La Esperanza to Guajiquiro, Honduras: the land of the indiginous Lenca people

We left La Esperanza for a rolling ride through the hills toward Marcala, the biggest town between Esperanza and Guajiquiro. As we rod along the dirt road we enjoyed the sights that the mountains had to offer as well as the friendly highland people of Honduras. We always enjoy riding the dirt/backroads because it is almost always a more pleasant ride, the scenery is 
better, the traffic less, and more wildlife. We were riding through beautiful pine forests in cool piney smelling air, and the sky was an incredible blue, hard to beat. We came to an overlook and sat down for a spell and met a mountain bike out for a ride in his "hood". We talked with him for a bit, shared some water and made the descent into Marcala to have some lunch. 

While sitting in the zocalo (central park) and eating lunch we were being stared at (as usual) a woman came up to us and asked us for some money (also not unusual). Usually we can just say, "No sorry," and the beggar will go away. It is never a comfortable situation and one we always try to avoid. But this time the woman, who was clean,  well dressed, looked well fed and had just come from the market and had a bag of produce in hand, continued to pester us, telling us that her mother was sick in the hospital, she was hungry, her mother was hungry, she didn't have any money, etc, etc. It is always sad to see someone begging, but this lady seemed to have graduated from the LAPD school of racial profiling with flying colors and was determined to get something from what she deemed the "rich foreigners" and didn't let up. After she figured out we weren't going to give her any money she reduced her plea for food. At this point we were not just being rude by not giving her food, we were really low on food and money after the ATM card didn't work in La Esperanza. After Leah became very frustrated and couldn't tolerate her pestering anymore she very emotionally told her that this food was for our lunch and our dinner and that we couldn't give her any, she reduced her plea to asking for just 2 crackers, which we of course gave her and she went on her way, not bothering anyone else in the park for anything. 

These situations, like I mentioned, are not uncommon for us as travelers but they never get any easier to deal with.  We feel like jerks for not giving people money, we feel like either suckers or rich assholes when we do give people money, we feel offended that people automatically assume that we should give them money, and we also feel sympathy and heartache as well.  Above all of that, we also are bombarded by a looming sense of social responsibility, that it's up to us to do something to help this person or this country.  This powerful jumble of emotions is always uncomfortable to deal with and is further shaping OUR reality of what the world is and how we choose to be present in it.

We left Marcala with heavy hearts and minds and began climbing up and up.  We had only gone 7km out of town when Leah began to get nervous about finding a place to camp before dark (it was 4:30 by then).  We stopped in La Florida to ask how far it was to the next town and everyone told us it was very far, hours by bike.  Most people thought that we meant the next town with a hotel and it was hard for us to communicate that we only wanted to know if there

 were people living in a place that we could camp at, so, we ended up staying in the aldea

 (village) of La Florida for the night.  In La Florida, we found a house that had a big yard for us to pitch a tent in.  So, we asked someone there if we could do so and he agreed.  As we were setting up camp, Alex (the man who agreed to let us stay) offered us the porch to set our tent up on and later invited us in for coffee, conversation, and a kung fu movie in Chinese with Spanish subtitles.  We learned a lot about the area from Alex and he was incredibly patient with our Spanish.  Alex is a coffee farmer (as are most people in Florida) and sells both organic and conventional coffee to two large corporations, one American and one German.  We learned that although organic coffee is much more labor intensive to grow and has a lower yield, the farmers receive the same price for all coffee, organic or not.  But, they MUST grow organic 

coffee because the German corporation will only buy organic and they can't afford to lose their

 business. This didn't make a whole lot of sense to us because when you see the price of organic versus non in the store it doesn't represent this phenomenon. This just goes to show how powerless farmers in developing nations are. 

