Choluteca

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“Let’s go to Honduras!” It’s not a common phrase.

However, this is what I said on the morning of 4 October, 2015. While my own country is currently (kind of but not really) taking care of a stream of refugees coming in looking for safety, I left that homebase to check out what the (apparently) dangerous part of the world looks like. Why? Because I want to see the bright light in the dark? Because others don’t and I never felt like I’m one of them? Because I want to have a story? Because I completely lost my mind? I guess a combination of it all, but mainly because...

I feel that a real traveller should see the real world and not run away from it.

Normally I shrug the warnings away, I got used to proofing it all wrong. I was definitely going to get robbed in poor Bolivia, they said. Nope, happened in Chile, Argentina and Brazil, the three richest and most expensive countries in South America. Colombia then, my friends and family were already waiting on the call informing them I got drugged, raped and shot in the head by this population of drugs barons. Yeah, best people I ever met, never felt safer in my life.

However, I felt Honduras is a whole other level. Even though I generally do not believe in the image the media creates from a country (I mean, only negative issues reach the news: no country looks awesome if you list up all killings and rapes from the past year), I guess it would be naïve to say Honduras is a peaceful place. Just Google it ‘for fun’, and scroll through all the murders and gang violence tormenting the country. I did. I shouldn’t. But I decided to have faith in this journey and instead of avoiding the misery, use it as an opportunity to help people that might need it more than anywhere else.

Instead of merely travelling from place to place, I soon learned that more than ever before this was going to be a journey through my mind. That sounds spiritual, but it basically means that I got confronted with my own shortcomings and irrationalities (… and recognizing them is one step towards personal growth). I experienced emotions and behaviour I don’t always have under control and that doesn’t bring me any further. Starting with fear. Where I’m usually never scared but just alert, my doom scenarios about this country kept me up nights in a row, making me appear at the border in a state of exhaustion and eyes without confidence: the perfect victim for robberies. Luckily this fear also put some carefulness and rationality in my brain, and I prepared well for a possible theft. My entire body was an undercover Christmas tree with valuables: iPhone, left boob – iPod, right boob – credit card / bank passes / passport / USB back-up sticks, dangling under my skirt in front of my crotch… if it would be physically possible I would have anally inserted my entire laptop to protect it from the Honduran gangsters.

However, it didn’t come that far. That day I would see Honduras only leering at me from a distance.

Stephanie: OCD, organized (because her head is all over the place), well-prepared, stressball. My travelbuddy: all the opposite. Result: One of us did not have a yellow fever injection and got denied access to the country… something that also almost happened at the last border because his passport nearly expired. The ‘woman’ (I could use a lot of other terms here) said he could go back to Managua, get the (hardly available) vaccine somewhere if he could find it and then wait another ten days to try again to enter Honduras.

That would have been some unwieldy misfortune in itself, but in this situation it got quite problematic. That morning we tried to get some cash-out in all three banks the border town Somoto has… two denied our bankpasses, one was closed. I thought we could make it through the border crossing with the $25 we had left, given the fees wouldn’t be too high, people would be helpful or credit cards would be accepted. Too bad, none of this describes the reality.

meLuckily the rest of Nicaragua’s inhabitants made up for the humaneness I didn’t find at the border: Couchsurfer Juacar agreed on letting us stay another two nights. The fat lady of the local eatery agreed to give some food on account. Nicaraguans and expats from all over the country helped me with their advice about the borders, vaccines and even offered a bed via online Couchsurfing and Facebook platforms. All of this resulted in this plan:

As Managua is about nine hours away by public chickenbus (3,5 according to Google Maps with a normal functioning car) and 99% of the people assured they never got checked on that border anyway, I decided instead to try my luck again. I hotoshopped a fake certificate of vaccination. And fake tickets out of the country, in case they’d ask for it. It worked beautifully in the past, what can be a guarantee of future success.
At the border Orestes would pass first and with some exaggerated sign language let me know if he succeeded.
Scenario 1: YES: I would cross the border too. Scenario 2: NO: At least I don’t pay the $2+$12 for the third time, I would go back to Nicaragua agaaaaain and take a bus to Managua for the vaccine. Couchsurfer Gonzalo offered to pick me up and bring us to all hospitals with his car and Couchsurfers Mariana and her brother Lester (where I stayed before) would make their couch available once again. The ten waiting days I could spend for free in a beach house at Playa Poneloya, offered by an altruistic stranger helping me out via a Facebook forum.

Both scenarios seemed acceptable. So… what happened? Lucky bastards as we are, we came across the same ‘lovely’ lady we met two days before. She denied access again, despite the ‘proof’ he had. Even though she was, as she described it the last time, the dutiful ‘Face of Honduras’ protecting her country… in reality she was more than ready to put a price on her people’s health: $160, a bargain. I gave $20 instead, which she accepted too. Good to know how much some people appreciate unpaid volunteers trying to help their country by teaching kids with AIDS and handing out free food. Great ‘Face of Honduras’ indeed *both thumbs up... in the ass*.

* Note: There’s a C4-agreement between Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. It is basically invented to facilitate movement of people and goods between these countries, for locals. For tourists it means you get only a 90-days visa for all four countries (which sucks for long-term travellers and volunteers like me). You can pay for an extension in one of the capitals (in Honduras, $20/30-days), or exit one of these countries for a few days and re-enter.

The sum of the media, my fears and this recent experience could be described as quite grim. No one was therefore more surprised to drive into the Honduran landscape and find an indefinite spectacle of beauty passing by. Even though the landscapes are comparable with those in neighboring countries, here they were greener, wider and especially emptier than anywhere else in Central America. This is how the word would have looked like without the intrusion of humankind.

I absorbed the tranquility and tried to imagine violence in a place like this. It seemed impossible.

Once I drove into the city and stared at the KFC’s and modern parking lots, I realized that at the same time this country is way more developed than the previous country I visited, Nicaragua. So there it was, my first real impression of Honduras: Green, gorgeous, empty, kind-of-developed and hot. Very, very hot.

In Choluteca I met up with the friendly Douglas and his colleague Rafa, with whom I got in touch via Couchsurfing. He showed me my private room in his humble house. There were just four walls and a mattress, but honestly, what does one need more? While Orestes tried to explain veganism to these two astonished Hondureños living in a carnivore society, I concentrated on the music coming out of Douglas’ laptop: Rammstein and Cradle of Filth. Memories of the many concerts I visited of these bands flashed before my eyes and I found it almost unreal to hear these guitar riffs filling the room somewhere at the other side of the world, while some Latino tried to hum along with the German lyrics. Dreamlike.

I woke up with a refreshing shower. And by saying this I probably have to redefine the concept of ‘a shower’ for you: First I walked outside with a bucket and filled it up with rainwater, trying to ignore the mosquitoes breeding in there. Then I removed my clothing and wetted my body by scooping out water with a smaller cup and pouring it all over me. I put on soap and some shampoo and repeated the process. Done. Water-saving and quick.

But… quite a hassle if you realize I had to do the same when doing the dishes, washing my clothes and flushing a substantial #2 down the toilet (quite a project). The plan was to get the guy vaccinated (at last), but as due to some nothing-special-we-just-don’t-work-on-national-holidays the clinic was closed... so Rafa guided me through the Santa Cruz neighbourhood and San Antonio market instead.

Even though tourism and Choluteca are not related in any sense, this is the place to go to if you want to show your family some holiday pictures. Cobble stone streets, a church and a watermelon statue. Say cheeeeese!

The next day I decided therefore to escape Choluteca and hunt down some sand and sun at Honduras’ Pacific. Douglas and Rafa promptly shut down their business, a phone repair shop, and joined me on my daytrip.

Enjoying the views on El Salvador, time after time lifted up by giant monster waves, I realized this is the Gulf of Fonseca. A name I remember out of my geography classes in high school.

It would have remained only a name to me if I wasn’t lying right in it that afternoon. And that’s why I travel.

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