Last night I made the first major gaff of backpacking that I've done on this trip missing the stop I wanted to make in Santa Rosa de Copan. I was advised by the English speaking passengers on the bus that my best bet was to get off at Sula and found myself in a small town which had one guest house and one hotel. I don't know if there was much in the way of entertainment there but I found both the guest house and the hotel were full. The woman who was trying to assist me offered to put me up in her house which was at the back of an Evangelical Mission building and I offered what I thought was right in the circumstances - about six quid which is about what I would have paid in the hotel from all accounts.It was an interesting place to end up though somehow a little familiar. I don't know if there was a major error on my part, I was assuming the bus drivers to continue to announce where the bus was stopping as they had done elsewhere in Central America so far. Normally, the drivers are extremely helpful and will direct you to the next bus required or which direction is necessary to go to get to whatever hotel I've been heading to. It wasn't the worst scenario in the world, most people seemed pretty helpful and I didn't have any problem getting to sleep as soon as I'd got back to the room. I was grateful to the woman, Alexandra, and I was also grateful to the church in the circumstances.
I was up later than I wished and made my way back to Santa Rosa de Copan and pretty much immediately got a bus on to Gracias which is recommended as a stop off by the guide book. I managed to leave the guidebook on the bus from Sula and then upon arrival in Gracias got myself into probably the best hotel I've stayed at in Central America, the Posada de Don Juan. I've got a decent room for about ten pounds a night and the wi-fi works pretty well. I've managed to download the chapters of the lonely planet Central America guidebook that I need for the remainder of the trip and been out to check out the town which seems very nice. I think that the tourism here is under significant development and I don't know to what extent there is planned development here but there is a lot of building work going on in the centre of the town.
The image above is of a woman who I couldn't place - only in terms of who I know, I'm sure I've seen her face before somewhere, or someone who looks a lot like her but with much paler skin. I think there was some similarity between her and someone else I know though I just can't place who it is for the life of me. I don't know if there are more significant links between Birmingham and Central America than there are in other parts of the UK but at one point the journey between Metapan and El Poy, the border crossing into Honduras, was like being at a Swanshurst Sixth Form Reunion. There was a guy collecting fares who looked like Andy Bishop, a passenger who looked a lot like Vicki Peacock, another who looked like the woman who hung out with Sarah Guessy and the one in the photograph whom I presume to have a brummie connection.
El Poy was a pretty uneventful boarder crossing, I had to pay $3.00 exit tax to leave El Salvador, which seemed like a legitimate formal tax very different to the one paid on entrance to Guatemala which was something that the official at the passport control seemed to think was okay to charge anyone who couldn't speak Spanish. He wasn't challenged sigificantly by most of us who came in. Shots of the journey from Metapan to El Poy are on Flickr at the journey from Metapan to El Poy if you should wish to click the link.
The scenery on the way into Honduras, which I've not heard being discussed anywhere was really quite breathtaking. It was like the Yorkshire Dales on a larger scale. After a few attempts to take shots of the mountains and forests I decided to take a nap only to realise I'd missed my stop when I woke up. The people on the bus were helpful enough when this became apparent - more people speak English here than in El Salvador where I think I had a couple of days without speaking English to anyone. As for the Latin temperament, the Hondurans are meant to be a little too laid back and to an extent stereotyped by their neighbours as being a little backward. There doesn't seem to be a great difference culturally so far but I am close to the border still and huge numbers of El Salvadorians are meant to have made the border crossing in the 1980's during the civil war so it's not surprising that there seems to be little in the way of difference so far. There are the minor obvious issues which may reflect more of an Honduran style such as the higher numbers of men who wear stetson type hats and on the whole the women are more flirtatous here - but that counts for bugger all in the grand scheme of things.
So far Honduras has been a bit of a surprise package. I wasn't expecting the breathtaking scenery nor the overall atmosphere of the tropical paradise but it does feel pretty damn good here. I'm yet to make it to a cash point here which seem few and far between, Gracias doesn't have one and I've got to get to Santa Rosa to get some cash tomorrow as I'm almost out of US Dollars. This is only indication that the infrastructure here is not as developed as it is in places like El Salvador and Guatemala and the economy is weaker. I don't know what the average wage is here but I would estimate that it's pretty damn low. Tourism seems to be taking off in this area and I can't say that it's undeserved. The forests as I saw them from the bus, which gives little indication of what's going on inland in the more isolated rural parts, did seem pretty rich and plentiful, however, there is meant to be a greater issue of deforestation in El Salvador than anywhere else in Central America. I do wonder how legitimate the concept of deforestation is, particularly as a western notion, when the west is as deforested as a place could be. What grounds to we have to question the use of land in countries that we're only interested in because we may have problems with oxygen-CO2 cycles as a result of rural development changes?
Tonight, I need to get to grips with Copan and it's ruins so whatever I see there in the next couple of days doesn't go completely over my head. I can't say that I've really understood all there is to know about Mayan ruins in the other places I've been to but this does seem opportunity to do so. I've also got to check out a few things about the area so I've got some idea where to head for hotels, I can't stay in plush places all the time.
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