 In the morning we  headed out for what we anticipated to be a 60km climb to Guajiquiro. Each of the people we met along the way wanted to know where we were headed. The majority of these people were walking, on bikes, on horse or with oxen because we were in the remote hills on dirt roads.  We told so many people that we were going to Guajiquiro that it became this elusive place that we thought we'd never get to.  Our El Dorado.  Before we reached our El Dorado we had to reach "El Triangulo" another place that everyone knew about but no one could tell us how far it was, they just knew that we better be sure to take a left there.  We eventually found the triangle and it was well marked and even had a triangle pulperia (little store) in the middle of the triangle. We rode along ridge line for awhile and were treated to expansive views on either sides of us of the surrounding mountains,

 countryside, villages, and farms on slopes so steep I wouldn't want to walk up them, let alone harvest.  We also highly enjoyed the conversations we had with the people of the area.  Simple country people.  Laid back, slow-talking, and simple minded people that just wanted to talk with someone or share their knowledge of their land.  We talked with one man who was on his way to a nearby aldea and offered him some water. It was apparent that he had never seen a "sport top" pop-up water bottle and we had to show him how to open it. The 60km we anticipated actually ended up being only 45km and the climb wasn't as hard as we had expected either (we must be getting stronger). We kept asking people how much farther we had to go and the kept telling it was so far and so far and then we asked some police we met how much farther and they told us we were already there, a pleasant surprise (we found out later that we were in Guajiquiro the municipality, but not Guajiquiro the town).

We spent some time talking with Wilmer (the police sergeant), and he was hitting us with question after question, it was good to meet someone so interested in so many aspects of our life, life on the road, life in the states. I think we answered questions for a half hour or so before telling him we needed to go eat as we hadn't had lunch yet. We left and started descending toward the town of Guajiquiro and finally laid eyes on it. There it was, gilded in gold. We sat down for a bit to enjoy the view and reflect on our journey through the mountains and have our lunch. A man reined his mule up next to us, very excited to see us. He was very pleased that we were there to see the place and very impressed by our bicycles. We talked with him for a bit and we said our goodbyes and headed off in opposite directions. 

We walked through the town pushing our bikes and getting plenty of looks, but not the usual stares, it was obvious that we were in an area that didn't get visited much. Several people asked us if we were here working and we were left pretty confused by this question. We eventually found a good area to camp in front of a building and asked the woman out front for permission. We're not sure whether she was clairvoyant or whether news travels  faster than bike travelers because she said (from what we understood) that she knew we were coming and that we had stayed the night before in La Florida. It turns out the building was the only hospedaje in town, but we still aren't sure how she knew we were coming...

We cooked our dinner and had a nice sleep and actually needed our sleeping bags as blankets during the night. In the morning we awoke when a cow kicked the tent as he walked by. After breakfast we found that a one of the local dogs had decided to claim our tent as his territory by marking three of the corners before we caught him. We decided that this was our kind of place and that we wanted to stay another day and go for a walk in the hills, but that's another story altogether...

Catching up on blogs ain't easy: Siguatepeque to La Esperanza

Oh, so much has happened since we last wrote, we have passed all the way through Honduras and half way through Nicaragua and are now in Managua with my good friend Enrique Castegnaro that I attended the civil engineering program with at Seattle University. Enrique just moved here to Managua about a month ago to work on an engineering project. But don't worry, I'm not just going to deprive you of all that happened between then and now, in fact even better. It will take a few blogs to catch up, but I'm going to load them up with some good stories for you. Right now I'm opening up my journal because so much has happened I can hardly remember it all off the top of my head.

Last Leah wrote she told you about our stay with Alex and Guadalupe. When we left early in the morning Alex insisted on driving us out of town to a good place to start our ride from Siguatepeque to La Esperanza.

 

We were anticipating (and kind of looking forward to after the long climb the day before) an

easy start with a major downhill. But to our surprise we encountered more uphill and 

crawled our way up the steep 10km climb before reaching our anticipated downhill, and what a downhill it was. We successfully traveled 17km with out pedaling one stroke, not even after 

I stopped a million times to take pictures. We estimated that we descended around ~3000 ft at a rate of about 100 ft/min, I've never coasted so far (or used my brakes so much) on a bike and 

 damn did it feel good, especially knowing that we earned it, I had a smile on my face the whole way down (bugs in my teeth and all). We just had to avoid thinking about the climb that awaited us in the other side of the valley. (If you look at the speck on the road you'll see it's Leah) It was neat to watch the rapid changes as we descended out of the pass and into the valley. As we began the air was very cool and we were surrounded my greenery (pine trees and such). At about 1/3 the way down we started to notice the air warming up and we started seeing some really cool looking "tiger crickets" (our own scientific name). At 

half way down the air was definitely warmer, the vegetation was drier and the crickets were EVERYWHERE on the road. One cricket even dive bombed Leah while she rode 40km/hr and caught a ride on a front pannier for awhile.  When we reached the bottom of the valley and town of Jesus Del Otoro we were in the desert, the vegetation was scarce and the dust and heat was plentiful. 

