1. Hallo HONDURAS
Day 72. Not a great night in La Union hotel. No A/C, too warm and the fan was too loud. Take your poison … Woke up @0430, got up at 0500 and on the road at 0615. Absolutely gorgeous morning in the mountains. The signs of the last night’s rain were everywhere. Everything looked fresh and the sun started to shine on the hills around. Most of the valleys bellow were covered in fog and it looked really cool.
The road from the hotel starts to climb rapidly. I mean really climb! I thought La Union is somewhere at the top but obviously there is room for improvement. All of a sudden I am looking ahead at a narrow dirt road full of ruts and potholes going up. Well, there are only two roads to and from this town and I came through the other one yesterday. Switching my electronic wizard bike to an “Enduro” mode and off I go. Holly crap, that was tough. Slippery as ice. It is only 20˚C but I am sweating. Humidity is still near 100%. I am inching my way up in the 1st gear. All I am thinking is that I don’t want to dump the bike. I haven’t been off road with this kind of load for awhile and it take a bit to find my comfort level again. There is odd motorbike going to work the other way and also few pick up trucks full of people. Standing room only for about 20 of them. Talking about hard commute … Not a minute too soon I can see the sun shining through the forest. I am getting to the top. Well, what goes up must go down is the 45th law of physics. Or something like that. For me it is much harder to ride down. Dozen of streams to cross and deep ruts everywhere. I think my handlebars are flat from all that death grip. But the view! OMG! On the ridge high above the clouds covering valleys bellow. Truly spectacular. And there are houses there as well. What people do there, I have no idea. But they have nice views, for sure. Going down I soon hit the clouds and it gets really thick. I can see no more than 20m at some sections. But soon enough I break out underneath the clouds and the path gets marginally better. No time to relax yet. At last I am on the pavement. Wow, that was an unexpected workout. It was only 18 km and I gave myself an hour to do it. But I didn’t think I will need it. Everything is in one piece. Only 5 km to the border.
Here comes the border. I hope I didn’t forget anything. Mean guys with machine guns are looking at me and don’t say anything. I ask them where to go and they just point to one guy standing by the gate. This guy only checks if I have all documents. I do, so he points out to the building down the road. Off I go. Migracion, that’s what I need. Park my bike, take all my documents and head inside. About 50 people in lineup there. This might take awhile. Lady at the door directs me to another lineup for Guatemala. Finally at the desk and the all process to stamp out of Guatemala takes 2 minutes. Then next to another line up to get stamped into Honduras. More people here, takes almost an hour to get through. Luckily, Guatemala and Honduras desks are in the same hall. It looks like I just have to go from lineup to lineup. HON officers were not as efficient as GUA colleagues. He studies my GUA exit stamp like he's never seen in before. I just got it few minutes ago from the guy sitting 5 feet from him! I just smile … I got a 48 day visa and they Interestingly wanted 30 Quetzales. But they are HON border officers … And they gave me a receipt for 3 USD … Shitty rate but who am I to argue with guys with guns 🤭 I am all done. Now I have to deal with my bike. How it works is I have to get a temporary import permit for every country I get to. You can just imaging the paperwork. And it costs money. And at the other end of the country you have to cancel your permit and get a new one from the other country. It is a lengthy process requiring lost of copies of everything. I’ve got them all. I think. The first I have to cancel GUA permit. (It is called TIP = Temporary Import Permit). The lady asks me for a copy of HON entry visa I was just issued. I don’t do miracles, I don’t have it. She points out to a questionable shack outside and tells me to get copies there. Off I go there, a guys has a Cannon printer right beside his chips and coke he is selling there. Got the copies, back to Customs. We all go out to check my bike VIN and licence plate and whatever they feel like. They are all surprised to see how big the bike really is. People here are very small so they have hard time too read the VIN which is right under the handle bar. But the lady is happy and finished my paperwork. Great, my bike is no longer officially in GUA. She hands over all the paperwork to the next lady sitting right beside her. HON Customs. She has to issue me a TIP for Honduras. Lots of typing and writing. She makes some copies using a carbon paper! I haven seen that in decades! She hands me a bill and tells me to pay 39USD. Where? At the same dude outside. He has a laptop and does the transaction online. Cash only. Good I have some greenbacks. All done, back to the ladies. After awhile, she hand me a brand new TIP valid for 3 months. I won’t need that long … I am all done! Not bad. I go back to the coke guy and get some drinks. And I get a can of Red Bull to get some wings. I am not out of the woods yet, there is another HON check. But they only want to see the TIP. But then we start talking about riding and he actually never looks at any of my papers. All good. And he tells me there is a police checkpoint 100m down the road. I stop there and the officer is busy checking other car. So his lady assistant comes over and start chatting with me. A good chance to practice my Español. We talk about nearby Maya ruins. We both agree that it is just a bunch of old rocks. After few minutes the officer just waves me trough realizing I am having way too much fun with his colleague. I am officially in Honduras! All in all, not bad. I feel really good. I expected much worse. It took 2 hrs. In these countries It all depends on how the officers feel that day. And nothing can be hurried. OK, one down 4 to go.
There is a subtle but noticeable difference between those two countries. For the starters, the roads are MUCH better and wider in HON. The land is much more cultivated here as well. There is not as much of a wild jungle as in GUA. And overall it feels more tidy and organized. You can see there is also more $$$ here judging by the houses here.
Anyway, I am all happy about the successful morning and just cruise along. Today is a very short day because I didn’t know what is going to happen at the border. I get to my hotel at noon. Early but no problem here. Nice small family run hotel with a clean room with A/C and internet. What else do I need? I try to catch up with my blog and pics and that’s about it for the day. I was having hard time to decide where to go next but I solved that “problem” as well. But, that’s tomorrow.
Cheers,