Granada to Utila
So we got to Granada next, which was nice enough, but I wasn´t that impressed. Just another big town. We did find some unique foods - like fried cheese with honey on top. Which was… not as good as it sounds. And we found a food I´d been craving for a year, ever since Ecuador… Humitas! Well, they call them something different here, but they´re the same thing. Young corn ground up, stuffed in a banana leaf and made into a tamale. They are sweet (naturally, without sweeteners), and absolutely delicious. They are also a decidedly messy food, since they get everywhere. But it´s worth it!
After that we caught a bus to Masaya, intending to wake up and go to the Volcano there in the morning. We got off the bus too early in Masaya however, which was a much larger town than I had thought, so we had to wander ¨6 blocks¨ into the center of town to find hotels. It was closer to 2 miles, after dark in a strange town, but it was nice anyway… I got to eat more street food, which is my number-1 favorite thing to do in Central America. This time fried potato cakes with sauerkraut on top!
So we finally found a hotel and next morning we were up at 7 to go to the volcano. Negotiated an appropriate price with the taxi, got there, only to find out it didn´t open for another hour yet. (Who knew volcanos closed at night??)… so anyway, we didn´t want to wait so we skipped Masaya and went on to Managua. From there after finding a bus in yet another hectic bus station, we headed for the Honduran border. But first, the bus had to cruise through the local market, very slowly, trying to find more passengers. This made me unbearably hungry by tempting me with food on all sides, so I hopped out to go buy food. This freaked Crystal out, who stayed behind, but… I knew what I was doing. Really! So I found some more Humitas and hopped back on the bus just in time and this way I didn´t have to ride hungry!
At the border, we were disappointed to find that they didn´t stamp our passports. But they did give me a FREE Honduras map … (after I paid them 7$ to let me into their country) … hey, maybe the map wasn´t free…?
Anyway, I did learn a lesson here that I already knew, but this helped to cement it. That lesson is, always agree on a price firmly up front before letting anyone do anything for you. See, this is a rather long walk across the border here, and we were tired, so these tricycle taxis showed up to take us across. I asked how much, and he said ¨a small tip only¨ so I left it at that. Big mistake. They took us across the border, guided us through immigration, not that we really needed any guiding, it was a snap, and then they asked for their tip. So I gave them 3$ for the both of them. They had a hissy fit and demanded 20$. For a 30 minute ride. I said not a chance and offered them 4. They demanded 15 and were both screaming at me and quite a crowd had gathered. So I offered 5, and they were protesting and demanding 10. What I should have done at this point was, instead of offering more money, start offering less. Less or nothing. That would have solved the problem.
Anyway, I think I wound up paying them 10$ to make them go away. Then the tension broke and the locals all started laughing. One of them who wasn´t laughing pulled me aside and told me to always agree on a price before hand because I had just been fleeced. He said these guys had earned about 50 cents and I´d given them 10 dollars. He was quite angry at them. Oh well. I learned the lesson and so I consider it money well spent. So then we caught a collectivo, (shared taxi-bus), which is always cramped and overcrowded. Then we caught a real bus to Tegucigalpa, spent the night there (it was raining, so it wasn´t a very nice impression the town left) .
Catching a bus in Latin America is always interesting. The buses hire hawkers to go out and pull you in from the street to their bus/ticket window/office. And these hawkers will lie and do anything they have to do to get you to their bus. They´ll tell you the other buses leave later, are slower, are broken - even when the other bus hawkers are right there, telling you that these buses have bad seats and stink, then they start cussing at each other, it´s quite an experience. I generally assume both are lying and ignore them and find my own way if possible.
As we left Tegucigalpa the next morning we passed through a market, so I leaned out the window and bought some more humitas from a lady on the street. Just asked for them and she ran up the bus window as it was pulling away and I gave her the money. Like a dollar for 4 huge humitas.
After we got to San Pedro Sula, we saw our first real bus station. Up until now they had all been, even in the cities, scattered over several blocks with independent stations. But in SPS they had a real, huge, bus terminal where all the buses stopped. Which made it much easier to find your connection. We stopped there for awhile and had lunch, which was nachos and mondongo. Mondongo, for the uninformed, is essentially beef gut soup. It was better than it sounds. Gigantic bowl for 2$ too.
Then we took a bus to La Ceiba, where the ferry leaves for Utila. Had plantain french fries for dinner, with fried chicken. I ordered one, but he understood one for each of us, so we got two. Then I tried to get a to-go box for the one I hadn´t eaten and he put in an order for a third one. Luckily I stopped him before he got it made and explained that no, I JUST wanted a box, not another meal!
It was still raining the next morning, and we had heard the boat left at 9 am. So we were up early because the taxi drivers told us the bus system was very hard to navigate. I was skeptical, but I wanted to make sure we didn´t miss it, so at 7am we started walking towards the bus stop. Found it and in a half hour we were at the boat dock. So it wasn´t that hard after all, it was yet another taxi driver lie … after all, us taking the bus cost him a 5 dollar fare!
As it happened, the boat wasn´t scheduled to leave until 9:30. As it happened, it was late and didn´t leave until 10:30. So we had 3 hours to wait. The ticket counter had one extremely slow woman taking the tickets, and at least a 150 people in line, so it took about 2 of those hours just to get everyone a ticket.
Then, as the boat loaded, they loaded the bags separately and put them in a dry hold. So most of the people finally got on, and then as we were pulling away from the dock, there were about 10 people who the boat refused to let on. They said it was full. But they already had stowed their bags on the boat, and they had bought tickets! So of course the people started raising a stink and eventually they consented to let them ride.
The boat ride over was extremely rough. A large percentage of people got sea sick. I would have loved to have the dramamine concession on that boat. I of course thought it was quite fun. Some of the swells were at least 15´ tall and the boat had quite a bounce when it dropped to the bottom. Most of the boat was wrapped in a plastic cover to keep the passengers dry, and it was quite a large boat. However, there was space outside the plastic in the bow of the boat for passengers to ride, and I knew the bouncing was worst on the front of the boat, and naturally that is where I wanted to be.
It was rather cold this morning, and as I said, somewhat rainy. And with these waves, we were constantly drenched while being bounced. For about an hour. And I mean, really soaked. I have a picture of one of the waves hitting us, but I can´t upload it right now. But it was quite an exhilirating ride. When I got off I had been soaked so many times that I had salt caked on my skin. And that brings us to Utila, where we spent nearly a week, and that will be the next entry…
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Posted on February 15th, 2009 by Natnee and filed under Honduras, Nicaragua |
