vive motagua

The Torneo Uncaf finale was held in Tegucigalpa (yeah if that sounds like jibberish you now know how i feel everytime I get an answer to a question in Spanish, Central Amierican club soccer championship is the translation) this fine evening. Benjamin Butterfield and I were the only 2 white people (that I could see) in the entire stadium. Apparently Motagua is not the most popular futbol team in Honduras but I would never be able to tell by the fireworks and enthusiasm in the stadium tonight. What a foreign experience. $5 ticket, ga section, beer being thrown, fireworks being launched, unified chants, they had it all. We left with about 5 mins left to avoid the chaos that would ensue afterwards. Motagua beat the Costa Rican team 2- 0. This was just one of many events I have used the word ‘bedlam’ to described since Ben joined me in Cancun.

Last night at the Guat/Honduras border we spent three and half hours surrounded by squalor and confusion. Poor kids trying to milk us for any money possible. Some idiot telling the border guard our car wasn’t US despite all the paper work. Claimed it was a diesel. We still can’t figure out his motivation. Ginny (or jenny) stuck around after her shift, and the border, closed to help us out. I think she was smitten with the blonde haired, blue eyed Benji. When we first got there she was a bit cold but after awhile she warmed up. As it was we made it through with $1 us left to spend. They wouldn’t take Guat money, banks were closed in Honduras, and we only had $20 in US and they wouldn’t/couldn’t make change, too much was considered a bribe and wouldn’t take it. I scrambled and search to no avail. Ginny loaned us her own money to help us through. She was indeed an angel. We did our best to pass on her generosity. Ben had befriended a teenage kid named Byron at the border while we waited. We ran into him later that night at a gas station. We gave him some cash, coke, gatoraid and a loaf of bread. He was headed our way but we had no room for him. Was a nice kid a bit lost after he left school. Family didn’t want him and he was just hoping to land somewhere.

We slept in a dive motel after dinner at a crappy bar in Santa Rosa de Copan then came to Tegu this morning. Unlike the cluster known as Guatemala City, Tegu has been a nice city. Dirty but nice. Honduras in general is beautiful. Mountain and farms, and land cruisers everywhere. Even the woman are far more attractive than in Guatemala. I’ve lost all my pics from Antigua, Guat so that will have to be saved until I find them. Tikal, Antigua, and Amigos for another time. All deserve their own post when it’s not 2am and I’m covered in beer, diesel soot and cigarette smoke.

Dave Connors

Lead - Expedition Americas

http://www.expeditionamericas.com/

(drove my first Toyota diesel tonight too, wonderful)