We biked a very hot 10km across the valley floor, 8 of them accompanied by twelve and thirteen year old Jorge and his brother who didn't have school that day. We couldn't convince them to climb the hill with us so we started our climb alone. 

Climbing at a pace 1/7 of what we descended  into the valley at we slowly made our way up the mountain. We  continued climbing for 4 hours (that's all "in the saddle time") and 23 kms, a new record for us and gained ~3500 feet.  We stopped plenty of times and would have stopped more if there was more than 1 roadside fruit stand to stop at.  As we climbed it felt great to re-enter the cooler mountain air. We arrived in La Esperanza after dropping down for a spell. 

That night we treated ourselves to a comedor (cheap eating establishment) that served us the the butteriest potatoes, tender beef, eggs, beans, tasty pickled stuff, tortillas, and some things that we had no idea what they were.  The meal was EXACTLY what the doctor ordered, we walked out of there on rubbery legs and smiles on our faces, this however didn't stop us from going to the bakery and eating our best banana bread to date. We hit the sack and  didn't move until the morning, sleeping wonderfully in the cool mountain air of La Esperanza. 

The next morning we decided to stay another night and check out the town. We hit up the mercado and were blown away. The mercado was full of Hondureno indigenous Lenca folks that wear brightly colored dresses and scarf things on their heads, plenty of people were also walking around in jackets and beanies (although Leah and I were still in our shorts and t-shirts. 

It was also full of cool climate fruits and veggies. We made out like bandits and managed to get 1lb of: carrots, onions, broccoli, avocados, strawberries, and blackberries; 

half a pound of local coffee, some garlic and a watermelon all for $4US. We also saw several 

people walking around, and passed out, really drunk. We were disheartened to see so many in this state, but we later found out that the surrounding areas were all dry areas and La Esperanza is where the majority of the folks go to get "bolo" and pass out half on the sidewalk, half on the street with their head hanging in mid air due to the angle of their body with a sting of puke/snot hanging from both nostrils and mouth connecting to the  puddle of puke under their head (that's not from my imagination). 

We unfortunately spent the majority of the rest of the day there trying to figure out what was wrong with our ATM card as it wasn't working  in the one machine in town and we were down to our last $350 Lempiras ($20) and wouldn't be seeing an ATM for another 5 days. It didn't stop us from eating our watermelon and hoping to have a nice peaceful lunch when a drunk, scary gangster guy with all kinds of tattoos sits down next to us and proceeds to tell us of his time in the states when he was dealing drugs and got in a gun fight in which his cousin died and he had his gun to his cousin's killer´s head (as he also had his hand mimicking a gun up to my head). At this point my Spanish wasn´t good enough (plus I wasn´t really trying too hard) to figure out if he pulled the trigger or not. He reached in his pocket and I tensed up but luckily all he had was more guaro (the local cheap alcohol) and not a real gun and the first chance we got we said, "We're leaving, bye". 

