Lake Yojoa and Copan-Honduras

After the relatively smooth crossing into Honduras I drove about 1 km and was stopped by the police. All in all I was stopped five times before reaching Lake Yojoa.

My plan had been to drive to San Pedro Sula in the far North of Honduras and failing that to stop at Santa Barbara. These are both places the guidebooks stay are safe places to spend some time. Dueto the lost time with the police I didn’t make either before dark and ended up staying at Lake Yojoa. Lake Yojoa is a large fresh water lake in mid-Honduras. It’s a tourist place, but only frequented by Honduran tourists.

Honduras is the scariest place in Central America, for me at least. I hadn’t seen any place worth stopping at since entering the country until I reached Lake Yojoa so I jumped at it.

One of my primary requirments is a safe place to keep the car and Lake Yojoa had a nice one. The problem was it was guarded by four large German Shepards. As soon as I took Bentley for a walk all four of them came at us in a big running attack. They knocked Bentley over and he came up fighting! He was holding his own quite well but was badly outnumbered so I kicked at the lead dog and they all backed up pretty quickly. I didn’t seen any damage to any of the dogs, but they did sit outside our room all night and bark whenever Bentley made his collar jingle.

By the way, the police stops are all of the roadblock type. They don’t chase you down by car, they’re too poor to afford the gas. None of the stops were really bad, they just inspect the papers, talk about the dog, inspect the car and send us on our way. The process can take half an hour or more and you never really know where you stand.

I drove on to Copan the next morning. I took the back road through Santa Barbara. This was really interesting. Very few towns, lots of trees. The whole place looks and feels like the Pondarosa Ranch on Bonanza. Honduras is maybe the prettyist of the Central American countries. The villages around Santa Barbara are full of artisians, each village producing a unique product; woven hats, reed baskets, blankets, pottery, even cigars.

I made it to Copan without any more police stops.

Copan is worth a visit. It’s a wonderful place with impressive Mayan ruins. The city is charming. The people are friendly. The food is good, cheap and varied. There are many foreigneers in town, brought there by interest in the Mayan history.

I’d been exchanging email with Howard, the owner of the Hotel Casa de Cafe. I had hoped to stay at his hotel but it was full. The connection ultimately proved to be very valuable. I asked Howard if he knew of anyone that could accompany me to the Guatemalan border in the morning and help my through the paper work. He said he knew just the person, his neice. Boy was he right, Joyce is a Honduran law student two months away from graduation. She speaks english and, of course, spanish. Any being a student she was quite happy pick up a few extra dollars. The border crossing leaving Honduras and entering Guatemala went smoother than any of the others due to her presence.