Choosing the route we do (mountain dirt roads in the middle of nowhere) we usually manage to stay away from cars, but sometimes roads are unavoidable. Starting at the Artic Sea, we have been constantly and consistently warned about the drivers with whom we will have to share the road further south.  First were the “extreme truckers” on the haul road, whose loads are double long and oversize, and who literally own the road.  Then the “crazy cannucks” whose country is so sparsely populated the mere idea of traffic paralyzes them, and therefore don’t worry about little things like lanes and turn signals.  Next, “those Americans” who drive too much and too fast, “and they all have guns….”  Followed by “the Mexicans” who “have no laws down there” and so on until we learned to tune it out, as we do a large percentage of the advice we receive: “don’t go that way – the road is terrible – you’ll never make it” etc.

            Sure, drunk driving is a national past time in Mexico, and first time RVers up in Alaska, tend to leave their steps down (blocking/sweeping the shoulder), but the vast majority of drivers we have encountered have been competent, and courteous.  “South of the border,” drivers, forced into awareness by the condition of the roads, and used to sharing them with non-cars, are in general good drivers. And thanks to the cost and relative novelty of cars, drivers are much more likely to be professionals.  People who drive for a living, tend to be good/safe behind the wheel. In general, our pavement experiences have been much mellower than the advice-givers would have us fear.  Safer that is, until we hit Honduras, and the Pan-American Highway.

            Forced onto the ‘carretera’ by a tropical storm that flooded us out of the Caribbean coast, we were initially optimistic; the main roads in Mexico (the last place we had ridden highways) were nicely paved and equipped with generous shoulders, a little boring perhaps, but at least safe…no reason to assume Honduras would be much different.  The Pan-Am was nicely paved and provided reasonable shoulders. Unfortunately however, these factors didn’t add up in our favor.  The smoothness and width of the road just seemed to encourage recklessness. Drivers clearly didn’t feel constrained by the two lanes the engineers and road painters had provided for – thanks to the shoulders, there was plenty of room for a center (shared) lane or two if you didn’t mind squeezing, which they clearly didn’t.

            Multiple car passes at high speed on blind corners (sheer cliffs on either side) was standard practice – cars coming the “other way” are expected to swerve, and make full use of the shoulder.  Of course, sometimes trucks were passing both directions around the same blind corner, and the instant 2-lane to 4-lane conversion gets really terrifying (especially for cyclists).  Worst of all, the drivers guilty of these insane maneuvers, were quite frequently the professionals.  Truckers and bus drivers, who we had learned to trust as models of responsible driving, were now racing each other,  some times even ‘double passing’ – a truck passing, a buss passing, a line of cars. 

Words don’t really do justice to the sheer enormity of the recklessness, but humans are very adaptable creatures – for better or worse, we soon get used to any thing.  Constant scanning of the drainage ditches for escape routes, and split-second/corner-of-the-eye triggered evasive maneuvers became a way of life.  And soon enough – about the time we started dropping into the sprawling cancer of Tegucigalpa (the capital city) the madness had infected us.  We were bombing past tractor-trailers on the shoulder, taking possession of the “middle lane” to pass whole strings of cars unable to corner as rapidly.  Squeezing between rows of stopped or slowly moving cars (on real multi lane roads) bags and shoulders scraping on both sides – narrowly dodging rearview mirrors, and casually running red lights.

            Fortunately Russ and a few days of rest/bike maintenance were waiting – hidden at a couch surfer’s house in the city – to help us regain our sanity.  He brought with him a mountain of replacement parts, and a newly created steed; so clean and shiny that next to our trail-burned mounts it seemed a different species all together.  We couldn’t wait to christen it with some real dirt riding, but map-less and in the middle of a sprawling city that didn’t seem likely.

