A frustrating day, but full of miles, beautiful Honduras, and semi-lossedness, with Big Mama taking a heck of a beating.
The day started with some of the best paved roads I've experienced since the states - kudos to the Honduras Government for maintaining their highways. Relatively uneventful riding in the morning, along the Caribbean coast with palm trees on my left and beautiful jungle mountains on my right.
At about 1pm, I got to the town where I was to turn south onto a secondary road that goes inland. At a fork in the road, I guessed to turn left, being that the road looked a lot bigger. At a gas station I asked a guy, and he confirmed that this was the road I wanted. It wasn't paved, which I didn't expect since it was a thin red line on my map. As I went along, though, it got worse, and ended up as what in the states would be condemned to all but Jeeps and ATV's. Miles and miles of switching from second to first gear and back, my butt coming off the seat and the luggage on the bad seat slamming me in the back with every mud-filled pothole. At one point I got to a bridge in pieces - it looked like it had been bombed or a UFO crashed into it. There was a smoother path to the left through the stream and a rough one to the right, also across, but with shallower water, about 2 feet at its deepest. I chose this side, and it worked out pretty smoothly. There was a couple other stream crossings after, but they were paved under the water, and only a few inches deep.
After about 2 hours and 60 miles of this, I saw something that shocked, surprised, and really frustrated me - the Caribbean! I had been on the little dotted black line on my map. There was another red solid line road coming up that went the direction I wanted, so I kept going. When I got to the last town at the end of the road, I had to turn around in a ¨driveway¨ of a family who told me the road is back the other way. When I turned onto what I thought was the road, some guys started yelling from a house across the street. Either that road was no good, or it wasn't the right one, or something - I couldn't figure it out, but they told me to keep going down the road and I'll find the route I need. Pretty soon after not seeing it, I gave up and decided to go all the way back and find a hotel back on the main road before I ran out of gas and/or sunlight.
On the road there was a closed bridge under construction. Going back the other way, I followed a car around a few turns and ended up on the other side. This time there was noone to follow and i turned into what I didn't realize was somebody's yard. Hondurans being like Guatemalans in that not much is private, the guys there were not offended, but thought it was rather amusing. Turning around, I hit some soft sand and the bike fell over, for the first time this trip (besides the incident on the first block of the trip). This only heightened their amusement. Once we got the bike up, they wanted to talk. Through my terrible spanish I was able to explain to them that I've been lost most of the day, etc etc. One of the guys asked if I'd been smoking marijuana, getting so lost like that. A big laugh, and more usual questions. In the midst of the admiration of the bike, one of them mentioned that the luggage would be good for trafficking drugs, with few police problems. During the series of questions, I was asked if I like marijuana, or cocaine, etc. At about that point I also realized that one of the guys had a gun peeking out of his jeans. They were very nice and welcoming, even invited me to come hang out with them, but I told them I needed to find a hotel before dark.
I found a hotel that said ¨camping¨ on the sign, so I figured I could stop and if the room s are too expensive I can set up my tent. It's a beautiful place, but the rooms were too expensive, so I'm camping out. No big deal because there's a nice bathroom with a hot shower and good tap water - some very welcome commodities.
The day started with some of the best paved roads I've experienced since the states - kudos to the Honduras Government for maintaining their highways. Relatively uneventful riding in the morning, along the Caribbean coast with palm trees on my left and beautiful jungle mountains on my right.
At about 1pm, I got to the town where I was to turn south onto a secondary road that goes inland. At a fork in the road, I guessed to turn left, being that the road looked a lot bigger. At a gas station I asked a guy, and he confirmed that this was the road I wanted. It wasn't paved, which I didn't expect since it was a thin red line on my map. As I went along, though, it got worse, and ended up as what in the states would be condemned to all but Jeeps and ATV's. Miles and miles of switching from second to first gear and back, my butt coming off the seat and the luggage on the bad seat slamming me in the back with every mud-filled pothole. At one point I got to a bridge in pieces - it looked like it had been bombed or a UFO crashed into it. There was a smoother path to the left through the stream and a rough one to the right, also across, but with shallower water, about 2 feet at its deepest. I chose this side, and it worked out pretty smoothly. There was a couple other stream crossings after, but they were paved under the water, and only a few inches deep.
After about 2 hours and 60 miles of this, I saw something that shocked, surprised, and really frustrated me - the Caribbean! I had been on the little dotted black line on my map. There was another red solid line road coming up that went the direction I wanted, so I kept going. When I got to the last town at the end of the road, I had to turn around in a ¨driveway¨ of a family who told me the road is back the other way. When I turned onto what I thought was the road, some guys started yelling from a house across the street. Either that road was no good, or it wasn't the right one, or something - I couldn't figure it out, but they told me to keep going down the road and I'll find the route I need. Pretty soon after not seeing it, I gave up and decided to go all the way back and find a hotel back on the main road before I ran out of gas and/or sunlight.
On the road there was a closed bridge under construction. Going back the other way, I followed a car around a few turns and ended up on the other side. This time there was noone to follow and i turned into what I didn't realize was somebody's yard. Hondurans being like Guatemalans in that not much is private, the guys there were not offended, but thought it was rather amusing. Turning around, I hit some soft sand and the bike fell over, for the first time this trip (besides the incident on the first block of the trip). This only heightened their amusement. Once we got the bike up, they wanted to talk. Through my terrible spanish I was able to explain to them that I've been lost most of the day, etc etc. One of the guys asked if I'd been smoking marijuana, getting so lost like that. A big laugh, and more usual questions. In the midst of the admiration of the bike, one of them mentioned that the luggage would be good for trafficking drugs, with few police problems. During the series of questions, I was asked if I like marijuana, or cocaine, etc. At about that point I also realized that one of the guys had a gun peeking out of his jeans. They were very nice and welcoming, even invited me to come hang out with them, but I told them I needed to find a hotel before dark.
I found a hotel that said ¨camping¨ on the sign, so I figured I could stop and if the room s are too expensive I can set up my tent. It's a beautiful place, but the rooms were too expensive, so I'm camping out. No big deal because there's a nice bathroom with a hot shower and good tap water - some very welcome commodities.
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