Honduras (in a flash)

Does it count?

As far as having been to Honduras goes, I'd say I haven't. But when customs asks me where I've been I'd have to say yes, as my passport tells me so. So it gets a footprint and you can feel free to post argumentative comments either way below (that's you Johnny, Jools and Scott).

We were in Honduras for around six hours. Five hours and fourty minutes of that was spent on transport - two buses (excluding the one that broke down!) and a pick up. Eighteen of those were at customs upon exiting. And the final two were 'shopping'. Shopping for food. Which is more like running around trying to find something other than whole melons, green bananas or coca-cola with people yelling at you when you don't have time or ignoring you when you want something - all the while with one eye peeled to the bus you left your bag on to make sure it won't be the last time you see it.

It was continuing off the back of the 4.5 hours we bused in El Salvador and somewhat nerve racking as we raced the clock - the Nicaraguan border closes at 6pm!

We made it in the nick of time, thanks partly to some hasty driving from our driver in the ute, who valued timeliness much more than our lives. As we literally dived into the tray with our bags and sped off. The entire time all we wanted was to send a message to arrange a pick up on the other side of the Nicaraguan border. No wifi for the last few hours meant we needed to con a local into making a call, which we were able to do but the success of the call remained a mystery.

Fortunately after much faffing by the border staff (seriously, I cannot fathom what difficulty they face when their job is to scan an E-passport!?) we made it to Nicaragua. We were panicking as to how we would progress from here (its pretty isolated at El Espiño) when Brian from Somoto Canyon Tours emerged from the fading light to offer us a ride to our cabins. We were so grateful! I lay in the tray on top of our bags in the cooling breeze, rushing towards our cabins and so glad for that day to be over!

In summary, it was one car, four buses, two pick up trucks, two border crossings and three countries for a grand distance of only 360 kilometres in a fatiguing 12 hours. Job done. Game on Nicaragua!Read more