            Inspired nonetheless, we dug into the pile of parts, and took over the yard and sidewalk in front of the house, deep in the heart of gated community/trophy-home down town Tegucigalpa, for the better part of two days, re-building and overhauling our bikes.  Our presence was a trifle incongruous, to say the least.  Our hosts were missionaries from Austin Texas, and the house was filled with their boisterous and non-Spanish speaking offspring, the requisite maids (and their children) and various dogs. Chaotic to be sure, but standard fare compared to trail scarred and strangely attired gringos banging purposefully on their intriguingly bizarre bicycles, amid piles of strange bike parts, tools and specialized camping gear (and in the front yard no less!!).

When fixing machines, nothing ever goes quite as expected; despite careful planning and ordering, l had to take to the streets to find a bike shop.  The up-scale city center was largely devoid of that sort establishment, but eventually l asked the right person, and was directed to Bike Zone.

            When l arrived Daniel, the proprietor was hand filing a replacement derailleur-hanger from a piece of scrap aluminum, while an assistant repacked the bearings on a bike so old it sported rod-brakes, and Daniel’s multi thousand dollar Turner mtn bike stood out like a sore thumb from the bedraggled bike rack outside. Between the bikes that they were working on, and the tools they were working with, there was hardly room inside the shack like premises, so l stood out side answering questions about ”my” bike (l was riding Russ’s, the chupacabra dismantled for repair) until Daniel took a brake from making chips fly, and came out to talk to me.  He was fascinated by the Xtracycle, and our trip, told me that if l didn’t mind waiting, he would help me any way he could.

            I hung out, and he picked my brain about our bikes, mtn touring, running a bike shop in the US, the relative quality of different parts. Eventually he finished his various tasks, we found solutions to my problems, and l returned to my companions to implement said solutions, but not before l promised come back to show him the Chupacabra. I made good on my promise, and in the midst of geeking out on bikes, I remembered to ask him about dirt routes to Nicaragua.

            He thought a while, and said, well l have this friend – he’s a dreamer, a little bit crazy, but he use to have a TV show called biking in Honduras and knows all about the back roads – should l call him?

Por favor…

So it was that when we left town the next day, it was in the company of a portly, out of shape, and very enthusiastic Jorge.  We were unclear on his plans, or level of fitness, so we hardly noticed he wasn’t carrying anything. On the way out of town we had to climb the counterpart of the mammoth hill we had descended into Tegucigalpa. The hill was long and punishing, and we took turns riding behind with Jorge, chatting in a mixture of Spanish and English, and smiling at his jokes about his pot belly, and sedentary profession (electrical engineer). Eventually we crested the hill and were rewarded with and epic down hill. As we blasted down hill into the afternoon, we had to wonder what Jorge’s plan was – surely he wasn’t going to ride back tonight…

When he caught up, he explained that he was in fact planning on riding with us for a couple days, and on sleeping at a ‘hospeadje’ in one of the small towns coming up. Adding that we would have no trouble reaching the closer one before dark. We rode on, the dirt road turning rougher, and starting to climb. It continued to climb… Some time after sunset, we gave up on reaching Jorge’s town.  Jorge, still up beat, made a cursory effort to obtain ‘posada’ for the evening, but all the houses around were small and brimful with their customary occupants.

We ended up camping in the front yard of a friendly ‘campesino’ family (the ‘dueno’ of the field next door lived in the city, and thus couldn’t give us ‘permiso’ to use his (much more suitable to our camping needs) land.  In any case we have an aversion to refusing hospitality.  So we got creative with our hammocks – Jacob managed to attach both ends of his to the same long overhanging branch of the mango tree that was the centerpiece of the yard area.  We were high enough in the mountains, that we could expect dew and substantial temperature drop, so we rounded up our spare clothes, sleeping pads, and tarps and set up a cozy shelter for Jorge. Meanwhile Sean had our MSR stove out, water boiling, getting ready for our standard dinner of oatmeal.  All these outlandish preparations made for a fascinating evenings entertainment for our hosts.

