On the road Saturday afternoon in Honduras we slotted ourselves into the flow of traffic on the Panamericana the Pan American Highway where “pan” from the Greek means “all” as in all the 17,000 miles of highway from the US through the Americas, the Andes to the fjords of Chile and the Argentine Patagonia…Around here it’s labeled CA1 - Central America 1.
Google Maps told us we had about three to four hours of driving to get from El Salvador to Nicaragua across a hundred mile neck of Honduras which gives this country modest access to the Pacific Ocean through the muddy brown waters of the Gulf of Fonseca, a body of water where El Salvador Honduras and Nicaragua meet.
Our plan was to honk through Honduras pausing to sleep one night and then warily approach the Nicaraguan border at El Espino mid morning on Sunday well rested well nourished and ready to wait out the minutiae of a border crossing known for its bloody minded persnicketyness. My hope was that Sunday might catch them relaxed with less commercial traffic and if we aren't impatient we may disarm their wariness. On the other hand they might be direct and charming if we have prosperity ducks all in a row! Exciting! We are ready having done our part:
So our visit to Honduras was planned to be necessarily brief so we filled up with fuel and water in El Salvador with gas at $3:99 a gallon and we found regular in Honduras to be about $3:80 a gallon not enough of a difference to worry about. We changed ten dollars at 25 Lempira to the dollar at the border so we could buy snacks on the road like grilled corn.
As we drove we checked possibilities for stopping for the night. iOverlander had a few sketchy options, street parking and gas stations which are okay but we like to stop at gas stations closer to dark and not spend hours parked in day light near the pumps.
One issue for travelers in these modern times is figuring out how to get phone coverage as you go. Typically overlanders stop to buy local SIM cards for their phones when they enter each new country. It’s a clunky system because you have to find an office (without a phone map!) by remembering to set up your route before you cross the border and lose your coverage. Also local phone companies won’t sell you contracts and in most countries you need a local credit card to add time to your local SIM card. And then we discovered Verizon’s monthly international plan.
At $80 a month it’s more expensive than buying time locally at 5 gigabytes at a time but boy is it convenient! With unlimited data just like at home when we cross a border we get a cheerful “Welcome to Honduras!” message and our phone doesn’t miss a beat. We just keep driving. I’m certain AT&T and T-Mobile must have similar plans for people on the road. We are lucky we can afford them and can kiss Claro and local phone offices goodbye. Between that and Starlink we are connected.
Sometimes friends tell us when they go on vacation they like to unplug which is fair enough. We are at home not on vacation.
We travel with Google, air conditioning, refrigeration and clean pure water without a care in the world. And we pass pedestrians bumping loads of firewood home to their shacks. I can’t get over the contrast.
Since independence in 1810 the countries of the Central American federation have signally failed to get their lives together. They tried to form a federation with San Salvador as their capital but that fell apart. Mostly these days they argue on the football field and soccer determines the winners. The Pool not heated but wonderful:
I knew we’d figure something out before dark and sure enough we located Las Tekas, a public bath and gathering space alongside the PanAmerican. For $20 US ( no Lempira needed!) we got a safe place to park for the night. Mitchell is 76 years old and retired to life on his farm. His wife rules the roost in their town house in Choluteca but out here he strides around like a Honduran peasant carrying his machete.
Rusty figured this was a bit of all right and next to exploring a place with no visible local dogs.
The restaurant was closed to accommodate a religious revival “My wife’s thing,” Mitchell shrugged. “There will be some singing but they should shut up soon,” he added and they did in point of fact. We had plenty of food inside our well insulated van.
There was that pool and no point in wasting the refreshingly cold water. Followed by a sparkling cool shower, followed by a dinner of salad and roast chicken bought roadside.
We had the whole place to ourselves except for the music which shut down miraculously at eleven when god sent rain to send them all home. But they had their revenge.
Gunshots at five am rang out sitting us up straight in our beds wondering what the hell was going on. Then more loud music. It turns out the thunderclaps and music were a wake up call to get the religious camp moving. At 5am. And us.
Culture clash? You bet! Life on the road. Up next Nicaragua.
And those trucks made the road to the border a wreck. Here’s a sample of the worst bits of Honduras highways:
