Category: Honduras

I headed out of the hotel around 4:30 AM this morning to catch another sunrise, only to park my carcass ½ way down on West End Road, the main strip through town. From my vantage point I could witness the town waking up, the ant-like actions of those early morning workers ensuring the streets are clean, the overflowing bins and rubbish is cleared, the stocks are replenished – all in preparation for the new day.

It struck me that I’ve enjoyed this same activity of taking in a city/town/village waking up and greeting the new sunrise, in several hundred cities around the world and aside from architecture and languages, it the same underlying scene – people just working hard to earn a living. If you sit there long enough, the suspicion you are first met with, slowly changes with a simple G’day or Marhaba, Hola, Nǐ hǎo, Guten tag, Namaste, Salve, Salam or Konnichiwa – depending on locale, and you see people relax a little. Some will come over and ask if you are needing anything, some will take time out to have a chat, others have offered me a simple cup of coffee, some have even been curious about me.  For me, it’s a quiet moment of reflection that I actually enjoy.

While parked up, I sent an IM to the Sundowners Beach Bar regarding last night’s effort. To my surprise and appreciation, within an hour I received a response from them stating that “So sorry this happened to you and yes, it was a mistake! Thank you for bringing it to our attention and we’ll make sure we can address this issue with our bartenders.” They went on say that I have a $25 USD positive bar tab available upon my return.

Kudos to them for responding quickly and communicating their message clearly and effectively. Whilst I was not looking for a complete refund or comping of the bill, it’s great to see the they care about their business and their clients by taking ownership of the incident, which we all at times could learn a lesson from.

Breakfast was the popular Honduran street food of Baleada, which is a large flour tortilla filled with mashed fried red beans, crumbled cheese and in my case, one with fish and the other with chorizos. It was an honest, rib sticking breakfast of $3.25 USD and a far better proposition than what the hotel served up yesterday. Take it from me, the fish Baleada was the better choice.

The rest of the day was occupied with backing up photos, sorting out my freshly laundered clothing, reading a book or having a nap, but not necessarily in that order.

Not sure what the “Avocados” were up to, but around 4PM I headed down to Sundowners to work off my bar credit and thanks to Lesley and Will, I had a great time in doing so.

FYI, if you’re not in to scuba diving, snorkelling, sun bathing or trinket/souvenir shopping which pretty much makes up 75% of the 59 kilometre (38 mile) by 8 kilometre (5 mile) island with 154 kilometres (98 miles) of coastline that is Roatán ….. pretty much useless to you. 4 of the “Avocados” decided to go snorkelling, so it was on to Plan B for me.

Never been one to shirk a challenge, after picking at a pretty awful complimentary breakfast, I got a load of laundry sorted for $10 USD and then looked to hire a rental car for the day, which as it turns out, was one of those “island time” experiences.

I asked the reception about hiring a car and they organized ol’ mate to come get me in an hour. An hour and a half later Jaime Alvarenga, the owner/manager of Racing Car Wash & Rent A Car delivers a 3-year-old white automatic Kia Rio with 90k on the clock to the hotel. I pull out my licence, credit card and passport in preparation for the paperwork. He pulls out a couple of A4 sheets of paper, a sheet of carbon paper, asks me my name, hands me back all the offered identification, then requests the $50 USD hire fee upfront in cash after a walk around of the vehicle. He makes note of the dings/scratches/road rash, decrees Hasta Mañana and leaves me with the keys and drives off. No credit card swipe or imprint, no insurance details, no cash deposit or anything.

Lila and I decided that I would pilot and she would navigate and we were off like the starter at Race 4 at Flemington. We spent the day simply exploring the island with stops at places like Daniel Johnson’s Monkey and Sloth Hang Out, Kristi’s Overlook for lunch, La Sirena De Camp Bay for afternoon “tea” at the best beach bar, Isery Bar & Discoteca in a purpose built pirate ship, Moon Bay and all the towns, villages and settlements along the way. Essentially it was one big 110 kilometre (69 miles) lap of the island, from one tip to the other, on paved or heavily corrugated unpaved roads, which included both the Northern and Southern coasts.

Speaking of Moon Bay, we pulled up at the guard shack, where a well-armed security officer comes up to the car. I wind the window down and asked what was in Moon Bay and pointed my finger around, indicating that we’d like to take a look around. The guard simply says “yes yes”, drops the chain blocking our way and lets us through. You know you’re in an exclusive neighbourhood when all blocks are at least a ½ acre filled to the easements with various style of large abodes, there are a dozen yardies tending to the streets, footpaths and gardens and the For Sale signs have Sotherby’s written on them.

I spotted a yardie watering a garden in a cul-de-sac and with the rental car being covered in a shit tonne of dust, I pulled up, left the vehicle running with Lila in it and asked the fella if I could borrow his hose. I said I need to rinse the wife’s car off as she’ll kill me if I take it back all dirty. The fella gives me a knowing look, hands me the hose and then starts pointing out spots that needed extra attention. I get back in the car and let Lila know what happened, which was a good laugh.

