Honduras is one of those countries you’ve probably heard of. Remember? Central America… right?? Maybe you could name the capital city (it’s Tegucigalpa, in case it slipped your mind). But what’s your opinion on Honduras? Have you even got one? We didn’t, at least not until we reached here. And even after three weeks here in places like Tegucigalpa, Roatan, Utila we still don’t have any strong views. It’s just nice. Let’s explain… 

Nice Tegucigalpa, Roatan, Utila

‘Nice’ isn’t the most resounding accolade a Minister of Tourism might hope for his country, but we don’t mean to be critical. There’s little to criticise here, but not much to write home about either. It’s not awesome, but not awful. No particularly warm welcome, but not in any way unfriendly. Food is okay, but hasn’t blown our taste-buds. Scenery is… well… it’s there, but you’re unlikely to get a really wow-factor iconic photo-shoot. We certainly took a lot more underwater pictures than we did on land. Honduras is the very definition of ‘nice’.

Tegucigalpa

Our first stop in Honduras arriving from El Salvador was the capital, Tegucigalpa (such a cool word… try repeating it three times in quick succession 😊). This isn’t a characterless city, it has a buzz. And a few parts have real charm, but most of it is only safe during the day. It’s one of the least affluent cities we have seen anywhere on our travels. Even in the up-market Embassy Quarter (where it is at least safe to go out at night), there wasn’t an abundance of glossy restaurants, shops and malls. Other regional capital cities such as San Salvador, San Jose and Panama City appear to leave Tegucigalpa standing in this particular respect.

The historic down-town area doesn’t have many of its early colonial buildings, but as we said… it does have a buzz. We really enjoyed joining a walking tour from the Palmira Hostel where we parked-up (excellent place, by the way!) to see the highlights. There is a thriving indigenous Garífuna community in the city and we lucked-in to see a rehearsal for their dance festival taking place in a few days.

One highlight of the town is a visit to the oldest bar in Tegucigalpa (I guess it says something about the place when a bar amounts to a highlight 😊) to drink their house cocktail – the Carambe. Fancy a try? Mix equal quantities of red wine and gin, add a dash a lemon juice and generous sprinkling of sugar. Shake with lots of ice and serve. Don’t grimace… it wasn’t that bad! Maybe not a classic to challenge the Mojito, but it was actually quite refreshing on a hot afternoon. In some parts of the Central America, a cocktail like this would raise suspicions of ‘Gringo-baiting’ (tee hee hee… look what we can sell at an inflated price to the tourists today 😊). But in Tegucigalpa, there really is nowhere near enough tourism for that to be the case. In fact, the town’s oldest bar looks far from attractive to non-locals and we would really have hesitated to go in had we not been with a local guide.

Roatán or Utila?

North up to the Caribbean coast, we’d had recommendations to see the Honduran Bay Islands of Roatán and Utila. Many visitors with limited time, puzzle over which of these to visit. They’re neighbouring islands but very different. Why? In a word: ‘cruises’. One of the key differences is that the huge Caribbean cruise-liners dock in here…. frequently. Like a ‘several-at-a-time-three-days-a-week’ kind of frequently. Every Tuesday, Wednesdays and Thursday is ‘cruise day’.

Roatán is in any case, far more developed than Utila, but on the non-cruise days we rather liked it. The long white-sandy beaches are picture-perfect, fringed with palm trees, crystal-blue ocean and fish-filled coral reefs for snorkelling or diving within easy swimming distance from the shore. On ‘cruise day’ however, between around 11:00 and 15:00hrs, the place is swamped with the ‘cruise-crowd’. Prices for sun loungers on the beach go up from ‘free if you buy a drink at the bar’ to US$10 each (plus whatever you spend at the bar). So Tip No.1 for Roatán… don’t be there on a cruise-day.

Utila on the other hand, it a very different kettle of fish (pun intended 😊). It’s much smaller, far less developed, no cruise-liners go there, local transport is by tuk-tuk and it generally has a very chilled-out, back-packer vibe. The down-side is that there are only two teeny beaches (about a kilometre or so away, either side of the main centre), the swimming is less inviting, snorkel/dive reefs are far from the shore and there is really very little else… well, actually nothing else, to do. If you’re not a diver, you’d better be an avid reader with plenty of books on your Kindle.

So which is best? It is, as they say… ‘horses for courses’. For Marcus as a qualified dive-master, he found the quality of the reefs and the under-water sight-seeing to be the same. Plus-points for Utila: dives are significantly cheaper (eight dives in Utila for the price of five in Roatan). Minus-points for Utila: the dive sites are further off-shore requiring longer boat transfers. The high swells can be stomach-churning, sat in a rolling boat on the rest-stops between dives. Roatan on the other hand, is more touristy, but has much more for non-divers (like me!) to do. For divers, the Roatan waters are much calmer and reefs are so close that boats can return to shore for the required rests between each dive. There are excellent reefs just off the beach for snorkelling and beginner divers.

So there you go… take your pick. Tegucigalpa, Roatan, Utila are nice, the best is probably under the water! But we’re told that the Cayes off Belize are much better, so stay tuned for a later episode when we will report back on this😊.

Route and Fuel Planning

Now we’re heading back inland to higher and cooler ground. Before we go, we’ll indulge the Cuthbert reader with a quick point about our routes and fuel…

We’ve been in Central America for around four months now, but the we’re still finding it hard to shake-off the ‘distance’ mind-set gathered over two and a half years in South America. Problem is… we still think in terms of many hours, sometimes days of driving between destinations. But El Salvador, is ‘compact and bijou’ and Honduras isn’t much bigger. They’re tiny and it takes such little time between most destinations. Not complaining… just takes a bit of getting used to!

These short distances are a blessing for our fuel planning. Our Cuthbert, with his modern Euro V engine, is a rather choosy sort of chap. He’s a connoisseur of fine diesels of the world. He quaffs the Chateauneuf du Pape of the diesel-world and shuns the low-quality plonk in favour of the gourmet low-sulphur stuff.

Marcus’ research had indicated that after Costa Rica we might have problems obtaining Cuthbert’s beverage of choice, so just before we crossed into Nicaragua we filled him to the gunnels. His three tanks take total of 400 litres, giving us a range of around 2,500 km. That should do us to Mexico, but when we got to El Salvador we saw many fuel stations now selling low-sulphur diesel! It’s widely reported in overlander on-line forums that it’s not possible to travel the Americas with a modern diesel engine, but so far we’ve had no real problems. Just goes to show how things are changing.

Anyway, we’re now roughly halfway round our tour of Honduras, and so far, it’s nice.

Roatan, Utila Gallery