September 22nd - 29th, 2004

September 22nd, 2004

Today, our clip seems to be replaced by a loooooong interview of an ex beauty queen from Honduras who has come by to visit, not to mention a long talk with the 12 Salvadorian candidates for miss Salvador. I guess we’re just not sexy enough.

September 22nd, 2004

We bike through tropical terrain past rivers and stuff. We arrive at Amatillo without any cash and the border guard lets us into Honduras without paying. He is pissed and slams his stamper violently into our passports.

Honduras

Beautiful green furry rocky peaks jut out over there but over here we’re out of money and nowhere near a bank. We’re also tired so we ride out of Amatillo and decide to ask for help at a small house. An elderly lady agrees to feed us and let us camp behind her house for the tiny bit of money we have left. Her grandgirls are called Honey and Darling. She shows us her kidney stones and tells us of other cyclists like ourselves who have stayed here.

September 23rd, 2004

We bike to the small town of Nacaome in some bum bursting heat. Everything is so green and good. Johanne gets some green and good out at the bank and we treat ourselves to breakfast number two. Not much farther down the road we pull into Jicaro Galan. It’s still hot, we drink something and think up a plan. We’ve never been to the Caribbean so we talk to the cops. They agree that we should go to the other ocean and offer to take care of our bikes. We redo our luggage arrangement and catch a bus for the capital carrying two backpacks. Bus bus bus bus bus bus bus. Twelve hours later, on a bus near the Caribbean ocean we meet Ivan who invites us to stay at his place. In Honduras no man is served a bottle of coke with a straw, this would be seen as calling him gay. Ivan however is a receiver of many straws. We sleep in his small wooden house after a cooling shower in a small wooden booth.

September 24th, 25th, and 26th

We head to the beach town of Omoa and find ourselves a little hostel with a second floor wooden room. The place is called Roli’s and has a wonderful garden full of lizards, frogs, birds, and mosquitos. We relax, stroll the beach, swim, read, and relax some more. On the twenty sixth we realize that it’s been a year since we got up early… and took the bus to Vancouver to start this trip. This warrants drinking some rum in freshly squeezed orange juice and eating popcorn.
Back at Ivan’s we go for a long walk. This man talks too much, and doesn’t seem to listen. He says he doesn’t like uneducated people who talk and don’t listen.

September 27th, 2004

Bus bus bus bus bus and more bus. Our bags in the back of the bus are pilfered. I loose two karabiners and Johanne looses her prescription glasses and some letters she’s written as well as an embroidered shirt she bought for her little niece. That really sucks. We grab our bikes and roll on down the road to San Lorenzo. Upon arriving in the medium sized port town we follow many conflicting directions and criss cross the town before finding a hotel that doesn’t want a weeks rent in Canada for a night in bliss.

September 28th, 29th, …2004

It is really hot. We can’t seem to overcome an eternal feeling of light-headedness. Johanne has a flue like thing that sucks out the life. We recuperate, mostly. And decide we must leave, our money will not last if we don’t.

We bike up into some mountains and don’t get to the country of Nicaragua like we’d thought. Families on the roadside charge us a little money and make us food. One such family offers us a piece of land to camp on for the night with an amazing view downhill into mountainous Honduras.