Honduras: Hidden Gems and Heavy Hits

To say that the last week has been a whirlwind would be the greatest of understatements. I apologize for my relative lack of updates, but the reasons will likely be clear by the end of this piece.

I left Antigua the afternoon of Sunday 9/1, wishing on some level that I didn't have to; I'd really come to enjoy the small, if touristy, city between volcanoes, and I'd made some genuine friends during my time there, a few of whom have been in almost daily contact since I left. At least I was leaving with lasting memories, and a bit of lingering soreness to remember Acatenango by.

The ride out of Antigua and through Guatemala City wasn't one of the better ones I've had thus far; it was murderously hot and the traffic through the city was terribly slow, though no less homicidal than the Latin American norm. I was grateful to leave the city and get back out to the mountains, enjoying the last few hours of Guatemalan scenery visible between the curtains of rain following me most of the way. My destination was Chiquimula, a small town close to the border with Honduras. I arrived after nightfall and with a thunderstorm starting, but my hosts' hospitality more than made up for the less-than-ideal conditions; the family I was staying with had kept dinner for me, and had a place for me to pull the bike off the street. 

With far better weather the next day, I set off for the border, enjoying the last few miles of Guatemala until I arrived at the Frontera El Florido border station. After the relatively quick process of getting my exit stamp from Guatemala, my entry stamp for Honduras, and turning in my permit for the motorcycle, I realized that I'd made the colossal mistake of getting to the border in the middle of lunch. Cue close to an hour of waiting for the Honduran Aduana agent to get back from lunch, followed by another hour or so of running back and forth between the Aduana office, copy store across the street, ATM, and the second office I inexplicably had to go to in order to pay my vehicle permit fee. After about three hours, I was into Honduras. 

My destination for the night, Copan Ruinas, was only about 10 minutes from the border, and after a short wait for my host, Francia, I was settled for the night. The next morning, I made an early start to the ruins for with Copan is named. The easternmost of the major Mayan cities, Copan is one of the lesser-known ruins in Latin America, but beyond impressive. For one, it's enormous; over 4,500 structures have been discovered in the area, and I found myself stumbling onto more areas I hadn't seen without even meaning to. Copan's greatest assets are the many stelae and heiroglyphic inscriptions throughout the complex; the stelae are spectacularly detailed, several in the likeness of prominent kings of Copan. The centerpiece of the whole city is a 10-meter wide stairway ascending one of the pyramids with hieroglyphics depicting much of the history of Copan carved into each step, and comprises the largest and longest Mayan text currently known. 

The stelae are incredible as well, many in an excellent state of preservation and with some of the original paint and stucco still visible. 

I can't recommend the Copan Ruinas enough; there is simply so much to see there, from the ceremonial plaza, to the well-preserved juego de pelota (Mayan ball game) court, to the enormous pyramids, to multiple groups of residential structures, some not fully excavated. Watching excavations in progress on parts of the ruins was also fascinating, although I wasn't actually sure I was allowed in the area I'd stumbled into to watch those. 

After returning to town for a quick lunch, I followed one of my host's recommendations and visited Macaw Mountain, a breeding and rehab center for native bird species, specializing particularly in Scarlet Macaws, the national bird of Honduras. The program started on the island of Roatan in the 1980s with Mandy Wagner, an American resident who began taking in and caring for unwanted or abandoned parrots and macaws that had been kept as pets by other expats who subsequently left the island. After Wagner herself moved from Roatan, the birds passed to another American, Lloyd Davidson, who founded the first actual park on the island, including a number of aviaries for the expanding number of birds left by expats. In 2001, Davidson moved the project to a 10-acre plot of land above Copan Ruinas and had the birds flown from Roatan to their new permanent home. Macaw Mountain now exists as a rehab center for injured and rescued birds, a permanent home for birds unable to be released into the wild, and a breeding center for multiple species of macaws. There are almost 30 aviaries housing species ranging from parakeets to a King Vulture and Great Horned Owl, and they house at least 6 breeding pairs of Scarlet Macaws in an effort to repopulate the species' original range. 

That night, Francia had me come talk to the English class she teaches about my trip and answer any questions the class could think of, after which one of her students drove us to dinner in his moto-taxi, or "tuk-tuk". Imagine a VW beetle with the doors and front wheels removed, and the front end of a motorcycle stuck on, and you've got the general idea of a tuk-tuk. They're all over Central America, and riding in one is mildly terrifying. 

