San Marcos (ES) – Nacaome – Choluteca – La Galera – El Espino (NI)

6 days   |   4 cycling days   |   177 kilometers   | 2180 elevation gain

Today we crossed into Honduras. I feel washed-out lately, without energy. But somewhere along the road today I see one of these billboard signs and it gave 37° Celsius, so I guess that could be a possible explanation. The heat is eating us up, taking away the energy that we need to keep these pedals going. The heat has endless disadvantages (need to drink a lot, loosing lots of salt that needs to be resupplied, skin burns, etc.), however it has one advantage: your clothes dry up fast.

I’m still cycling with Fer. We looked into what we wanted to see in Honduras and Nicaragua, but we didn’t find any hotspots we wanted to visit for Honduras. I guess the country’s branding is not as developed yet as its neighbouring countries in Central America. So, like many others, we take the fastest route to go through Honduras. In Nicaragua we decide to spend a bit longer checking out some nice gravel roads and mountainous area’s before hitting the more travelled route from Leon to Ometepe.

On the Salvadorean coast everything was lush green and more jungle-y, here everything is dry again, fields are yellow and rivers dried up.

I feel like being back in Utah or Baja. While the people here might look grim from a distance, there will always appear a big smile from ear to ear when you greet them. Woman do the hard labor here, they drag around big grocery bags, carry heavy buckets with corn or beans on their head like in Africa, they clean, do laundry and take care of the kids. Man on the other hand seem to just hang around in the shadow of some trees and do nothing.

We arrive in Nacaome early in the afternoon. We visit the market and quickly feel overwhelmed with the crowds, the hooting, the shouting, the smell and the little personal space. We buy some groceries and quickly escape the madness. We decide to camp behind a gas station tonight, something we normally don’t favour but this gas station has a chill seating area with fake grass to hang about, toilets and even some showers (read: a water reservoir with a bucket). We pitch the tent at a patch of grass. When I’m setting up the tent the priest from a nearby church is having the most fiery and passionate preach over the loudspeakers.

Today we finally get treated to nice, hard-packed gravel. It’s been a long while! I like gravel but normally it tends to become very rocky and bumpy very fast. Not today. A wide, smooth gravel road is taking us away from the Pan-American highway just a little bit. We enjoy it to the max but the fun soon ends when we have to get back onto the highway. What a difference. The highway is loud, busy, big trucks, you know the deal. But this time we also get treated to a ferocious head wind. I try to keep Fernanda out of the wind by riding in front of her, but apparently she’s never heard of sitting out of the wind.

We arrive in Choluteca where we’ve found somebody via Couchsurfing that is willing to host us. It has been 10 days without washing our clothes so we feel like we could use some cleaning. But first we treat ourselves to a big beer from the supermarket to celebrate beating the wind today. Manuel and his brother are texting us where are you? and they come and find us sitting on the curb of a street close to their house. They take us back to their houses. Manuel and Andrea are terribly nice and warm hearted people. They have roughly our age, like football and travelling and thus we have lots of common ground. They are preparing to move to Ireland where they will try to improve their English and he will prepare for a master that he wants to do in Germany.

He is such a smart guy but I feel like he’s been born in the wrong country where he has less opportunities. But good for him that he is taking matters into his own hands!

After freshing up a bit, Andrea, Manuel and his brother are taking us to dinner with the whole family. We try Honduran Taco’s and they’re delicious.

We take two rest days in Choluteca. After showering I see myself in the mirror and I am startled by seeing my own body. It’s skinny, scraggy and frail. I think the fact that me and Fer are doing groceries together and eating together makes me eat less than I would normally do. I’ve also been suffering from dizziness lately. One time in the grocery store I bend down to see some articles on the bottom shelf, after that I rose too quickly and nearly passed out from dizziness. For a moment everything went dark, I could barely hold on to the shelves to not fall down and for some seconds I didn’t know where I was. This exact thing happened to me a couple of times, ranging from nearly passing out to just being dizzy for a bit. Seeing my skinny body in the mirror and this dizziness problem are probably related to each other and I promise myself to start eating more.

On Sunday I barely leave the house and feel guilty about it, which is strange because normally we are always outside.

