Honduras Part 1 — The Day We Split Up

Remember way back in El Salvador when I said the border decisions we made would have big ramifications? Here they are.

Original plan: no rental cars in Guatemala or Honduras. But after El Salvador we realized how much we liked having our own vehicle, so we rented anyway. Which meant that when it was time to leave Guatemala, somebody had to drive the car four hours back to Guatemala City and return it, then fly to Honduras and meet everyone. That somebody was me. The family’s trip to our next Airbnb was an hour and fifteen minutes across the border. Mine was going to take two days.

I got to the airport at 9:50 for a 12:45 flight. The airline told me my flight had been rescheduled and had left five minutes earlier.

Here’s the part that’s on me. Two weeks before, I’d gotten a weird email from Tag Airlines saying my flight had changed to Roatán → San Pedro Sula. That made no sense — I was flying Guatemala City → San Pedro Sula — so I wrote it off as spam. Turns out they’d added a Roatán leg. Guatemala City to Roatán, six-hour layover, then into San Pedro Sula late at night. Real email. Real flight. Gone.

Next direct flight: 5:30 the following morning. Everything else routed through Panama or El Salvador and still meant overnighting in a country I wasn’t trying to be in. So: one day in Guatemala City. I found a Pizza Hut with reliable wifi and did all my rebooking from a booth, and happily enjoyed it with the crowds outside — World Cup. You could hear the cheering from blocks away. I booked a pod at a hostel for $10, which for anyone who hasn’t done it is exactly what it sounds like: a slot big enough to lie down in, not big enough to sit up. Bed, bathroom down the hall, done. Watched the games. Honestly, not the worst day.

Flew out at 5:30, landed in San Pedro Sula at 6:45, and found out none of the car rental counters open until 8:00. So I sat. Got the car from Avis (they had a drop-off in La Ceiba, which fit the plan — pick up in one city, tour Honduras, drop in another) and was on the road by 9:30. Google said Copán Ruinas in four hours.

Two and a half hours in, Google flags an accident ahead. Doesn’t look bad. Then traffic stops dead.

This isn’t my first traffic jam in a place where lanes are a suggestion, so after 25 minutes I became one of those guys and started filtering up the shoulder. Took another 40 minutes to reach the front, where there was a jackknifed semi. Fine, they’ll clear it. Except I watched for fifteen minutes and no cop went anywhere near that truck. There were police trucks driving back and forth, but they were staying a good 150–200 yards back.

So naturally I got out and walked toward it. Passed the cops, who gave me some looks. Got to about fifty yards from the crowd around the truck, and that’s when I registered two things: everyone in that crowd was wearing a mask, and most of them were carrying machetes.

I turned around and went and talked to a cop.

It wasn’t an accident. The neighborhood along the highway was protesting and had shut the road down. I asked if the police were going to do anything. He said no, it’ll die out. I asked how long. He said no idea, but it’ll die out.

I sat in the car for another hour. Started running numbers on what it would cost to just drive through and hand out cash on the way. Considered buying a couple cases of beer and putting them on the hood as a peace offering. Then I noticed cars turning around, and flagged down a kid driving a tuk-tuk. The cop had told me this was the only road. I asked the kid anyway. He said sure, there’s another way — not on Google Maps, but the locals know.

Told him I’d give him five bucks to show me. He led me back fifteen minutes along the highway and then through a tiny village on back roads, past the debris and the jam. One group had a section blocked and stopped me, but they were just asking for food money — I gave them five dollars and they were genuinely happy about it and waved me through. The kid pointed down a road, said take this one, good luck. Paid him his five.

Forty-five minutes of detour later I was back on the highway.

Four hours became about eleven. But I got to Copán Ruinas, and the family had had a great day without me: ziplining and Macaw Mountain. Nobody missed me even a little.

Back together. Honduras from here.

#unpavedparenting