Day 89 - Leaving Honduras

One of the constant concerns on this trip is how will we fare at the border crossing. Even if we spoke perfect Spanish, the processes and procedures at the borders a would still be confounding.

Dealing with El Salvador was nice and simple. Once you actually get to the offices of their Customs and Immigration people, they have signs posted in Spanish and English, letting you know you there are no more fees to be paid to anyone to get into the country.

It's all waiting for paperwork after that, and dealing with the multiple photocopies that every inpector or agent seems to require.

Getting into Honduras seemed a little challenging. In our group of 4 bikers, I elected to stay outside with the bikes at the start of this particular crossing.

I'm still not clear on what actually happened (that whole 3 sides to every story thing..) but it seems our guys felt the Hondurans were trying a extra special scam where some officials were directing us to pay some agents in one office, who then funnel the work to other Customs officals sitting in yet a third office.

I'm not entirely sure who said what to whom, but it was quite clear by the time I came inside to get my paperwork started, that the tensions were through the roof. It looked like our guys were right on the verge of pounding someone. Not good.

All I can actually report though, is that when I came into the office, I was dealing with a small chubby, almost entirely useless fellow, who just keep looking at my 8 photocoipes and commenting on the bad quality. Well duh -- they're from a beat up old machine in the office next door, a machine which probably has not made a decently recognizable copy of anything in last five years..

As I was standing there, Tim came in with the video camera to get the female officer to speak into for a 'translation'. Her instructions were quite simple and plain. She needed to process our paperwork, and we were required to pay in their local currency. If we couldn't exchange the US Dollars we had on our own, we would have to wait for the bank to open in the morning.

From that moment on, everything seemed just fine. I sat at her desk and she processed all my paperwork, and entered the data into the computer in 20 minutes. We cracked jokes, shared smiles, compared the traditional Christmas music of our respective culture's, took photos, and she even shared some of the grapes she was snacking on.

Here's Tim's far more detailed account of the process, including bits I didn't witness..

Honduran Border Official

We left there in the pitch blackness, but according to the reccommendations, the next decent hotel was 32 kms away. No choice but to ride again at night…

Hotel Vista Hermosa in Nacahome Valle is a big luxry hotel with a lovely pool in the inner courtyard, and a large restaurant with just about the slowest service imaginable. Over priced for our standards, but with no other real options the $60 US room rate was the best we'd get.