I don't what it is about me that crazy or drunk people are attracted to, but I swear they can single me out in a crowd of 1000 and talk my ear off. Unfortunately I haven't mastered the art of leaving the conversation easily, I think the fact that I look people in the eye and seem interested keeps them talking. One time I spent an hour in a drugstore in Seattle listening to a guys experience of getting abducted by aliens and how beautiful of an experience it was. In Bacalar, Mexico we probably mentioned the crazy Canadian lady that talked AT us for 30 minutes about all sorts of aspects of her life (we ended up seeing her again at the Guatemalan border but were able to avoid her seeing us). In Guatemala, at a rodeo a drunk guy singled me out and sat down next to me and introduced himself and insisted on shaking my had no less than 7 times, in 30 minutes. Two days ago with my friend Steve and Leah a Canadian guy started talking to us for 30 minutes about all of the Nicaraguan "investment" opportunities there are here for people like him. Good ol' Leah and Steve wander off and leave me talking to the guy, very nice of them. Just a day later another Canadian guy starts talking at us about world bank loans and recession and all kinds of economic stuff, even though all I asked him about was bike pedals, but this time I actually had an excuse and got of the conversation in under 5 minutes, record time for me. Okay, sorry for that little tangent, looking back on these experience I'd also have to say, why are there so many crazy Canadians in this part of the world too?

Puerto Cortes to Siguatepeque, Honduras

The day before we left Belize for Honduras, we met a man named Escalante who told us repeatedly, "Honduras is busy. Everyone is busy busy, all the time." At the time, we didn´t think much of his statement because people tend to repeat themselves in conversations A LOT in Belize. But, this has proved to be more true than we imagined. As soon as we docked in Puerto Cortes, money changers and taxi drivers inundated the boat to try and get some business. After escaping the hulabaloo and half-understanding three different people´s directions to the immigration office, we were on the road and thought we´d ride to San Pedro Sula after getting a quick stamp in our passports. But, as we have become pretty comfortable with now, the day didn´t quite go according to plan. It took us one hour and several circles of the city to find the immigration office a few miles away. Because it was getting late, after that "quick stamp" we decided to stay in Puerto Cortes for the night and leave early in the am for San Pedro Sula. Besides, pretty much our whole wardrobe was dirty (beyond hand-washable dirty) and we could get some laundry done while hanging out in Puerto Cortes. We found the lavanderia, which was about to close, gave them our laundry and were told to come back at 10 am the next day to pick it up. We both looked at each other and smiled knowing that we were both thinking, "I guess leaving early isn´t in the works for us either." But, when in Honduras, do as the Hondureños do right? We have discovered time is a very flexible concept in Central America.

The ride from Puerto Cortes to San Pedro Sula was loud as we were on the highway and there were lots of buses and big trucks. We had planned to ride toward the coast after San Pedro Sula and spend a few days doing the beach thing, but several people along the way told us that going that way was very dangerous. So, we threw our plans out the window once again and headed further inland to Lago de Yojoa the next day. On this stretch of highway, we discovered how truly crazy Hondureño drivers are. While eating a snack under a tree on the side of the road, we witnessed three near head on collisions in about 20 minutes. I mean, so close my heart was in my throat for a few seconds. Luckily, the highway had a decent shoulder for us to ride on at least. We have decided to avoid the highway pretty much all together from now on.


Before we were able to view the famous Lago de Yojoa, we climbed a mountain. Not just a hill, a mountain. We saw a radio tower at the top of a mountain while cycling through the valley below. We were talking about how cool it is to finally be in some real mountains, not realizing that we would have to climb up and over the top of these "cool" mountains. After reaching the top and seeing the radio tower at eye level, we finally decided that we are in shape now. The day was spent cooling off in the Pulhapanzak waterfall, lounging in the grass of the park, and then setting up camp in the Balneario (riverside park) for the night.

The next morning, we left Pulhapanzak and continued climbing up and up and up through some little aldeas (villages) before getting to Taulabe for lunch. In Taulabe, we sat down at a little restaurant for lunch which ended up being owned by an Argentinean who was so impressed with our trip that he charged us nearly nothing for a big lunch. As we waited for our food, I opened up the newspaper sitting next to me and there realized just how dangerous the area we were planning to travel to on the coast really was. The article was about homicides in Honduras and Central America and included statistics. On average there are about 140-150 reported homicides in Honduras per month and pretty much all of them are concentrated in a small area around San Pedro Sula or on the coast. Glad to be out of that area. Now we understand why the locals were so insistant that we travel inland. Out of Taulabe we climbed another mountain to Siguatepeque where we would stay for the night.