The whole family, or neighborhood, (it was hard to tell) had turned out for the spectacle: 20+ pairs of eye glued to our every move.  But alas it was soon pitch black, and gringo TV flickered out of view – leaving only our headlamps to dance like sluggish and over sized fireflies. Interesting for a moment, but lacking detail.  Fortunately mother saved the day – appearing with a handful of kindling, which turned out to be ‘lena de jacaranda’: heartwood so resinated that it burned like a torch.  Light a couple and wa-la: instant campfire, light heat, and no mess.  Thanks to the ‘lena’ our audience had the pleasure of watching us finish cooking dinner, eating (out of our space age folding bowls) and putting the stove away. Exciting stuff. About the time we were ready to retire for the night, Jorge reappeared; he had found what passed for the local store and supped on coca-cola and chips.  He refused the portion of oatmeal we had saved, saying he was trying to lose weight and went off to sleep under a cactus.  We eventually convinced him to accept a jacket and a tarp, but he would have none of the warm dry bed we had prepared – he didn’t want to disturb us with his snoring, he explained.

We awoke half an hour after sunrise or so, to find the whole family and Jorge waiting silently for us to appear out of our cocoons.  Jorge had hardly slept a wink, cold damp and uncomfortable under his cactus. As we set about breaking camp, preparing breakfast (our big meal of the day) and otherwise entertaining the locals, Jorge set out ahead of us saying he wanted to warm up, and would meet us in the next town, leaving us to our audience. Exposed by the light of day they didn’t crowd as close, but watched just as intently.

The women of the house were especially fascinated – men cooking: unheard of, could they really do it?!  Rice and beans in the same pot?! Etc.  When our food was ready they sent the smallest child over with a cup for a taste of our strange (and luxurious – cheese, meat, vegetables, rice and beans – in prodigious quantities too) meal. We filled it to overflowing, figuring there would be plenty of interested samplers.  Finally nourished and dressed for the day, we had to turn off the TV and take our leave.

In about an hour we reached Jorge sitting in town outside of the lone ‘pulperia,’ coke in hand. He brought us all drinks (Russ and l refused soda, and were treated to liquid sugar labeled orange juice), and taking a deep breath broke the news: “I´m really sorry, but…..” unfortunately he was called back to Tegucigalpa on business, and couldn’t ride with us to the Nicaragua border as planned, in fact he was heading back immediately.  A little relieved, we left him beaming and waving in front of the ‘pulperia’ and headed down the road.

Almost immediately the nicely maintained gravel road we had been following ceased and a challenging 4wheel drive track began.  We ground up hill, turned off the rough road we were following for a truly rustic track, and clawed our way to the top of a flinty ridge, pouring sweat and struggling in our lowest gear. Abruptly the track plunged down the other side – tight turns and steep grades complicated by the size and quantity of the loose rocks which surrounded the ruts.

At the bottom of the hill we collapsed in the shade next to a creek, and thanked our lucky stars Jorge had turned back. By the time (two days later), we popped out on smooth roads, and rejoined the Pan-Americana to cross the border; Russ’s bike was thoroughly christened by “the hardest biking [Russ] ha[d] ever done”, and cloaked with a heavy coat of dust to prove it. We could only hope the drivers in Nicaragua were a little more sane (and that we would be able to get off the pavement and into the mountains quickly).

On New Years Eve we crossed into country number five of our bike tour: Honduras. In the week previous, Jacob had broken both front and rear derailers rendering his bike into single speed mode, and I, suffering from some stomach infection, couldn’t hold down anything more than plain tortillas. With the both of us enduring system failures, we desperately needed some R&R. Luckily the resort advertisement billboards lining the highway hinted that we were approaching an appropriate destination for a much needed break. Faded and discolored by countless tropical storms, they still managed to conjure the image of breathtaking white sand beaches, coral reef diving, rivers of rich rum, and a booming night life.

