Hospitable Guatemalan family and onto Honduras

Recharged with positive energy from seeing my sister Angelica in Oaxaca (pic), I finally made my way down south towards Guatemala. Made my way from Oaxaca to Tapachula on an overnight bus, had a heavenly delicious "licuado de yaca", which is a blended fruit juice with jackfruit, milk and ice!! I thought I could only get jackfruit in Thailand/Cambodia! Wonderful combination! (If you're reading this, try it!) After the stop over, I headed onward to Guatemala City. About 20hrs bus ride later, I was pretty pooped. So when Luis (pic), my Guatemalan bus companian who's lived 20 yrs in the States offered me to stay at his home for a day before heading onward to Honduras, I couldn't refuse his generous offer as the thought of staying in Guatemala City (i believe more dangerous than Mexico City), did not appeal to me! I ended up spending 3 nights at his home, was treated like a family member, and was even offered the room of his mom. I felt really bad but Luis told me that such is the hospitality of the Guatemalans. I ate traditional Guatemalan food, kissed every member of the family about 3-4 times a day (as is per custom, after waking up, when leaving the house, when arriving home, when going to bed!), and served as a guineapig for Luis, as he was eager to become a tour guide in Guatemala after spending so many years in the US. What is there to complain when there's food, lodging, warmth, and good company :)

After a short stay in Guatemala (I intend to return, and even promised Luis' family (pic) that I will as they told me they want to prepare me more specialty Guatemalan meals upon my return), I headed onward to Honduras.

Bus trip: Guatemala City to San Pedro Sula (Honduras). Crossing the border consisted of getting off the bus, walking through a hole in a wired fence, turned the corner, and was pointed to the Honduran immigration "office". I've read a lot about Honduran officials demanding more than the usual required 60 lempiras ($3US), so I chatted up nicely the immigration officer and ended up leaving with a map of Honduras for a 1st time visit to the country :)

The ride was rather smooth thanks to dimenhidrinato (Gravol), which made me sleep through 9h30 of the 10h30 ride! As much as I dislike injesting tablets of any form, this was highly necessary as my last 2 long bus rides left me with nausea for 1 1/2 day afterwards each time. Not sure if my body is simply trying to cope with the wide change in diet, or from the 2/3 antibiotics treatments ... which as a result made me very vulnerable to motion sickness and I suspect that I may have a light version of hypoglycemic syndrome. Another life saver for sleeping through the ride is that, I later learnt that the toilet didn't work nor would the door close... so much to say that I bought the ticket through Galgos, a so-called "1st class" bus company. I only realized afterward that Galgos just served as a booking service and sent an un-uniformed guy to pick us from from their bus terminal to "Congolon"! Once I got onto the bus, my ticket was taken away from me, leaving me with no proof of purchase, leaving me quite uneasy. Welcome to Honduras! already more chaotic further south I go!

During the little time I was awake, I met my 1st Honduranian woman who told me of her difficult life conditions back at home. Lost her husband & 1.y.o baby in the same year, had no job, thus no food. Thus driven with desparation crossed the border without paper to Mexico to find a job by knocking door to door. She sends money home whenever she could via Moneygram or another company of the like, which charges an extortionary rate of fee + exchange... about 25% of her hard earned bread $ was lost in translation... We gave each other a heartfelt goodbye and exchanged a warm hug. This left me a bit shaken... onward I trodded on and took another bus to "Tela", a quiet beachfront city. Not much here other than a stop over town, in which I ate street fruits and got slightly sick again...

Tela to La Ceiba: 50km, 2 1/2 hr bus ride, $2US later (I don't recall the number of stops we made... too many!) I met the 1st ever Taiwanese traveler on my trip! He actually came from Taiwan to do a similar tour as me. I decided to hang out with my taiwanese counterpart before departing to the kind of homey feeling, like a strength before I move on further. I even had a taste of a taiwanese snack!

(After much struggle, the pics are up!)

The little house with the eggs was inside the Guatamalan family's home :) cute!!!