Honduras

We awoke on Sunday morning in San Salvador all set to head towards Nicaragua via Honduras. We turned on the tv and learnt that the Honduran president, Zelaya, had been ousted by the military in his pyjamas that morning and sent to Costa Rica. As the morning went on, images of Zelaya’s supporters protesting in the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa, were looking increasingly dramatic and we were not sure whether it was the best idea to enter the country. We decided to head to a town near to the border in El Salvador where supposedly we could catch a ferry across the Golf of Fonseca straight into Nicaragua. When we arrived, it emerged that there was no such service so we would have to go through Honduras. A few local buses later, we had crossed the border into a horrible, hangout full of truck drivers, money changers, a few seedy motels and several fried chicken shops. We were eager to get straight out of there, but as it was around 5pm, the last bus had already left for the day. We spent the evening in the horrible motel, drinking beer and trying to wish away the hours. We were told a bus left for Nicaragua at 6am the next morning. All was completely calm at the border and no signs of the happenings of the military coup that day. We awoke the next morning and couldn’t get out of the grotty motel as the drunk, old doorman was weeing up the metal gate in big, saggy pants. By the time we got out onto the road after the doorman had staggered around and located the key and attempted to put his trousers on, our nice, direct coach had sped past us and was whizzing out of sight. Instead, we took several local buses passing through towns and villages in the south of the country. All was totally uneventful and had we not seen the news, we wouldn’t have known that the president had just been overthrown. There was no sign of the military coup except for soldiers lounging around outside barracks with big guns. The action at this point was all in Tegucigalpa. A week on, it may well be different, as the Nicaraguan papers report that there are increasing difficulties in crossing into Honduras. Hopefully, we will explore a bit in Honduras at some stage over the next 6 months, but now probably isn’t the best time.