November
13, 2000
Honduras?
Why
Honduras, you might ask? When I tell people we're going
to Honduras for 8 days they just look at me with a blank
stare or an incredulous bewilderment. I don't remember when
it was exactly that I decided that we should go to Honduras
for our vacation. Sometime over the summer when I couldn't
take any vacation time due to work responsibilities and
David had 2 full months off, we realized that we hadn't
had a vacation together since our trip around the world
that ended in May 1999. Looking at our conflicting work
schedules, it appeared that we'd have to wait until the
following summer to go anywhere together. Frustrated, we
took a closer look at the calendar and discovered that David
had 3 weeks off around Christmas and wondered if I could
get a week off then.
So, it had to be somewhere warm in December and David wanted
to go SCUBA diving, something we hadn't done since Thailand
in 1998. I just wanted to go someplace exotic and exciting.
After a little research, I came up with Honduras, a country
that has the second largest barrier reef in the world and
thus excellent diving, and some of the best Mayan ruins
in Latin America. It is also the second poorest country
in the Western Hemisphere and not as heavily touristed as
it's neighbors Belize, Cost Rica, or even Guatemala; a perfect
blend of adventure and culture.
the beautiful islands and their people.
A
co-worker who has friends who SCUBA dive and had been to
Roatan Island, one of Honduras Bay Islands group,
a couple of times, and enjoyed themselves very much. Once
we decided on the resort, I had to figure out how to get
us there. Roatan Charter offered us a flight on TACA from
Los Angeles to Guatemala City and then onto San Pedro Sula
in Honduras for about $750 a person. The lowest price I
could find online was $890 per person. Then I remembered
that we had 70,000 American Frequent Flyer Miles. I called
American and they said that yes, they fly to Honduras and
it would cost us 35,000 per person. Great! Sign us up! Not
so fast
of course there are blackout dates and oh,
by the way, no seats available for the dates you would want
to travel. They said to try back every night at midnight
and see if any reserved seats had opened up. Discouraged,
I let it drop for a couple of weeks. Then I discovered that
TACA accepts American Airline miles and they have no blackout
dates. I called back and yes, they had seats available for
when we wanted to fly!! Book em! So we got our tickets
and they only cost us $14 each in taxes.
Next,
I started looking into the non SCUBA related portion of
our trip. I want to combine the dive resort time with a
trip to Copan to see the ruins. The dilemma was how to get
there from San Pedro Sula, a distance of about 125 miles.
There are public busses available, but that would necessitate
going into the city from the airport, finding the bus station,
and the correct bus, after a red-eye flight. Not to mention
a 5 hour bumpy bus ride after all that.. Also we would have
to depend on a public bus to get us back a few days later
in time to catch our flight out to Roatan. Another option
was to book a 3 day, 2 night package through Roatan Charter
that included transportation, lodging, all meals, entrance
to the ruins, and a guided tour of the ruins. However, this
didn't give us the flexibility or independence we like to
have while traveling. We would have to eat all our meals
in the hotel, and since we have to do this on Roatan, I
really wanted the opportunity to eat in some different places.
Also, it seemed to be very expensive when I broke down the
cost of everything included in the package.
Then
I had a flash of brilliance! Why not rent a car and book
our own room? Ultimately, it comes out a bit more expensive
than the package, but we'll have 3 days in Copan to do whatever
we want, whenever we want. So I booked a room at the Casa
de Cafe, a bed and breakfast run by an American ex-pat and
his Honduran wife and a 4 wheel drive Nissan Pathfinder
from Thrifty. Let's just hope all goes as planned
Part 2: Adventures
in Driving