Honduras: Tegucigalpa

When people say they are traveling to Honduras, they usually hear: Don't go to Tegucigalpa or San Pedro Sula! It's too dangerous there! In fact, you hardly have any other choice but to pass through these two places if you're traveling in Honduras by public transportation, as these two cities are the main transportation hubs of the country. And since you're already there, you might as well take a cautious look around.

In Tegus, we stayed at a hotel run by a Chinese man in the middle of the city. It was a cheap hotel and you got what you paid for: a bed, a bathroom, and a fan. But it was clean, centrally located, and the hotel also had a restaurant with decent Chinese food. What more could you want?

We spent a day in Tegucigalpa and explored the city center. Overall, I personally liked the atmosphere in the city center here much better than in San Salvador, for example. It's much less run-down and somehow friendlier, busier. But it's still dirty, smelly in many places, and there are some areas where you should avoid wandering around.

We visited the Museo para la Identidad Nacional. To me, it was a museum of frustration. Not because it was bad, on the contrary. There weren't many exhibits, unfortunately, but there was a wealth of information, organized thematically and interestingly. It was my downfall. Why? It was all in text form. In Spanish text form, to be exact. Well, people who have had the pleasure of going to a museum with me might consider it a dubious pleasure. I'm one of those people who enjoy reading every single piece of text. I mean, why not? I paid for it and I want to learn as much as possible! It has become normal for Jörg to give up halfway through and wait for me outside. But even this strategy would have miserably failed in this museum, because there was simply too much text. Too much information. In a foreign language. And even though I quickly picked out the things that interested me most about the history of this country, I gave up after about 2 hours, frustrated by the overwhelming amount of information and my growling stomach.

Later on the same day, we took a taxi and drove to the Monumento de la Paz, which is located in the largest park in Tegucigalpa on a hill. Apparently, sightseeing is not very popular among Hondurans, as the taxi driver didn't even know the place and didn't even know if you could drive up there. Well, you can. On the way, we passed by Honduras' second largest football stadium, and there was a game that day. Football fans wearing jerseys were everywhere in the streets, it was loud, crowded, and... how can I describe this atmosphere?... somewhat "football-like".... just like everywhere else in the world before a football stadium where a game is about to take place... the world speaks football, definitely. Anyway, even an exuberant fan stuck his face through our taxi window and asked if we could give him a dollar so he could watch his favorite team play today, as he unfortunately doesn't have a job! Seriously? Begging for a football game? Well, too bad that we don't have a job either. Even the taxi driver was very surprised by this and said that he would gladly give some money to an unemployed person to buy milk for their baby, but definitely not for a football game. Same here.

The viewpoint on the hill is quite nice. There's a beautiful park with picnic tables and a playground. The view of the city is really good. Interestingly, most people (including the security personnel of the facility) stood at the spot on the observation platform where you had the best view of the football stadium. That seems to be the insider tip here!

From Tegucigalpa, we wanted to go to Danli and La Venta to visit acquaintances of Jörg's parents. Since these places are not very efficiently reachable by public transportation, we decided to rent a car for a few days. So we drove to the airport outside of Tegus, as I really had absolutely no desire to drive through the city center here.
So we rented this car, a Hyundai Accent, and set off on our journey, which turned into a nightmare. It wasn't that terrible, but once again it became clear that driving and I will never become lovebirds. Especially not in foreign countries. The road conditions were much better than in Belize. There were also crater landscapes of potholes here, but definitely fewer. But there was a lot more traffic. The driving style was similar, I would call it Central American driving style: fast, reckless, idiotic, absolutely insane. Overtaking in curves is the norm here, turning two lanes into three is absolutely common, never mind the double solid line, even the oncoming truck doesn't command much respect. And they all emphasize in unison: Yes, we drive sporty, but we can drive, that's why there are so few accidents! Well, I would like to see that accident statistic!
And indeed, a few days and a few nervous breakdowns later, I got used to the rough tone a bit and even let myself be tempted to some daring maneuvers now and then.
I faced a moral dilemma on the highway through Tegus when the cars in front of me all started to overtake another car on the right. Overtaking on the right? You're not allowed to do that! So what should I do now? And while I was still wrestling with myself, it was my turn to overtake the slowpoke, and the dilemma became even bigger: it was a police car! It was a pickup truck with uniformed guys carrying huge shotguns! Can I really do that? Overtake a police car on the right? I could! And I even dutifully signaled with the indicator.... 😊