Still feeling disaffected when we entered the bus station in Tegucigalpa. In fact, I'd already left Honduras, climbed up into my head, and pulled the ladder up after me so no one could follow.
Liz determined that buses were our best transpo mode; her research brought us to the bustling Hedman Alas terminal in a light industrial neighborhood. Some enterprising soul had salvaged several rows of seats from an old movie palace, so we settled in to wait for our late afternoon ride to San Pedro Sula, allegedly 3.5 hours away.
Buses are my least favorite way to get from A to B, but I'd learned to deal with many of my least favorite things by this point in the trip. I'm not whiny by nature, though I do reserve the right to express disappointment from time to time. Can you match the nation to the appropriate culturally insensitive statement?
"Huh. Well, good luck with the endemic corruption."
Cambodia
"You fought a revolution for this? OK, whatever."
India
It took an hour just to muddle through Tegucigalpa's evening rush hour and get out of the city. Honduran buses give you a big bang for your Lempira, however: TG to SPS cost only $15 per, one-way. As promised, the buses were luxury coaches of recent vintage. Only two drawbacks; (1) noisy, stupid Hollywood product blared on a color TV mounted to the ceiling (2) AC set low enough to keep meat from spoiling.
My iPod served me well, blocking engine noise, snoring and conversation so I was free to ruminate on the end of our trip and the return home. By the time we arrived in San Pedro Sula, I had an aching right knee, searing lower back pain and a sense of impending disappointment. SPS didn't let me down -- we couldn't find a hotel room when we arrived. Apparently, there were three conventions in town.
The disobliging front desk staff at the Best Western informed us that their rack rate was twice the Orbitz price -- and that they also needed several hours to process online reservations. We hiked several blocks to the Holiday Inn, but they had no vacancies. We worked their hotel operator's last nerve, querying at least 10 hotels from our guidebook before finding a rundown joint a mile past anything of interest.
Once inside our frowsy room, I drew the blinds closed; one of the louvers clattered to the linoleum. Liz laughed, I sighed. We left to find dinner, ending up at a sports bar whose patrons were deeply invested in Lunes Noche Fútbol, Cowboys vs. Redskins.
The next day, we caught an afternoon bus to Copán Ruinas, about three hours away. The bus was barely half-full, so I moved across the aisle to give Liz some room. I'd hoped to relax, but the bus kept an uneven pace along the (mostly) paved highway. Each time we slowed down, I'd peek through the curtains.
I was sometimes rewarded with a glimpse of valleys thick with green treetops and clouds spilling down foothills. But more than once, the view consisted of the underside of an overturned bus or truck -- the result of an anxious driver speeding through a turn on slick, narrow roads. Considering the lack of guardrails and a surfeit of potholes, I'm surprised and thankful that the ride wasn't gorier.
The depot at Copán Ruinas was a hacienda-style building situated at a quiet crossroads. We crossed the street to Hotel Casamarias, a collection of bungalows set in a clearing. As we were visiting out of season, we had to drop our bags at the main office and prowl the compound to find an innkeeper. A construction worker led us to a bungalow fronted by mahogany carvings and a giant cage with a noisy macaw out front.
Hotel Casamarias was surprisingly comfortable, offering air con and color TV -- but not hot water. Too fatigued to search out dinner, we ingested sodas and snacks from the bus station before turning in early enough to tour the ruins next morning before the heat set in.
Around 6 a.m. the next day, we returned to the depot to hail a cab for the ruins. Much to my amusement, most taxis in Copán are three-wheeled jobs with an open cab and a four-stroke engine. The last time I'd traveled in a tuk-tuk, we were in Cambodia.
A man in his mid-thirties buttonholed us near the entrance. I remember him as "Julio," as that was the name embroidered on his shirt, but Liz disputes this account. In any event, he used his able English to offer us his guide services. Harking back to India, I was still suspicious of any and all prospective tour guides, which may have prompted Julio (who ya gonna trust, me or her?) to show us his laminated tour guide permit, and even a yellowed clipping of him working an archeological dig at age 17.
He led us into the complex and gave us a very scholarly tour that was light on personality, and heavy on anthropology. Aside from Chandru, the man who brought Hampi to life for me, Julio was the most knowledgeable guide we dealt with on our trip. For four hours, he led us through a vast array of ruins, pointing out objects of interest with a 4-foot stick tipped by a gaudy orange feather from one of the parrots that haunts the park's entrance.
He'd spent half his life digging, walking and categorizing everything we passed -- plants, structures and loose piles of rubble each had their own dataset attached to them, and Julio was determined to make sure we left with more knowledge than we had when we arrived. At times, he was positively schoolmarmish:
Julio: "And this carving, we saw earlier at the last temple. Do you remember the name of the king associated with this symbol?"
Liz: "Um, would that be 'Smoke Shell'?"
Julio cocks his head to one side and raises his left eyebrow ever so slightly.
Liz: "No, wait. Smoke Jaguar?"
Julio smiles. "Very good!"
After a short while, I stopped playing the dutiful student and let the weight of memorization and repetition fall on Liz's shoulders. I gamely followed Julio's subtle prompts for picture-taking, watched my battery level and tried to be in the moment. As time passed, it became difficult to harbor quotidian thoughts of home while clambering up stairs built thousands of years ago for Mesoamerican royalty.
By tour's end, I was no longer in my head, cleaning litter boxes and schlepping loads to the laundromat. I was sweating under the Central American sun, picturing the ball court swarming with spectators and players, Mayan athletes doing their best to keep the ball off the ground and in play. Each match ended in a sacrifice, Julio said; supposedly, it was an honor to be selected for the blood ritual.
"Hey, I'm in Honduras," I thought to myself as we sat on a shaded bench, drinking tepid bottled water.
Posted by Walter at November 3, 2005 04:14 PM