Upon arriving in Puerto Cortes we were disappointed to find a gloomy industrial port city; suspension cranes towering over warehouses, eighteen wheeled semi’s racing out of freight yards. An advertisement displaying a large hand gun offered directions to the largest arms store in Central America. The ambience made me daydream of shady underworld dealings which, perhaps wasn’t completely far fetched considering that this port was used as a sitting area by private foreign interests for soviet made firearms destined for Nicaraguan Contras in the 80’s (1). We changed our currency (stuffing large denominations under the soles of our shoes –Goat in the secret compartment of his top-hat) and walked around looking for a cheap hotel.

“Can you feel the Holiday cheer?” Jacob enquired, as we passed through a nearly deserted park dimly lit with Christmas lights.
“Festive.” I nodded. “Though, only a fool would stick around for the party without a flashy piece to shoot holes in the sky. We’ve got to visit the arms depot.”

Unfortunately the gun shop was already closed, and not wanting to make the mistake of screwing up the secret after-hour handshake I decide to find medicine for my stomach bug instead. At a Pharmacy, an old lady who claimed to be a medical practitioner diagnosed my symptoms as amoeba, and advised me to take an over the counter anti-diuretic.

“I’m already stopped up.” I pleaded with her in Spanish. “I haven’t been eating. I want to know what I can take to kill the Amoeba”.

She starred at me quizzically, hinting that this tiny pill was all I needed.
A man standing next to her, who I took to be her friend or co-worker, finally interrupted the stand-off, rephrasing what I had already said. She deliberated his words, heaved a sigh and fetched two different packages; one holding ten white tablets, the other holding four green tablets.

“These are more expensive…” She pointed to the one holding the green tablets (the package was marked Secnidazol). “but more effective.”

As I was about to leave my translator waved to me with a package of his own Secnidazol.

“You have the amoeba too?” I asked.

“Of course.” He winced. “And where did you get yours.”

“Guatemala.” I said. “I’m pretty sure a bag of chicharrones (pork rinds) did me in.”

“Man, they have dirty food in Guatemala.” He chuckled to himself.
“And here…” I inquired.

“Oh… uh.” he abruptly stopped laughing. “In some places its worse.”

We found a cheap hotel room was just barely large enough to accommodate the three of us. A giant spider lurked on the wall above a leaky sink, and a hundred tiny bars of grimy soap clung like white leeches to the window sill above the shower stall. The last bit of advice my pharmacy translator had bestowed upon me before we parted was: “Here you will most certainly be shot for your cell phone… just your cell phone”. None of us were particularly eager to venture outside to check out the night life.

All of us suffered from nightmares and awoke restless and itching. Nothing was open (except for a few Liquor vendors) and it didn’t seem that anything would be at any point in the day. The dusty streets of post-fiesta Puerto Cortes were littered with garbage and occasional un-detonated m80s. I searched around hoping to find some relatively sober locals who could relate a sense of the night’s festivities. All I found were tongues bloated from perpetual soaking in Aguardiente (cheap cane liqour) flapping incoherently from bruised and busted faces.

While in the process of aimlessly wandering, wondering what to do with ourselves a man flagged us down in the parque central. Accompanied by his eight year old son, he was hastily scribbling some information being dictated by a cheerful woman of corresponding age. As the woman (beaming with delight) stood up, the man introduced himself. All of us immediately forgot his name. He worked on Uitla (The Bay Islands) as a guide of some sorts, and claimed to be a “champion” in a Honduran bike race (though due to car accident some years ago he was far past his prime).

“Come out to my beautiful home,” he said. “We live in a tranquil fishing village just a few kilometers down the road.”

Our brains dully pondered his offer. Hazily I scanned my surroundings; where was the bustling underworld, dangerous and intriguing? It being nearly noon, the sun was high enough to intensify the unattractive desolation of the ghostly still town. A few locals, perhaps beyond hope of recuperation from the night of celebration, had melted into stains on the sidewalk. Despite the heat, they sought no shade and their coinciding urine puddles proved somewhat resistant to natural rate of evaporation. Not one of us could form a decision.