We say goodbye to Manuel and Andrea, they’ve been a big help to us. I hope they will have a great and fruitful time in Ireland and hopefully Germany as well.

I think it’s the first time I’m looking forward to climb! Simply because climbing means a higher altitude which means it’s going to be less hot. Me and Fernanda both are not morning persons so that means that we normally are cycling during the hottest period of the day. Today is no different. After we already have some climbing kilometers in our legs we decide to take a break in the shadow for a couple of hours, to wait out the worst of the heat. Once again the sun has taken away the better part of our energy. We take a nap, head down on a table.

More climbing awaits. When it’s around 5PM and we secretly are luring for possible camp spots we get very excitedly shouted at from a house/bar/shop (who knows?). I stop over to have a small chat like I normally do. But this guy drags us and the bikes inside. Sit down! Here’s a beer! I love him instantly. He’s a fat guy with a round face, twinkling eyes and a way to fashionable cap for the rest of his appearance and goes by the name of José.

He’s like your funny but drunk uncle at a family party. The first sip on that beer is pure delight. We’ve had been secretly day-dreaming already about a cold beer at the end of this terribly hot day and there we have it. After the first beer we are quickly presented with numeros dos y tres, while José is actively rousing the audience with songs that he plays from his phone. The only time when he rises out of his chair is to do a little dance. I have to give it to him, his hips are still working the magic. What a guy. In the meantime the alcohol is shooting through my body and I start to feel that nice buzz again. The sun has set completely now, but no worries because José promised us he would take us to his house for the night. When he leaves he gives us some vague directions how to get to his house, but the other guests that know José a bit longer know enough: it’s never gonna happen. Apparently he is a talker, promises the moon but never delivers. Another guy shows us his house just across the road where we can setup the tent on the front porch. Later in the evening people of the village come around to give us water, tacos and bananas. On top of that some youngsters pick mangos verdes, cut and prepare them with salt for us. Delicioso.

The alarm clock of 06:30 has not done its job because we only wake up at 8AM. Too bad, because we tried to beat a little bit of heat. We’re totally fed up with the hot weather. Ruben, the guy we’ve stayed at, is bringing us coffee and sweet bread and we eat on his stairwell.

Back on the road I sometimes feel like people are seeing alien life when they see us pass by. At least that’s how they’re acting. They stop with whatever they’re doing, they nudge each other with their elbow and while leaning onto their spuds they look at us with open mouths. Heads going from left all the way to the right. When I look back, this doesn’t seem to change anything. It’s awkward as hell and normally I break the awkwardness by simply greeting them. We arrive at the top of the one-and-a-half-day-climb and celebrate with bread with cheese that we buy from a little tienda at the top. After she asks what we’re doing and we tell our story we get our money back from her. For the rest of your trip, she tells us.

I start to believe that Honduras accommodates the kindest people in the world and I kind off regret not spending more time here. Our last Lempira’s we spend in San Marcos, just before the border to Nicaragua. Countries are coming and going fast now!

The border is different than anything I’ve seen so far. Not that the people are not nice, but it’s not like Hey welcome to our country, we’re so glad you’re visiting us. It’s taking like 2.5 hours, we have to pay an extraordinary entrance fee and all of our bags are being turned upside down. And I mean all of our bags. After this annoying spectacle of power it is almost dark. A quick photo at the Welcome to Nicaragua sign and off we go. Not long after we see a bridge spanning a nice river and we decide to check the river bank out. We find a small flat spot that will do for the night. Another wonderful camping night with Fer. We wash ourselves in the river, make a campfire and cook a delicious meal and tea on the fire. Too bad eventually a swarm of ants (they bite!) are chasing us into our tent.

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3 Replies to “Honduras: Short & Overwhelmed with Kindness”

  1. Weer een land voorbij en je komt steeds dichterbij …….
    Zorg goed voor jezelf dat is belangrijk
    Mooi verhaal weer en soms is iets wat je denkt dat het is heel anders

  2. het blijft een spannend en interessant verhaal Marijn. En de vriendelijkheid van mensen is geweldig.
    Wel een vraag: het lijkt dat het aantal fietsers op deze route toch erg beperkt is? Is niet verwonderlijk natuurlijk.
    Geniet van alles en we kijken uit naar de volgende etappe.
    Groetjes, Karin en Ans

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