Before pulling off the main road into the centro of Siguatepeque, we stopped at a gas station to ask where the hotels were. While we were here, we met a man named Alex and struck up conversation for a bit. Alex is from Siguatepeque, but currently lives and works in North Carolina while his wife and daughters live in Siguatepeque. He comes back to Siguatepeque once a year or so to visit, but has lived in the states for nine years now. As we were about to leave and find our abode for the night, Alex offered to host us in his home for the night. After about 3 seconds of skepticism, we accepted and enjoyed a great night with him and his family. Alex´s wife Guadalupe is an English teacher and so Alex, Guadalupe, and their oldest daughter Alice all spoke really good English. It was really nice to have more in depth conversations with local people and laugh because we really got the joke and not because we were just trying to pretend like we did. Alice, Eliana (Alex´s second daughter), and Alice´s boyfriend Alex took us for a tour of Siguatepeque and later we spent the evening talking to Alex about immigration and his illegal entry into the US. It´s very hard for Hondureños to get into Mexico as well as the US and so fees for coyotes (people you pay to sneak you across borders) are steep. Alex said he paid $5,000 USD nine years ago to get from Siguatepeque to the US border. The coyote from the US border to Houston was supposed to be another $1500 USD. Just after crossing into the US, he was camped out in some bushes for a few days waiting for their coyote to direct them to the next location. In this location he said there were about 200 people camped out all with different coyote groups. One guy went crazy and started yelling and screaming and a patrol car pulled up and started shining lights, so Alex and his two friends ran off to hide elsewhere. Shortly after, he said more patrol cars showed up and started shining lights, more patrol cars in one place than he said he´s ever seen and the sky was so bright it was almost blinding. They ran and ran for hours until finding a place to sleep near a junkyard. They never saw their coyote again. The next morning, they slowly crept out of their sleeping place and started to walk. Soon after, they met a woman who spoke to them in Spanish and told them she was from Honduras, she obviously knew what they were doing based on what they looked. She took them in, gave them clothes and food and assisted them with getting past the border checkpoint between Brownsville, Texas and Houston. She hooked Alex up with a woman with a couple kids and a sports car. Alex showered up all nice, put on nice clothes and hopped in the sports car to drive through the checkpoint. He had a cup of coffee in his hand which, if he took a sip while talking to the border patrol, was the kids cue to provide distraction. At this point, Alex spoke virtually no English as well. Upon getting to the checkpoint, the officer asked where Alex was born. He took a sip of coffee and the kids provided enough distraction for him to process the question long enough to answer "Brownsville." The officer then told him to pull over into another processing area. Luckily for him at this point, the checkpoint got busy and the next officer that came to talk to him simply asked if he was born in the US and only asked for the papers of the woman and kids, which they had. The officer was more suspicious Alex was sneaking in the woman and kids than vice versa. From here, he drove on to Houston where he paid the woman $1000 USD for her help. Alex said that nine years ago, he was really lucky he made it and that now it´s much much harder. Soon after getting to the US, hurricane Mitch hit Honduras so hard that all Hondurans in the US could apply for a special visa that allowed them to stay legally (kind of like getting refugee status). Alex was then legal and employed in the US. Now, he works at the airport in Charlotte, NC and sends money home to his family.

It seems like most people we´ve met in Honduras have either lived in the US at one time or have family or friends who currently live there. We have also seen many more American fast food chains and American products in the stores here than in neighboring countries. You all may think that when you give your old clothes and shoes to Goodwill they end up on someone´s back in the same state at least, but no, there are stores selling used "American clothing" everywhere here. We even saw a man wearing a "Team in Training" shirt here in a mountain town of 600 people. Despite it´s poverty (or more likely because of it´s poverty), the American influence in Honduras is more visible than anywhere else we´ve visited yet.

Before leaving Alex´s house in the am for La Esperanza, Guadalupe cooked us up an amazing breakfast of eggs and beans with fresh cheese, toast, grilled cheese, some cookies and coffee. That big breakfast proved to be much needed for the GIANT hill up to La Esperanza. We are so grateful for the friends, stories, and delicious meals we have enjoyed so far. Thank you Alex, Guadalupe and family for your kindness and generosity. Hopefully, we´ll be able to return the favor in the future and show you all of you a "real apple tree" in Washington :).