Transit Woes

One would think that getting from point A to point B in Central America should not take long.  The distances are short and the bus services are quite regular.  So the logical conclusion is that times should also be short. Unfortunately, this would be a grave misconception. 

Up until recently, the guide book has been quite accurate with most of its time estimates.  The main exception proved to be the trip from San Salvador to Gracias which, even excluding my police detour, took about 2 hours longer than stated.  My following excursion from Gracias to Utila proved to be the second exception.

According to the guide book, there was to be a direct bus from Gracias to San Pedro de Sula at 6am which was to take 3 hours.  From San Pedro de Sula to La Ceiba was supposed to take another 3 hours and buses were to depart at 10:30 and at 12:00.  From La Ceiba a 1 hour ferry would get me to Utila.  There was only one afternoon ferry departing at 4pm.

When I showed up at the bus station in Gracias at 5:30am it turned out that the direct bus to San Pedro had left at 5am and the next one didn’t leave until 8:30am.  Instead, I could take a bus to Santa Rosa and transfer there.  At 5:45am I boarded this bus.  At 7:15am we still had not made it to the center of Santa Rosa, but the bus stopped at an intersection right in front of another bus.  Somewhere from the front of the insanely crowded bus I heard a shout of San Pedro.  Quickly turning to my neighbor I asked whether this was the connecting bus to San Pedro and received an affirmative answer with the indication that I should hurry to get off.  This was easier said than done since I had my big backpack and my camera bag to get through the fully packed center aisle of the school bus.  Thankfully the locals came to my assistance by passing my big backpack overtop of their heads up to the front of the bus.

So at 7:15 I got onto the bus to San Pedro de Sula.  We did not arrive in that town until 11:30am.  At that point we were informed that the next bus to La Ceiba was in fact at noon and would take 3.5 hours.  At 12:20pm we finally left the terminal and arrived in La Ceiba at 4:00pm.  My hopes of catching the ferry were virtually gone, but as we began disembarking, the taxi drivers started asking whether we wanted to catch the ferry.  Turns out the ferry wasn’t scheduled to leave until 4:30pm.  In a hair-raising taxi ride, we made it to the ferry terminal at 4:20pm.

The ferry didn’t leave until close to 5:00pm and took about 1 hour and 20 minutes to reach Utila.  It was an hour during which I kept my eyes closed, my iPod turned to max and continued to imagine that the repetitive elevator drops were not the result of rolling seas, but rather simply part of my imagination or at worst a prolonged rollercoaster ride.

I arrived in Utila before 7am, over 13 hours after having left my hotel in Gracias.