10 things I won't miss about Honduras

Highway in Honduras (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

10 Things I will not miss from our Honduras family vacation!

1. Living in a hooch with no bathroom and no running water.

2. Almost dying any time we set foot in any type of moving vehichle.

3. Riding in buses with no AC for hours at a time.  (if only I had come across these travel tips for riding buses in Central American a little sooner!)

4. Throwing up or having upset stomach every other meal.

5. No one speaks English. (I know I should just learn spanish)

6. Wondering what kind meat I'm eating.

7. Going 36 hours with no electricty.

8. Mosquitos

9. Termites

10. The way my hair looks in 100% humidity.

Honduras - Day of driving

Here we go again. If it isn’t bad enough we went for 18 hours straight yesterday, we now have to drive the two and a half hours to the military base. As previously mentioned there are no traffic laws and people drive however they like. My husband is driving us back in a huge van. Although he drove up yesterday this is more or less his first time driving in Honduras. He hasn’t driven a car since January 8^th! He would not appreciate what I am about to tell you, but he drove insane. There were moments I actually shouted. It was scary, but we made it.  I am beginning to wonder if this family vacation is worth it.  Maybe it should be our family expedition!
 
Once at base we see the hooch we will live in.  Now don't let this picture fool you.  It is not as nice as it looks.  This is the picture my husband sent me before we came down.  I asked him if he photoshopped it and he said no.  You can't see the holes in the door and walls in this picture!

We walked to the bathrooms, so we will know the way. We get a tour of things we need to be able to find: pool, tennis courts, rec center, laundry, bx, post office and the hammock shop. What more could you need. We went to the bx and got some pizza pockets for lunch. There’s a microwave in the hooch! We have just enough time to re-pack, because we are now catching a bus with 11 other people to the city of Copan, Honduras for a family weekend getaway.

When seeing the bus there are no happy feelings, but the inside is better than it seems. That’s my view from the back seat.  We get loaded up and Marcos our driver puts the pedal to the metal.  Marcos is intense, but pleasant. He is a short, plump man in his 40’s with a buzz haircut, thick eyebrows and a mustache.   Marcos doesn’t speak any English and he doesn’t mess around. It’s a holiday weekend and he is in a hurry to get home; which is three hours away from where he is taking us. His driving is so much worse than my husband this morning I can’t believe it.  By some miracle, I nor my children throw up.  Shockingly, six hours later we roll into Copan and immediately greeted by Cana Banana, our guide.

Cana Banana seems thrilled to see us. He was standing on a corner and our bus driver just pulls over and he jumps on the van. This skinny man with black curly hair and the darkest tan of anyone we’ve seen is going to guide us around. He too has a mustache and appears to be in his forties. In fact all the older Hondurans seem to have a mustache. He speaks good English.  He picked up English as a tour guide years before. Now he is the go between guy; setting up all of our activities, watching our things while we do those activities, translating, recommending restaurants and all that other fun stuff.  Everywhere we go the next three days he appears and everyone in the entire town seems to know him.

Mr. Banana walks us through the the central park to get to our hotel.  The park is incredibly crowded.  Everyone is watching the painting of the carpets.  Hotel Camino Maya is cute and we get checked in very quickly.  We go back to the plaza to watch the process of the carpets.  I have never heard of this process and I am unsure of what they are trying to make them look like.  Everyone is hungry so we head back to the hotel’s restaurant and enjoy a late dinner and call it a night.
Hotel Camino Maya                         
(504)2651-4646 /4446/4518
info@caminomayahotel.com
http://www.caminomayahotel.com/

Getting to Honduras

     We get up at the ridiculous hour of 3 AM. We hustle to be ready in time for our ride to pick us up. We drive thirty minutes to the Las Vegas airport. I try to curb side check, but apparently you can’t do that anymore for international flights. I take my three kids and go inside to wait in line. We get through security without any issues and on board our first 4.5 hour flight to Miami. My kids are excited to fly, but how long will the excitement last.

     None of the kids can get to sleep on the plane. I’m worried how to keep them entertained when they start a kids movie on the plane, Gulliver’s Travels. Yea! This kills a good two hours.  (Gulliver’s Travels was a good movie and my kids thought it was hilarious.  I thought it was stupid and I can tell why it didn’t do well in the theater.) 

     We get to Miami for our seven hour layer. We go eat at a Mexican food place, Jose Cuervo tequileria.  It looks nice in terminal D, but turns out to be just okay and expensive.  They also did not serve chips and salsa.  I think all Mexican restaurants should serve chips and salsa. 
     Now we have six hours to go. I make the decision to go over to terminal E to the Military Lounge. I’m not sure what to expect.  The last USO place I went to wasn’t that great. I was not sure if it would be open or not and we had to go through security again if we went to it. I am so glad we went. It is a large lounge with two rooms set up for families. Bathrooms, half kitchen, living room, computers, free food, and free wi-fi. We get set up in one of the rooms. It has two futons, blankets, sheets, pillows, tv, and vcr. My kids watch cartoons for a couple of hours and I lay down to rest. Again, no one sleeps, but everyone is at least happy. This is more than I could have hoped for. I assumed the entire day would be a disaster. We leave Miami and head toward Honduras. We are all very excited to see Daddy. We leave late, but at least this is only a 2.5 hour flight and they play tv shows to whole way down.
     We arrive in San Pedro Sula, Honduras at the crappiest airport I have ever seen.  My husband said this airport was way better than the one in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.

Mom Moment: We don’t spot a bathroom until we are already in the customs line.  I tell the kids to hold it.  Not realizing that we have gotten in the line of the girl who is being trained to process people.  It takes an hour to get through customs. 

     We get our luggage and asked by no less then 15 men if we need help with our bags. We walk through the double doors I have been staring at for an hour and the first person I see is my husband. Sweet, Sweet relief. Relief you can hardly imagine. He has driven 2.5 hours from where he is currently deployed to get us. The kids are positively giddy to see him for the first time in 3 and a half months. We have an intense 30 minute drive to the hotel. The locals drive like crazy people. There appear to be no traffic laws here. We make it to our hotel, the Hilton Princess at 9PM. We’ve made it to Honduras and go to bed.