We got back to our hotel just on dusk to hear 3 “Avocados” were going to go for a night snorkel and we’d all meet up at Sundowners Beach Bar for a feed & water. The three of us remaining headed over there at 6:30 PM for “Happy Hour” where 2 Margarita’s, a Vodka tonic and a local beer ran $26 USD. I queried the barmaid on the price and she says “Yes, the drinks are on the Happy Hour menu and it is not a 2 for 1 deal”.

With the bitter taste of the drinks “deal” lingering, Leila, Patricia and myself upped stumps and decided to dine as I did last night i.e. grab a six pack of Barley Pops from the corner store and head over to the local cholera cart for Tacos, Tortas and Quesadillas which had replaced the Gringas. The feed was just as great as last night and both the accompanying “Avocados” agreed with my sentiments as well. All in all, it was a great day in which no plans and a tourist map were actually the makings of a fun day.

Over the years I’ve come to view long travel days as a necessary evil and whether it is a control “thing” or what, but they seem to be whole lot more enjoyable when I’m behind the wheel of my own equipment.

There’s three elements to this mindset, one being that as a 15 year old Diesel Fitter with Dussin Constructions & Civil Engineering, the workshop manager drilled in to me that you can tell a lot about a person by just looking at their vehicle, workspace or toolbox – if they respect and look after the equipment/tools, work to a plan or simply wing it, or clean up as they go along as opposed to simply working in a pig sty.

The second element is that I service and maintain my vehicles fastidiously and know intimately to the point of knowing them inside out and operating them accordingly.

The final element would be as I’ve become more “experienced” on this earth with three letter statements like AGE or OLD, a certain realization of one’s own mortality comes into play. This often takes the form of ensuring one’s personal safety, all the while enjoying such so called “high risk” activities like skydiving, motorcycle riding, rock climbing and the like.

So ….. we were scheduled to take a 15 hour public bus ride to the port town of La Ceiba to catch a ferry to the island of Roatán. After an “Avocado” group discussion, we all agreed to chip in the $25 USD each to upgrade to as advertised “near new, 2019 mini-coach with individual reclining chairs and air-conditioning throughout”. What turned up was a battle scarred 2 year old Toyota Hi-Ace Coaster bus with two rear bald tires with large chunks of tread missing, in which you could see clear down to the wires of the carcass.

I spoke with our CEO – Sonia, who clearly was not impressed with the defective equipment, which saw the driver usher her over to the offices of the transport company – Berakah, who dispatched a female employee to inform me that “as to the safety of tires in such condition – you don’t understand anything about Honduran tires and roads and as we are a poor country, we can’t just replace stuff for any little reason.“

I responded that tyres being as bald as a monkeys’ arse, with chunks of tread missing and the rags of the carcass showing is anything but minor FFS.

I had to walk away before I blew a gasket and came back 5 minutes to be told that the transport company was not going to replace the vehicle or the tyres, the public bus had left and we still had a ferry to catch. The silence was deafening from the rest of the group and it appeared that the group consensus was that they just wanted to get on the road. So against my better judgement, we loaded the vehicle up and hit the road ½ an hour after our scheduled departure.

2½ hours into the trip, the driver decided to pull into Café de Palo on the outskirts of Quimistán so that he could have breakfast, while the rest of us stood around looking for the Meaning of Life. To describe the place as a travellers’ rest stop would be a stretch, as it appeared the clientele were sales people on service calls, but hey – whatever floats your boat.

Lunch was “truck stop” buffet or bakery goods at the Tio Dolmo in Guaymon about 150 kilometres (93 miles) from the ferry terminal.

We made the Galaxy Wave 4:30 PM service to Dixon Cove on the Roatán, about 65 kilometres (40 miles) off the northern coast of Honduras. My first inkling that trip wouldn’t be all plain sailing, was when the ferry ticket came with a Dramamine tablet. Basically as soon as we left the harbour, the vessel started pitching and rolling for the entire two-hour crossing, through 10-12 foot swells, huge white caps and head winds that would blow a dog of a chain.

The crew were handing out plastic barf bags as soon as they could tear them off the roll and looked to have went through twenty or so paper towel rolls in the process. Most of our group was affected to some degree, but surprisingly this “desert rat” was just fine. I genuinely felt sorry for a lot of the passengers who were obviously excited about this trip, to the point of dressing up in their finest for the occasion, only to be left driving the porcelain bus or laughing at the grass.

We get picked up just on dark-thirty by Neve, our driver who could talk the leg off an iron pot, a get an impromptu town tour of West End, where our hotel – the Seagrape Plantation Resort is located.

At this time, I couldn’t have given two knobs of goat shit for any more “Tommy Tourist” talk. I hadn’t eaten all day and could eat the horse and chase the rider. Add to this that I was as dry as a bastard calf, so within 5 minutes of receiving my room key, I’ve dropped all my gear and I’m off like an Ethiopian after a chicken, grabbed a 1/2 carton of coldies and parked up at the local cholera cart for an absolutely awesome feed of tacos and Gringas. Long day that started on an off note which ended with the whole orchestra in tune.