Esperanza

I´m writing this in a little town called La Esperanza, which is Spanish for ´hope´. It isn´t really very hopeful, it´s a grubby run-down little place that´s certainly seen better days. Ironically, I´m not even sure if I´m in the right place, I only hope this is Hope. I tried asking people where I was, but for some reason they found this funny. I think their answers were along the lines of: "What, are you in Hope? Is that what you hope? Eh? Eh?" Esparanza also means waiting (I think) and I can imagine I´ll be doing a fair bit of that before I get away tomorrow.

I´m still really enjoying Honduras, even though it is an exhausting place. Most of the roads are unpaved, so bumping around in ancient old buses takes it out of you and it´s impossible to get a good night´s sleep here. It all started in Copan Ruinas, where my room was right next to the bus stop. The early-morning services would arrive and let out volleys of air horns from about four o´clock. Before this relatively civilised hour there would be the dogs, who would gather in the street outside and howl in unison for hours on end. Even sleeping late wasn´t an option due to the hotel owner´s determined efforts to mend the sliding door on his van. He spent three hours every morning slamming it again and again and again. I had to admire his patience.

My first stop on leaving Copan Ruinas on Saturday was Santa Rosa de Copan, a charming little town high up in the mountains. Like all these colonial places it´s a grid of colourful one-storey buildings, many of them hundreds of years old and often decorated with heraldic plasterwork designs. Lions and crowns, and that sort of thing. As always there was a shaded square in the middle, with a church on one side and government buildings on the others. The streets, as always, are paved with ancient cobbles, which keep even the most determined taxi driver down to a walking pace. The climate in the town was like England in April. Not overly cold, but overcast and always raining, just finished raining or about to rain. It was a very pleasant place, or it least it would have been if it wasn´t for the sadistic bellringers on Sunday morning. They started at four o´clock and carried on at ten minute intervals throughout the day. I know that I´ve previously complained about bells, but these were something else entirely - they were clanging them as hard and fast as possible with the sole aim of making as much noise as they could. It was a dreadful racket - the first few times I thought it was a fire alarm or some warning of plague or invasion. I can only assume they did it every time they had a mass going on. But if I had a choice between that and Norwegian satanistic death metal, I know what I´d choose.

After one night in Santa Rosa I headed on further south to a town called Gracias, originally called Gracias a Dios, Thanks to God. It was founded in 1526 and within twenty years had become the capital of all Central America, or at least the headquarters of the Audiencia de los Confines, the Spanish governing council. This was later moved to Antigua, in Guatemala. Today the town is in a state of gentle decay, but its setting more than makes up for its dusty dereliction. Looking over the town is the beautifully-preserved Castillo San Cristobal, and looming behind that is the Montaña de Celaque, the highest peak in Honduras at about 12,000ft. The mountain sits at the heart of a huge national park, which is mainly covered with cloud forest. The picture above gives and idea of what this is. Strangely, when you get close a lot of the forest is made up of pine trees, so that it often looks like Scotland around here. I spent the evening with two sisters, who are half German and half Scots, and they thought the same.

This morning I was again forced out of bed at a fearful hour (by somebody playing Abba at high volume of all things) and went off to catch a bus to here, Esperanza. I thought I could have my pick of departure times, but no, the only bus had already left at five. In a way I´m glad I missed it, because I was directed to a crossroads where you can hitch lifts with farmers in their pick-up trucks. It was great fun standing up at the back holding onto the cockpit with the beautiful countryside and cooling wind, but I forgot about sun and high altitudes, so I´m now as red as a red thing. But it was a sociable way to travel, people kept hopping on and off in the most unlikely of places and everyone wanted to chat. Also, I now know how many people it´s possible to fit in the back of a pick-up - the answer, of course, is two more.