Off to El Salvador. No Scratch that. Off to Tegucigalpa, Honduras

When you realize that you have a choice between 10 – 14 hours spent in transit on 6 – 8 different buses/taxis, or 4 – 5 hours spent on 3 – 5 buses/taxis, the decision becomes much easier.  Our original plans were to head from Somoto to the border with Honduras ½ hour’s drive from town.  From there we wanted to catch a bus

that would take us across the narrow stretch of Honduras to the El Salvadorian border, cross it, and continue past San Salvador to a number of little beach towns on the Pacific coast of that country.  However, after flipping through the 20+ pages of the Lonely Planet book with bus connection info for the various borders and towns, and tallying up the totals, we decided that such a plan would be suicidal.  Assuming that at every place we managed to catch a bus departing virtually immediately to the next destination, the earliest we would have arrived in San Salvador would have been 6pm.  This in combination with the fact that it gets dark here by about 5:30pm and that San Salvador does not have a very safe reputation (probably one of the worst capital cities in Central America - the center is off limits after nightfall), we decided to change our plans.

Instead of heading directly to El Salvador, we opted to take a different border crossing and head for Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital city.  This proved to be a wise choice and with luck on our side, we managed to make the trip by only 2 buses and in about 4 hours.  Once in Tegucigalpa we checked into our hotel and were immediately advised that it’s not safe to go out after dark, that it’s not safe to wear a watch, have any flashy jewelry, show our iPhones or cameras etc.  Virtually cared into staying at the hotel, we striped down to the minimum, strapped my camera tightly round my neck, shoulder and arms and ventured out. 

The city itself has not much to recommend.  The downtown core is comprised of a couple pedestrian streets, some nice churches and cathedrals and an endless amount of fast-food restaurants.  Within a 4 block radius you will be able to find: 2 Pizza Huts, 3 or 4 Dunkin Donuts, 2 Burger Kings, a Wendy’s, a McDonald’s, and probably about 10 local fast-food joints.  After barely having seen any fast-food establishments in Nicaragua, this was a bit of a shock.

On our second day in the city we decided to go exploring a bit further.  We caught a collective taxi to the outskirts of town from where we caught a minibus to Vale de Angeles – a little village located on the mountains above Tegucigalpa.  Peaceful, quite, not congested, clean and filled with endless souvenir stores, this little town proved to be a fantastic change from the capital.  We spent a pleasant morning and early afternoon meandering through the streets before making our way back to the capital.

Overall, although we have as yet not seen much of Honduras, it seems to be a wealthier country than Nicragua.  There are more villas and nice houses, more stores and shopping centers, more luxurious cars…  This may be a false assumption, but it nevertheless is our first impression.  It is also a greener and more mountainous country.  These are not steep mountains like at home, nor the rolling hills of Tuscany, but rather something in between.  They kind of remind me of the mountains in Lebanon, or maybe in the Okanagan.  The surprising thing is that they are covered by pine trees (the ones with the really long needles).  It gives the surrounding a more homely feel – or at least seems to appeal to me more.  Maybe this is due to the fact that they add a bit of green to what would otherwise be a relatively dry and desolate landscape.

Tomorrow morning we are catching the Tica Bus direct to San Salvador and plan to spend an afternoon in that capital, then a day on the beaches, before seeing Julita and Paulina off to the airport.