Honduras

Thursday 17th September
Antigua Guatemala to Copan Ruinas





Another early start as we had 150 miles to the boarder with Honduras, we had to negotiate the nightmare of Guatemala city to get to the otherside. This took almost 2 hours to get 20 miles as we had our first traffic jams and complex ring roads to ride through. After this was a run through the poorer areas of Guatemala before getting to the boarder. The boarder crossig was the usual red tape and a few dollars for various charges even getting your passport stamped carried a 3 dollar charge before they would let you out, also an exit charge for the bike. We then had to pay to get into Honduras, they had to check the bike's VIN before issuing the certificate, they also required 2 photocopies of the passport and V5 documents for which there was another charge! After this a short 10 miles run got us to the village of Copan Runias, ut not before negotiating the road, which had some sections just missing, large secion of tarmac having fallen down the hill.

Miles
Today : 160
Total : 10231
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Friday 18th September
Copan Ruinas
Day off
We spent most of the morning visiting the Mayan ruins, very similar to the ones at Palenque in Mexico, this area is the southern most area of Mayan past culture. The rest of the day spent washing clothes, relaxing and posting cards, I hope the get there.


Miles
Today : 0
Total : 10231
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Saturday 19 September - Day 57
Copan Ruinas to Danli

Today we ride across Honduras, it started with very nice sweeping roads, I was surprised at the condition of the roads, only occasional pot holes and bad surface, occasionally turning to gravel. After about 90 miles the road became dirt, although we had negotiated worse, this was a graded road where mud was mixed with stone to form a sort of surface. After rains this exposes numerous sharp pointy stones making travel like running on a random washboard. As it was dry this road was tolerable with the occasional rut created by rain water not tyre tracks. After this was a major road, leading to the big city of Tegucigalpal, here we ha to negotiate the traffic, as one rider put it, “it’s like being in the wacky races” traffic all over the place, under and over taking. All sorts of mayhem gong on and thrown into the mix police road blocks checking vehicles, probably for the ousted President. As we cam into Danali there had been a pro-president protest and we could here police sirens in the distance. This area appears more affluent, but the rubbish at the side of the road and the people walking carrying all sorts on their backs belied the lake of money.

Miles
Today : 318
Total : 10549