
Kilometres - Daytrip: 368km total: 15,616
Gas: $ 28.65
Lodging: Hotel Sunset $ 25
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