“Rum flows like water out there, and fish, delicious fried fish!” the man continued to tempt us (quite oblivious to the drunks in our immediate vicinity).

Before I realized what was happening the man had decided for us, and was lifting his son onto the back of my bike. He then set out in front of us, leading the way to Promised Land on foot. Goat had to convince him that it would convenient for all of us if he just accepted a ride on one of the bikes.

“We aren’t far at all,” cried out the man as he threw a leg over the back of Goat’s bike. “Two kilometers at most!”

After eight kilometers of riding I finally stopped expecting the village around every corner.

I turned to Jacob; “This guy wouldn’t have made this trip by nightfall if he chose to keep walking”.

“It’s possible he’d never make it, not with his post accident knee.” Jacob shouted back. “Erh, maybe he didn’t believe our bit about coming from Alaska… wanted to make sure we’re for real.”

My young passenger piped up, “Look, do you see the ocean”. (It hadn’t occurred to me that he understood English.)

Indeed the brown murky waters were now visible, dashing my expectations of crystalline perfection.

At that point we entered a small Garifuna fishing village. It was like crossing to another continent, as the men, women, and children of dark complexion gathered on the beach, or on front porches waved and shouted out to us.

The Garifuna descended from populations of African slaves and the Arawkan of northern Brazil that migrated up to the Caribbean coast. Today they number nearly 500,000 people, spread throughout Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. They are united by a common Garifuna language, which they use interchangeably with Spanish (or English in the case of ex-British mandate, Belize).

The locals appeared to recognize the man and his son, yet it was immediately evident that they didn’t live in the village and had no house to offer. They urged us to stay anyway, assuring us that we could pitch our hammocks in the yard of a man who appeared to be either ill or wasted.

“You can have the shack.” The man seemed to belch his words.

A few feet from the door was a puddle of diarrhea, and on his mattress were piles of soiled laundry.

“Thanks.” Offered Jacob “We’ll have to decide who gets the bed.”

Meanwhile, there was plenty entertainment to be had, as the locals, dressed in skirts of brown grass and colorful masks performed dances to the traditional Garifuna music known as Punta. Each dancer moseyed up to the small drum circle, and paused as if waiting for bath water to cool that essential half degree, before jumping in. Then their hips broke out in hyper-motion as their skittish feet shuffled back and forth. Their whole lower body would vibrate intensely to the break neck pace set by the drummers. Each dancer limited themselves to quick bursts of rapid fire grooves, then picked up their share of communally contributed Limpiras (Honduran currency) strewn on the ground, and swiftly leapt to the side to accommodate the next participant. As people began running out of small change to throw on the ground, the dancers became more hesitant to expend their energy. The dancing fizzled out, and the locals moved on to interrogating their unlikely company: gringo bikers.

Small towns are generally notorious for spreading news of strangers at wildfire pace. Evidently word had gotten around that Jacob was in need of a derailer for within forty five minutes of our arrival a man offered him a used derailer wrapped up in newspaper for fifty Limpiras (a few bucks). It had been fetched at the cost of great effort in ransacking the room of an absent friend.

After the business transaction was completed the man obliged us to eat with him. “We are family now, like brothers, we will fry up a fish and eat well together.” He proclaimed merrily.

Yet on second thought he realized that he hadn’t caught anything that day. “No matter,” He assured us. “I’m sure one of the other pescaderos has some, all we need is a little money to buy some fish and plantains.”

Goat declined his offer, using as an excuse a date with a friend in the next town.

“What’s the deal?” I engaged Goat, surprised by the sudden emergence of this information.

“I met this chill guy,” Goat responded coolly. “with a house on the beach, who wants to hang out with us.”

Apparently, while I was busy hiding from ladrones under moldy motel bed sheets back in Puerto Cortes, Goat had befriended a body guard for a joint that sold lottery tickets. The body guard had provided Goat with his name, Cappuccino, and the directions: “just show up in town and ask around, they all know Cappuccino!”

