Honduras and beyond

We were in Honduras for less than 29hours…but our time there wasn’t without incident. In no mans land between El Salvador and Honduras Sam snapped his gear cable and about 10miles in I got a puncture – all very mundane and fixable problems but not the best of starts. Honduras is not famed for being particularly safe so we weren’t too keen on hanging around for long and had pre-arranged a warm showers host for our only night in the country.

We arrived at the house of Jaime’s parents and were shown round the back to the equivalent of the chicken shed, with a tin roof, single bed, mattress on the floor and a strong smell of dog…but who were we to complain. Jaime’s Spanish born mother was a beautifully open and welcoming person and we managed to converse in Spanish about many different subjects while I tried not to notice her false teeth dropping out and the fact that she only had one lens in her glasses. We then went out for beers down a shady looking side street with Jaime and his rather odd bunch of friends, one had only one eye, another a slight twitch and the third spoke fairly good English having lived in New York…but we think may have been kicked out of the states and wasn’t letting on. Jaime then drove us home after at least 6 beers and went out for more…we don’t think drink driving is the biggest priority in terms of law enforcement here.

Back in our chicken shed we were just drifting off to sleep when the roof began to rattle and shake…strange, then the floor also started to shake…strange, then the whole world was shaking. Turns out I had experienced my first earthquake and at 6.1 on the rictor scale it was noticeable although not big enough to cause any major damage. However, this was not an especially relaxing experience and along with the abundant mosquitoes and heat, we didn’t get a huge amount of sleep.

I was exhausted the next day…and with still no working stove to make coffee in the mornings we were really struggling with energy and motivation. I spent much of the ride to the border going at 1mph and crying a lot…pathetic really. We stopped at 9am for breakfast of sweet sugary drinks, chocolate and granola…this all helped a lot. The border into Nicargua was a pain and took a little over two hours end to end, by which time it was the middle of the day and very hot. We pushed on enough to be away from the dodgy border area and set up our hammock in a shady spot between two trees, then took it in turns to nap…the hammock investment is  proving extremely worthwhile!

The clouds started closing in so we hurriedly packed away the hammock and started cycling again before the heavens opened…and they opened alright, we were very wet within minutes and the visibility on the busy road became very poor. Luckily there was a shoulder for much of the time and we spent our time hopping up the small slope from road to shoulder and back again. This was working fine until we were going from the shoulder to the road to cross a bridge and on the slick surface my wheels disappeared from under me and I landed hard on the tarmac with a wallop…then Sam came down on top of me. All I could think about was getting out of the road fast so Sam chucked the bikes into the shoulder and sat me down to assess the damage. Locals from a nearby building had seen the drama and came running to check we were ok…which miraculously we were and had escaped with only a few scratches and bruises. My bike took the brunt of the fall with a broken brake lever and bent saddle…so we pushed over to the building and asked if we could camp the night there…not fancying any more riding that day. It turned out to be a very good camping spot…a base for a co-operative to the area, with a very smiley night guard who assured us he would not sleep and he and his gun would watch over us vigilantly. I doubted this as he had set up a very comfortable looking hammock but felt very safe all the same.

We woke the next morning to friendly shouts and conversation from the locals on their way to wherever they were going on bikes, horses and carts…fascinated by the gringos who had set up their tent in their neighbourhood. My body ached after our tumble and the ride to Leon proved dull and uncomfortable on a now very wonky saddle…all this being said, the whole fiasco could have been a lot worse and we had already received great kindness from the local people, having only been in their country for 24hours.

This is a word heavy blog…earthquakes, torrential rain and crashes don’t lend themselves well to photography.