Into Honduras

Things don't seem to change much between countries here in Central America; Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras - the history might be different, the politics varies, and in some places the climate can be different, and the currencies have different names. But the culture, or more specifically, the mestizo culture (the main group of mixed Indians-Hispanics) is pretty much the same.

So heading over the border from El Salvador provided us with no great surprises. The first week was spent in the central highlands, first visiting two unspectacular mountain towns, despite their quite optimistic names; Gracias and La Esperanza ("the hope"). The only thing of real note in Gracias was a charity running a program educating local kids with an aim to lead environmental and community projects in their local area - to help preserve the environment, educate those in the surrounding communities and develop eco-tourism opportunities. I can't find a web link to the charity, but here's a link to another charity doing some related work in the area, addressing the huge problem of deforestation.

La Esperanza provided us with the chance to visit some hot springs. Natural hot springs are fairly common around these parts, so its not a huge novelty, but if there are some in the area, and you have a spare afternoon, its better than a kick in the teeth. The interesting event at these hot springs was that what appeared to be a local remote community were on a day trip to the hot springs. It became apparent they had never seen a westerner before, let alone two of the them, half naked sitting in a pool of water, who occasionally did this weird thing with their arms and legs which made them float and move across water. We definitely felt like zoo exhibits for the afternoon, as our audience just stared wide-eyed at us, following us between the different bathing pools at the springs.

The next leg of our journey was to take us to see a man about a fridge....