Fortunately he was right and we were directed to the house by nearly every passerby we encountered. Simultaneous with our arrival, Cappuccino mounted on a bicycle, rolled onto the sandy path to his beach abode. “You are here!” he shouted, “Do you see this. Look around you well! Do you like what you see?” The property was lavished with the shade of many palm trees. “If you go just a few kilometers down the road you will not find any shade at all.” Cappuccino proudly asserted.

His beach front property did indeed have paradise written all over. Benches and lawn chairs fashioned from drift wood were arranged under the shade of palms as if imitation of a resort lounge area.

“I heard you guys danced the punta down the way.” Said the all knowing Cappuccino.

“How the hell did you find that out.” We all glanced at him bewildered.

Cappuccino just smiled, shrugged his shoulders and went off to procure us fresh coconut juice. He was struggling with a machete, cursing its dullness as I threw back my first dose of Secnidazole — a high-dose one-day treatment, not clinically approved in the U.S.A. Bracing myself on my hammock, I attempted to relax and fall asleep, imagining my amoeba helpless and besieged.

Within an hour of setting up camp the sea was roused by a strong wind. I had been dangling on my hammock, toes lightly brushing the sand, when a terrible gale nearly tore my ropes from their stakes. I heard Cappuccino calling me, “Get your stuff into my house, man. The Storm is coming”.

Light headed from the medication, and aware only of the fact that the shack was the territory of Cappuccino and his lady, I was hesitant to obey the command. When finally I began dismantling my floating bed, the wind sent it flying into a brush pile of barbed palmetto branches. As I was untangling the hammock chords the rain began to fall. High velocity water drops sailed through the wind with abrasive force and my clothes were wringing-wet in minutes.

Finally, having dropped my belongings on the dirt floor of Cappuccinos shack, I perused the cramped enclosure. Almost immediately I had a foreboding sense of Cabin Fever – that the sight and odor of my biking companions in these cramped quarters would unnerve me irrevocably. Cappuccino ran into the house and threw us an affected expression as he braced the door with his ample body (his look read: The Wolf was right outside the door, blustering with all his might). A soggy cigarette kept one of his hands occupied, frustrating his attempts to fasten the door to its latch. Jacob finally had to take over.

“Oh sh!!t!” exclaimed Cappuccino between drags from his cigarette. “Oh Sh!!t.” He repeated with greater alarm. “You boys are scared.” He paused, smoke lingering around his mouth as he scrutinized our faces. “No you’re not scared are you?”

“No man, we’re used to wild weather.” Jacob tried reassuring him.

Presently Cappuccino went around the plastic tarp that served as a divider between his bed and the rest of the one roomed house. “Oh shh!!!t” He roared again, the degree of distress in his voice sounding way over the top when his lady friend, pacing around without a care in her head, looked mildly bored.

He came running up to us. “My bed’s already soaked through. We have to do something”. An eight by four foot Coca cola billboard sign was all we had to work with. No nails were required in applying the billboard sign to the leaky piece of wall; the incessant gale held it steadfast. Surveying the quick fix, we realized that very little was achieved. The rain still blew through the bamboo wall.

Without explaining a course of action, Cappuccino ran away, leaving my two biking companions, myself, and Cappuccino’s lady to stand around looking significantly uninspired. Luckily the valiant man returned quickly with a long strip of rubberized canvas.

“Oh sh!!t, get the nails, you (pointing to any one of us) help me with the stool.”

We were all munching sugar cookies that Cappuccinos’ lady friend had solemnly passed around like a captain distributing last smokes to the crew as the haul took on water.

“Now, man.” Cappuccino wailed again, “Before my house blows away”.

