My introduction to Honduras was a challenging one. On the first day I had to grind up the toughest mountains since Colombia. Uphill for 20 km which took me five hours–a 1200 meter elevation gain. Then, when I reached the top, it was cold and started raining. It was nearing the end of the day, too, and no towns nearby. Then a guy passed by and said there was a nice hotel in the next town, about 15 km downhill. So I waited an hour for the rain to stop then sped down to a nice room. All’s well that ends well.

Here I am all bundled up before the rain along with a view from up on high.

I stopped for a break and this group of kids came by, just walking on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere.

Here is a photo of women doing the laundry in a river. Just don’t swim downstream.

I finally made it to the city of San Pedro Sula where I promptly got sick AGAIN. Sore throat, runny nose, etc. It must be all the unsanitary conditions, plus the diesel exhaust. Anyway, no pix of SPS.

I passed through the port town of Puerto Cortes, where I attended a football game between two local teams. While there I snapped this photo of a young spectator.

I continued along the northern (Caribbean) coast to the the town of Tela. For some reason (left over bug from SPS I guess) I was completely exhausted. I almost passed out a couple times right there on the side of the road. I had to lay down in the dirt to recover. It was very weird. I could hardly walk. After only riding 60 km I had to stop and camp out in a field. I was too tired to notice that I set my tent up near an anthill. Before I knew it they had bitten me all over and left huge red welts all over my body. So I really felt like dying that night between the exhaustion and the itching. Not my best night.

The exhaustion went away the next day however, as did the ant bites eventually, and I made it to the beach town of La Ceiba. While I was there it rained. I mean, real rain. Buckets of it. I had to hole up in a camera store downtown for two hours waiting for it to abate. Meanwhile the area got flooded. Here are a few shots of the rain and flood.

I also visited an interesting museum in La Ceiba. A guy whose hobby is collecting insects put them on display. He has over 13,000 of them, mostly from Honduras. Here are a few pix.

After leaving La Ceiba I made my way to Tegucigalpa, the capital. To get there, though, I had to ride the Camino de la muerte, the road of death, so named because of the hijackings and robberies that occur there. In fact, the day before I rode it, a bus was hijacked and robbed, and some people killed. I was, naturally, a little nervous. But the road was as peaceful and serene as any I have been on the whole trip. Just lucky I guess.

Tegucigalpa is the end of the road as far as phase one of the trip goes. I’ll fly back to Miami in a few days and prepare for the real difficult part of the trip. Over the next 18 months I will attempt to bicycle through China, Central Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. More about that soon. Watch this space.