Honduras to Nicaragua

I started getting the itch to travel this last year. Not just to go somewhere, but to be on the ground, seeing life as it is elsewhere, smelling the air, tasting the flavors and walking the streets. I hadn't been out of the country since residency started but didn't really have a great idea of a place to go or a time. So I conferred with some friends and picked a week in late April to head off... somewhere. My friends couldn't go, but I came to find out that my sister had planned a vacation that same week for Nicaragua and thus my destination was set.

I'd had in the back of my mind for a while a trip to Honduras to visit a hospital on the northern coast started by a Christian surgeon and his family practice doctor wife and thought this would be the perfect chance to swing by. So after a long week of late hours at the hospital (which I have come to accept without such opposition as before), I took an early morning flight out of Albany.

I had planned to spend the night in San Pedro Sula, but after talking to some folks on the plane, I figured out that the northern coastal city of La Ceiba had a litte more to offer, including a ferry ride out to an island named Roatan, known for scuba diving. Walking the streets of Honduras put me on edge moreso than other Latin American countries I'd visited. Maybe it was the swath of strangers warning me about the dangers of being robbed at machete-point or maybe just the looks that I got walking around, but either way, I retired early and didn't seek out the night life during my time there. So after catching a taxi and bus to La Ceiba and spending the night in a cheap hostel, I found myself on a rough ferry ride out to Roatan.

The cultural scourge that is Facebook served me well by connecting me with a classmate from medical school, Camille, who happened to be in Roatan at the same time. I was hoping to meet up with her there, but while walking the streets shortly after my arrival, I ran into some one else first. A girl who had walked by on the street caught my eye and looked a litte too familiar for me to not say something. So when I said her name and she turned around, I was surprised, but expectantly so to see Scarlet, another friend and classmate from medical school, who I'd visited in Boston earlier that year.

I spent the next few hours catching up with her and then wandering around for a while and hiking down the beach to the neighboring town where I ran into Camille and her family. I ended up hanging out with them all night and was treated to dinner, drinks, a herbit crab race on the beach and an evening fire-dancing performance. A fantastic day!

Waking early in the morning and catching the ferry back to the mainland, I traveled all day and spent the night in a sketchy-looking hotel in Tegucigalpa, roommates with a big black guy named Robert, a Nicaraguan working in Grand Cayman and taking the same long bus ride as me from the northern coast of Honduras to Managua, Nicaragua over two days. The actual bus ride was fairly uneventful and found me rolling into Managua in late morning. Two side notes, 1) Tegucigalpa (or "Tegus") is not a very pleasant place to be, particularly on the street at 11p.m. and 2) If you're going to be on the street at 11p.m. in Tegus, having a big, black friend is quite reassuring.

Part of the day's travels included a quick jaunt out to Loma de Luz, an incredible place worthy of a dedicated telling...