We nailed the strip of weatherproofing material to the leaky wall. Then Cappuccino attempted to heave a concrete cinder block up onto the corrugated metal roof to keep it from blowing away. Failing to provide enough thrust, the block fell back down, nearly crushing Cappuccinos head. Everyone took a step backwards, our limbs anxiously writhing as he made several more precarious attempts. Goat finally ventured forward to assist in the launch but Cappuccino, visibly aggravated, motioned him away.

“Stand back!” he screamed.

With a grunt, he heaved the brick into place then turned around, face beaming.

Suffice it to say, we improved the quality of life in that dimly lit shack thanks to the ingenuity of our hurricane relief expert, (Indeed he had a special framed certificate seemingly in imitation of a P.H.D, commending “Cappuccino for Valor in aiding relief efforts in the aftermath of Hurricane Mitch.”) and settled down to find as much comfort as could be had in the small shack.

The front door of the shelter, having been placed facing the sea, was the object of much grief throughout the evening. Its securement depended entirely on the creativity of the person tying its short piece of rope between two nails sticking out of the adjoining wall.

Inevitably the door would rip open and a flurry of brackish dampness would disrupt our habitational equilibrium. Luckily for me, my medication succeeded in alleviating my disfunctional bowel system and, as I was spared from running to the outdoor-latrine every half hour, I dealt little with the ineffectual door.

Cappuccino insisted the storm would not live through the morning, yet the winds held their pace all throughout the next day. Cappuccino brazenly took off for work on his bicycle, and left us holed up in his shack.

Further up and down the Caribbean coast, people did not fair so well in the storm. We were to read in the local papers of two bodies found in the mouth of a river not more than a few miles from our shelter –victims, perhaps, of a fishing boat wreck in the tempestuous sea. The first cold front of 2008 caused waves reaching sixteen feet and winds of up to forty three miles per hour across Central America.

This being a land much used to frequent storms of formidable vitality, I found it difficult to imagine how people could grow accustomed to periods of forced inactivity, much less how they could recuperate when a hurricane like Mitch reduced their homes to debris. After only a day and a half of being shut up in that cramped shelter I was already feeling stir crazy.

In a way I suppose we were blessed with the rest and relaxation we had sought in coming to the Caribbean Coast; Reading and lounging were about the only sane things to do with the gale raging outdoors. Jacob could now ride with multiple gears at his disposal, and I could hold down food. When finally the wind died down enough, we furiously packed our belongings and took off at a sprint.

We had to pass through downtown Puerto Cortes again to reach the highway. As soon as we hit the busy city streets, a hard rain began to fall. Goat went to an internet café to research our route through the rest of Honduras. As I waited for him, sitting on a chair, I saw a man rise form his seat, take his giant pistol off of the computer desk, and stick it down the front of his jeans. The man saw me watching him carry out this procedure, drew a smile and walked towards me.

“That your bike outside,” he asked.

I was too preoccupied, trying hard not to stare at the ridiculous bulge in his pants, to form a yes or no.

“Bad day to be riding through the city, No?” he went on amiably enough.
I managed a slight laugh and nod. Then he tried to offer a bit of encouragement that I didn’t entirely understand (something like, if it rains the very first day of the new-year, it won’t start flooding until mid-April).

“Que le vaya bien (fair thee well)”. He said before taking off.

Goat followed behind him.

“Who was that?” he asked

“Ah….”

“Let’s get the hell out of here.” He said as he stuck two hand-drawn renditions of a Honduran road map into a plastic case. “

The man with gun may have been right about the weather, but we weren’t about to stick around to see if things would clear up. Too worrisome was the threat of unpredictable storms obstructing our safe passage. We were heading back to the mountains.

1 See: Inquiries Look At Origin of Arms Sitting unclaimed in Honduran Warehouse, Stephen Engelberg with James Lemoyne, New York Times Feb. 22 1987

Check out the photos of our most recent off-road travels through Honduras.

 Russ and his Surly Instigator/Xtracycle has joined up with us for a bit riding.  His bio is to be posted soon.

Check out the article about us in my hometown newspaper.