A Night in Gotham City

You know how I said Managua was in dire need of Batman?
I changed my mind.
Actually, no, it does, but we found a place that might need him first.

San Pedro Sula, Honduras.

We spent more than 12 hours on a TicaBus, A/C blasting on high the entire time, freezing its occupants. Maybe this is a preservation technique so we don't rot on the bus...

(If you look close you see that those white specks are the sprawling slums of Tegucigalpa)

We stopped briefly in Tegucigalpa, but only for a few minutes and then we were back on the road. Honduras is weird because it looks like California. Or BC. The trees are the same, the golden hills... If it weren't for the sprawling slums reaching out from the cities, or the tiny shacks with a random goat out front whizzing by like clockwork, you could be anywhere in North America.


This feeling changed the moment we arrived in San Pedro Sula.
Our plan had been to get there, and immediately catch another bus to La Ceiba, sleep, and get the ferry in the morning to Utila. This changed when the bus was like 2 hours late arriving in SPS. So we arrive. In Honduras' largest city. At night. In a giant closed bus terminal. With nowhere to go.

(I didn't have any pictures of San Pedro Sula, so here's a photo from The Dark Knight.)

We only found out later that San Pedro Sula is on a list as the current most violent city in the world. Keeping in mind, that means its the most violent, record keeping city in the world. Africa, for instance, is full of much worse places, but they don't document.

Regardless, this town FELT full of evil.
We grouped up with a couple from Holland who were in the same predicament, and had the bus driver talk to a cabbie for us. He told him to take good care of us because we are his passengers and he is responsible for us. Whether or not that counts as a reason to take good care of us, we were happy to have someone who knows how things work talk to the cab driver.

He took us 20 minutes to a hostel and charged us all way too much.
Inside the hostel, was a poster from one of the most disturbing grotesque "rip people in half" movies of all time, named "Hostel". This movie single-handedly reduced the tourist industry 193%. I made that up, but I'm pretty sure its true.

I know you're all sitting in suspense asking yourselves the obvious question here, "Did they get kidnapped and/or sold into human trafficking?!?"

Yes. Yes we did.

I'm typing this on Windows 98' in a garage.

For those of you who are concerned and following at a slower pace, thats ok, don't feel bad, I'm very convincing.
But I am kidding.

Miraculously, we lived. The cab driver picked us up at...guess what time...5am. He charged us WAY too much, but got us there safely. The bus did NOT get held up by machete wielding bandits, much to the dismay of "andiamotony" who had a very unfortunate experience on a Hedman Alas bus in 2007 and has spent his entire life since then, littering every forum on the internet with angry rants at people who dare to suggest they might actually be a good way to travel. Which they are.
They are deluxe and comfy, and go straight where we need to go. Within Honduras anyway.
Except their choice in movies is peculiar. They played a series of "Dennis The Menace" type movies, including "Dennis The Menace" and a couple others I've never heard of, all involving the unknowingly menacing child and the doofy kidnappers who get seriously injured and end up covered in something gross.
I severely hope that remains the worst thing about our bus rides through Central America.