I made the short ride to Santa Rosa de Copan the next morning, planning on a short visit. There wasn't much to see in the town itself other than a nicely laid out park with a gigantic depiction of the 10 Commandments at the top, but my host, Oscar, introduced me to a number of his friends, with whom I spent most of the afternoon and evening eating, drinking coffee, and conversing about our various international experiences. For a quick stopover, it definitely wasn't a bad one.

The next morning, I left early for what was supposed to be the long ride to Isla Zacate Grande, an island on the south coast formed by a dormant volcano. I say "supposed to be", because I never actually made it. Around an hour and a half from my destination, while riding on a mostly deserted, brand-new 4-lane highway, I came up on a pickup parked on the right shoulder with its hazard lights on. Thinking he was stopped with a mechanical problem or some such, I changed lanes and intended to move on, just as the truck suddenly pulled a U-turn across both lanes of the highway, completely blocking the road right in front of me. I slammed on the brakes, feeling the ABS kick in on both ends, but ran out of room and hit the driver's side of truck, dumping myself and the bike on the ground. I was immediately confronted by an overweight Honduran yelling angrily about why I'd run into his truck, as though the entire thing had been my fault; rather than act on my immediate instinct to bash the man's face in with my helmet, I retreated and did the one thing I absolutely didn't want to do anywhere in Latin America: called the police. 

While we waited, I assessed the damage to the bike and myself. I'd landed on my right knee and hit my hand on the side of the truck but thanks to the armor in my pants and gloves, what could have been a couple of broken bones turned out to be only mild soreness. The Twin wasn't as lucky; I picked it up off the ground with a sick feeling in my stomach, assuming a completely smashed front end and likely the end of my trip. A few bystanders and I tried to move it back from the truck, but the front wheel wasn't turning. Before I got too far into my own head, two Policia Nacional officers showed up on motorcycles. I'm going to paraphrase the conversation that followed, because I still can't quite believe the way it went:

Fed: What happened? 

Driver: I was just driving down the road and tried to turn around, and all of a sudden he hits me out of nowhere! 

Fed, to me: What happened? 

Me: I was 50-100 meters down the road, saw him on the side with his flashers on from way back, and he pulled across both lanes in front of me without any warning. I couldn't avoid him and hit the side of his truck. 

Fed, to Driver: You turned from the right side of the road? 

Driver: Yes. 

Fed: ...and you were trying to cross two lanes and a solid yellow line with barrier dots when there's a turnaround a kilometer up the road? 

Driver: ... 

Fed, to me: How much is it going to cost to fix your bike? 

Me: I'll have to get it inspected at a shop, but that plus the small things I can see are broken will probably be about 4,000 Lempiras (about $200) 

Fed, to Driver: Pay him the 4,000 lempiras. Here's your ticket. You can both go.

Scarcely believing the exchange that had just happened, I turned my attention back to the Twin. The right handguard was broken off and the metal cage around it bent, but upon further inspection, it turned out that the guard was compressing the brake level, preventing the wheel from turning. Once that was straightened out, the wheel turned freely, but the bars were noticeably tweaked, and the front suspension visibly out of alignment. Other than that, the only damage I could find was some scuffed coating on the crash bars and a minor scuff on one of my side bags. All the bodywork and lights were intact, all the electronics worked, and the bike started up as though nothing had happened.

I just want to emphasize a point here: I hit a Toyota Hilux, a truck so legendarily indestructible that after the hosts of Top Gear left one in the English Channel overnight, ran it into all manner of walls and poles, and left it on top of a building that was promptly demolished, it still started and drove. The impact the Twin suffered would have smashed in the entire front ends of every other motorcycle I've owned, and yet I was able to ride away with slightly tweaked front suspension and one broken piece of plastic. This thing is an absolute TANK. I continued a short distance down the road, making sure the bike wasn't going to shake itself to the ground or anything, and then pulled off and called my family, the stress and adrenaline finally catching up with me. I immediately abandoned my plans for island camping, and found a hotel in Nacoame, a small town not far from the Nicaraguan border, where I was finally able to take a short breather and let myself relax. The combined efforts of several friends, family members, and friends-of-friends had found me a mechanic just over the Nicaraguan border who was sure he could fix my alignment, and a number of resources had I needed them, but fortunately I didn't. The most important thing was that I was physically OK, and still on the road.

All in all, my short time in Honduras had been one of extremes; Copan had been the most interesting and fascinating ruin I'd explored by far and I'd really enjoyed meeting all the people I'd met, but on the flip side, I'd had the single worst experience of the trip so far, one that easily could have seriously injured me and/or ended my journey entirely, and that would keep me shaken up long after I'd left the scene. I will definitely give Honduras another, and longer, chance in the future, but this time, I just wanted to get on with my travels.