Honduras

We have made it to Honduras!

We got mad ripped off leaving Flores! On our bus ride up to Tikal a guy that was WORKING ON THE STUPID BUS asked us where we were going and such and when we told him he offered to sell us a bus ticket, as the bus left at 5.30 in the morning. Us, being trusting, took him up on it and bough two tickets for 250 each, which was like 75 bucks all together. In the morning we were talking to our front desk friend at the hotel and he was kinda confused and asking us why we weren´t going to the bus terminal for the bus, we showed him the 'ticket' and he was like umm...i don´t know...i don´t know.... and then the guy that sold us the ticket showed up in a taxi. Our hotel guy told us that he was a bad person, Mal persona, and we´re like oh good...shit...so the mal persona was like ´come, get in my taxi, i take you to the bus terminal!´´ we were like okay, got in, and then he tried to sell us another ticket, as the ticket we had took us to the border but we wanted to get to another city. at this point we told him hell no, that we would buy it there. after observing him for the last few minutes it became extremely apparent that this guy was coked up OUT OF HIS MIND, constantly eyes darting everywhere, sniffling and rubbing his nose. So I´m getting ready to leap out of the cab if the driver turns down any alleys or anything sketchy, but he actually does take us to the terminal. he starts frantically scribbling another ticket, blabbering and not making any sense, trying to take our old ticket which i ripped out of his hand. one of the bus terminal workers came up immediately (probably seen this happen before) and we ask him if it´s a real ticket. it´s not, of course. so I told the frantic coked up mal persona to go...well, to go fuck himself and that he is a piece of shit and flipped him off, and we walked to buy a real ticket. the real tickets were like a third the cost...so i guess we paid about 75 dollars for the taxi from the hotel to the bus terminal. hahahaha. neither of us were too upset or anything, it was definitely a learning experience, and it was just so ridiculous that we had to laugh.

anyways, we took the bus ride to the border and luckily there was a black dude on the bus that was going to a similar point in honduras. he spoke english but he was Garifuna, and had such a thick carribbean accent mon! the garifuna people are a mix of rebel slaves that the british shipped off from another island and the natives from honduras. we were actually going to the specific town in honduras to see their dance festival. so anyways, we caught a taxi with him from the terminal, through the border, and to the next bus terminal to catch another bus to Puerto Cortez, which was our final destination for the night. Honduras is way more tropical than Guatemala was...it´s gorgeous. Definitely very poor and very humid though. there are lots of cool tropical trees and such. Me gusta! anyways, the Garifuna guy (who was shoeless, by the way) was talking to us and helping us figure stuff out, though we could barely understand him. he was moving from belize to honduras to live with his mom again, i think. his accent was absurd. He learned english from da streets mon! So we caught our bus to Puerto Cortez, where there were NO tourists, absolutely none, and found a hotel with air conditioning. we got cleaned up and blasted the ac and watched CNN for awhile, which was nice. we decided to go to the neighboring town Baja Mar for the dance festival that evening. Baja Mar was so absurdly poor and everyone was black. We were the only non black people there. There were no restaurants, no hotels, garbage everywhere...everyone was really nice though! we ordered a beer at the ¨bar¨, which was really somebody´s front porch, and watched it rain for awhile. the people todl us that the festival was the following day, but that this night there was a big cookoff to kinda get things started. we walked down the beach to where all the little huts were set up with people cooking and found one that was more like the previous bar and sat down. the little kids were amazed by anton. they kept playing with his guaged ears and poking at him and such. there have been so many little kids that just look him up and down and look amazed...people aren´t as tall here, heh. i took a picture of the little boy and anton, and he was so excited to see himself on the camera. he begged me to let him take a picture too, so i let him take a picture of a few little girls and of his mom. they were all so ridiculously excited. all the little girls were pushing eachother out of the way and trying to get in the front of the picture. we ate a fish with these fried plantains that were delicious and had a few more beers...at this point we were getting eaten alive by mosquitos so we caught on of the few cabs that goes through that area and went back to Puerto Cortez. everything there was ridiculously cheap, beers were under a dollar, we went to another restaurant and anton got this huge burger and fries for like 3 dollars...mad mad tight. Then we passed out.

the next morning (yesterday) we took a bus from Puerto Cortez to San Pedro Sula to catch the bus to La Ceiba, which is another town on the water. We had to go really inland and out of the way but there are no direct buses, so whatever. We arrived here and found one of the recommended hotels for the town, Hotel Rotterdam, and checked in. 13 dollars a night. There is no air conditioning and no tv, no hot water...but the lack of air conditioning combined with the cold shower isn´t so bad. it actually reminds me of being little and being hosed off after swimming, that´s exactly the way our shower is. La Ceiba is more of a party town, so we went out last night and drank and explored. We had a pretty good meal and found some cheap drinks. Then we passed out.

We were going to try and take the ferry to one of the bay islands today but we decided to stay another night. We´re using the internet now and then we´re going to find some food and figure out how to take the ferry.

Honduras is not as apt to bartering prices, things are pretty set (though still ridiculously cheap, cheaper than Guatemala). everyone tries to rip us off though. now we´ve started writing down everything so we make sure we know how much it costs. we add up what we order at restaurants and they ALWAYS try to charge us more, and then claim there´s no tip. needless to say we´ve been some pretty cheap tippers lately. damn hondurans!

the diarrhea has finally subsided. anton was very excited to have some solid stools this morning. i´m sure it will be back soon though. owell!!

i was constipated for a few days and didn´t think my bacteria filled excrement should be sticking around for that long, so i took a laxative. at one of the bars last night it was like OH MY GOD ITS KICKED IN and i dashed to the bathroom. toilet paper, check. seat on toilet, check. all is well! i did my business and such, and then went to flush. nothing. i´ve certainly fixed lots of toilets in my day, so i took the lid off the toilet and tried to figure it out. i failed. so....i ran from the bathroom. just booked it. it was so much poo too. sweet embarassing bathroom story number two!

i´ve gotten 4 mosquito bites so far, but we´re on anti-malaria medicine so all is well. one of the buggers flew up antons pants and bit him like 4 times when we were at baja mar, poor boy. the anti-malaria medication gives you really weird hallucinatory dreams. every morning we describe our wacky dreams to eachother...they´re not scary necessarily, but they are always similar enough to current life to kinda throw you off. right before i woke up yesterday i had a dream where anton and i were fighting and then i was watching the news and i started to tell him about the news story and i was talking out loud and woke myself up. then i was all delirious and was still mad at him for a few minutes before i figured out what the hell was going on. wild stuff! better than malaria though!