Tag: San Esteban

I woke up at the hotel in San Esteban(Middle of nowhere Honduras) and started driving towards Catacamas. My plan was to stay with a family member of a friend there in Catacamas.

There was a little bit of rain on the way, but I’m pretty used to it now. I just let myself soak through and it’s warm enough here that I don’t freeze.

I arrived in Telica and was waiting on my friend to get back to me about staying with their family member, but it didn’t work out. So I started driving aimlessly to Catacamas and once I arrived I went to a hotel but it was way too expensive so I continued the aimless drive to Dulce Nombre de Culmi. On the way I saw some gorgeous ranch houses and I started getting the idea that I should just stop at one and ask to camp in their yard. I pulled over once but got some bad vibes and angry stares so I kept riding.

Eventually I stopped at a restaurant outside of town that had a lot of open green space. I ate a calzone and asked the waiter if there were any areas around here I could camp. He said he’d ask the owner if I could camp there. Super nice guy. The owner said yes and I started to set up the campsite as the sun went down.

Within a minute 5 kids had swarmed me and were asking me all kinds of questions. It was a little hard to understand them but they were super excited about everything. Asking me how much everything costs and how I would keep away from the mosquitos. They set up my entire tent and loved doing it.

I grabbed a whiskey at the bar until the lights got turned off around 8pm and I headed to the tent.

I’m thinking this little act of kindness of them letting me use the yard to camp will lead to me making much more bold requests as such in the future. I really would like to camp about once every 3 nights or so. To save some money and to mix it up a little bit. I would love to ask random people if I could camp in their yard. What better way to really meet locals.

I really like Honduras. Everything feels much more put together than Guatemala. The roads are in better shape, the farms are nicer, places are cleaner. But it feels like they’ve embraced capitalism way more than Guatemala. So maybe it’s a double edged sword. But it just feels much less impoverished. Even though the GPD per capita is lower in Honduras, it feels like more of the money ends up with the people.