Hi there. We were in Honduras for 15 days, and I think we saw a lot of the country, not just the touristy Bay Islands, we managed to get to the real heart of the country right in the mountains, to a place called La Union, in which we were the only “Gringos” in town, and caused quite a stir amongst the locals!

On the road to La Union we met many people, one of whom was carrying a small puppy in a box, awww, how cute, what wasn´t so cute however was the 35mm magnum handgun down the back of his pants. I´ve never seen so many guns as I have done on this trip, both police and locals. (note for mothers: artisitc license used) check out the photos on Flickr you can see it popping out of the back of his pants when he got off the bus.

Once we arrived in La Union, it was like the circus had arrived. We got stares everywhere we went and heard the whispers of the locals “americanos!” “gringos!”. It wasn’t a theatening situation, although you still didn´t want to agitate the situation by getting the camera or wallet out, but we were fine.

The local lads played football every night just next door to the only hotel in town, we were invited down for a game on the second night and Phill and I managed to get 2 locals on our side, and eventually persuded a third, apparently not many of them wanted to play with the gringos, so out of 50 available players our team consisted of me and phill, the smallest boy in town, aged about 9. The only lad in La Union without a pair of shoes or trainers, and a cheeky local lad called Roy.

It wasn’t until the game was about to kick off that we realised that there was a bit of a book running, and it wasn’t till afterwards we realised each team had to put down 5 Lemparas (13.9 pence) in a small crack in the centre circle of the pitch. When this was being explained to us (in spanish) we just pointed over to Dolly and Sue (who were watching from the hotels small veranda) and said “Women” in spanish, meaning, “the women have our money, we will get it for you later”, however out opponants laughed whole heartedly and accepted our bet. We we playing for 13.9 pence (2.7 pence a player win bonus), and they were playing for a night with the ladies! And in a town with a man to woman ratio of at least 9-1, as expected, the local boys played their hearts out. Luckily on 6 minutes, I in my Tangerine colours, managed to slot the ball home, picking up my win bonus, and a night with Dolly. What a lucky guy I am.

After our time in La Union we headed to the capital, Tegucigalpa for a few days, where I convincingly blended in with the locals (left), and from there we made our way to our current destination in Granada, Nicaragua, country number 6 on the trip so far. We had planned to stay here for just 2 or 3 days, but now it looks like we’ll be here for over a week, as we really like it and theres quite a bit to do. Tomorrow were going on a canopy tour, and on Friday we´re going to a nice lake nearby. Granada is right on Lake Nicaragua, but its a bit polluted to swim in. Later on this week there´s a Bull run through the town! sounds like fun! and then after that we´ll head to Isla Ometope, which is in the middle of the lake, and is made of 2 volcanos!

The only thing about Granada so far is the churches and the water company. The churches have this belief that at about 5am to 6am nearly every morning there are evil spirits hanging around, and the only way to get rid of them is with 100 fireworks over the course of an hour. Which can be quite annoying. also the Water company is having an argument with the government at the moment, and randomly turns off the countries water supply on and off! apart from that! things are great! ;)

Finally we leave you with our latest video installment from our 2 weeks in Honduras.

love Rick and Dolly.

Popularity: 4%

Permalink | Travel, Video, honduras, football | Add Your Comments