When I’ve decided on my next third world adventure, the first place I go is to Lonely Planet’s Web site. Their Web site gives me the basic rundown that I need—the background of the country, how to get there, the economy, and its politics; but what it also gives me, which I could seriously do without, is a straight shot of fear.
When I click on the Central American map on their website and then choose Honduras, I drag my mouse over to the Tips from Travelers section of the site. Here is where every scary event that has ever happened to any backpacker over the last six years is posted and it spans the length of the page. Since I like to be an informed traveler, I usually read each episode to see if it will affect where I may be, but then I spend the rest of my time with a thin veil of anxiety infiltrating my consciousness while I pack. I admit this to no one, sometimes not even myself, and then I wait until I arrive at my destination to see how I feel—reality being that it’s only once I land in a place that my anxiety will subside.
This is how it went in San Pedro Sula, the city we flew into that travelers said to avoid. We bought our tickets on Kayak.com just a week before for a reasonable last-minute price, and when we finally landed after a day-long layover in Houston, it was eleven at night, we had nowhere to stay, and my travel mate’s backpack had been lost. There were no taxis and we learned through speaking present tense Spanish with the polizia that we might have to sleep in the airport. I hadn’t taken into account that the city was celebrating a festival and that there would be no vacancies. Luckily, we both meditate regularly, so in moments like these when we have no idea what’s around the corner, focusing on our breath tends to come in handy.
After getting the gist of our situation, a taxi finally arrived with a Honduran woman who worked for Chiquita (the banana company) sitting in the front seat.
“Oh, there is a nice hotel just near my house not far from here called The Banana Inn. I’m sure they’ll have a room.”
The anxiety faded, we were going to be fine, and we didn’t even have to go into the dangerous city, or sleep on the airport floor. We had surrendered to the travel gods, the number one rule in my travel rulebook, which was that when you just chilled out and let go, the real adventure of travel could move you towards the people and places you needed to discover.
After a splendid rest at the USD$55/night Banana Inn, we were ready to get on the budget trail. I explained to the woman at the front desk to tell the taxi driver to take us to the local bus station.
“Oh, but it is very dangerous,” she said.
“Don’t worry. We’re not like most Americans. We have traveled a lot, and we like to take the local bus. We like the adventure, we like it cheap.”
She smiled at my confidence and rattled off my request to the taxi driver.
As I rolled down the window, noting its tint for safety, I realized that Honduras reminded me of Asia. Men did the double riding in pairs on bikes, and there were swaying palms with a tropical breeze. The extreme poverty also showed up as rundown cement houses, mangy stray dogs, and young siblings that played unsupervised on center medians. I felt like I was home.
After our beautiful three-hour bus ride over the mountains to the north coast for ten dollars, we took a twenty-dollar ferry to Roatan Island, the largest of the three Bay Islands. Then we split a five-dollar taxi to the West End, the backpacker area, after consulting our Lonely Planet for a guesthouse, which the West End has plenty. When I travel, I always like to find the best bang for my buck, and I find that if the place is safe, clean, and in my price range, that’s usually all I need since I spend little time in my room anyway. This allows more money to go toward good meals and adventures. Kayaking, snorkeling, deep-sea fishing, beach lounging, jungle canopy tours, and some of the best scuba diving (as well as the cheapest place to get certified) in the world, makes Roatan Island an idyllic destination.
