Honduras with Molly & Kingsley

After repeated visits to Guatemala and Mexico, Bucher and I finally branched out to another neighboring Republic. Honduras is the backward child of Central America…underdeveloped except for the banana industry, a country of mestizos grown away from its earlier Mayan culture and lacking native arts and crafts to a degree that exceeds even British Honduras.

Molly and Kingsley Fox joined us on the trip in Cessna Zero-Four-Uniform. They are British friends who, according to Molly, “speak American.” As a matter of fact, they are closer to America than to England in their views after thirteen years in Peru with an American mining company.

Bucher had business In San Pedro Sula, so we spent the first night of our weekend there.

La Lima, a little southeast of San Pedro Sula in a broad valley just past the first range of low mountains inland from the Bay of Honduras, is a rapidly developing area and the economic heart of the country. Its businessmen take enormous and well-deserved pride in the expansion of that part of the country in the very recent past. As a matter of fact, they have used private funds to build a magnificent jet airstrip between the two cities, anticipating the time it will be needed. We could have landed eight or ten times on its length.

The terminal building is still under construction and I never have seen such casual Immigration and Customs officials. Usually the moment you land in these countries, armed soldiers and uniformed officials swarm around you. Here, we parked the plane and had to wander around to find someone who cared that foreigners just had invaded their country.

 

I remembered San Pedro Sula as a dusty, dingy little town where we used to have to wait three to five hours en route from Belize to Miami, with a depressing and dirty old hotel. It has changed. The hotel has been completely modernized with tile and paneling, a lovely patio and pool, and the rooms freshened and air conditioned.

We had a slight contretemps in the hotel. Bucher had been in San Pedro the week before and had carefully reserved rooms. By the time we arrived the reservation, of course, had been lost. Somehow, although there was almost no one in the hotel, the rooms he so carefully had selected at a reasonable rate on the second floor were not available. Instead we had to walk up three flights to their new story and pay double rate.

The rooms were quite nice…small but attractive, with paneling and pleasant furniture and fixtures. The bath was ceramic, tiled in pink, which was set off with ceiling and walls of lettuce green and door-frame of old gold.

Kingsley and Molly had the extra privilege of walking miles past half-finished rooms and piles of materials, bags of cement, and mounds of sawdust to their room…and having their closet door (equipped with the wrong-style lock, and defective at that) lock itself. When Kingsley called the desk for a key, after finding that their room key did not fit the closet, he got a flurry of Spanish…flurried back at them in his fluent Peruvian…and no action whatever. Molly had unpacked and all their things were in the closet, so Kingsley and Bucher finally took the door off the hinges with a great deal of perseverance and tools such as keys, beer openers, and pen knives. When they finally got it free, it became obvious from marks on the door itself that this had happened several times before. Incidentally, as we went out for dinner, we saw several people at the desk worriedly pawing through a great box of keys.

 

San Pedro Sula now has endless stores offering a complete range of imported goods. We prowled the town, of course, and Bucher and Kingsley considered it an ideal place to visit since there was not a single thing to buy. As I say, there were “things” but nothing we couldn’t get in Belize for less, since duties on imported goods are high in most Latin countries. And there were none of the charming local things you can find in other neighboring countries.

Assuming that the food in the hotel would be mediocre, we investigated restaurants. The best appearing one was, of all things, a pizzeria. and we had the finest pizza, without exaggeration, I’ve ever tasted.

 

Bucher left the hotel around 8:30 next morning to see the Texaco manager, and I went down to sit by the pool. Molly and Kingsley joined me around 9:30. We were the only ones there and the water was lovely. Bucher came back around 10:00 and we left for the airport around 11:00.

The flight to Tegucigalpa, the capital, (Teguce for short) was interesting and pleasant. We spent about half of it climbing to a high enough altitude to clear the mountains. Most of our check-points, the highest peaks, were shrouded in clouds so that we couldn’t find them, but we still had an occasional lake or village to reassure us that we were on course. Also, we were flying on the army radio beacon just past Teguce…call letters TNT.

Tegucigalpa is in a broad valley surrounded by mountains, with half of the houses clinging to their sides. Lacking the volcanoes of Guatemala, it is not as spectacular. But the close-packed, pastel adobe buildings and red-tiled roofs, cramped streets, and quaint arched bridges over the river that bisects the city, make it far more charming than the more modern Guatemala City.

A fascinating contrast, crossing a bridge, is the Palacio Nacional on one side…a real castle with turrets, battlements, and pennants flying, rising with sheer walls from the river’s edge…and opposite it the handsome glass-and-steel addition to the University. Incidentally, that magnificent building, standing free on 20-foot pillars with a patio and large statues beneath, overlooking the rooftops of the city below, had great, gaping, jagged holes in the glass facade where bombs had blasted them during recent student riots. Diagonally across the street, the electricity plant was draped with black crepe for the people killed inside it when it was bombed, the steel-curtain doors were bent and battered and the roof, smoke-blackened shreds.

 

There are two nice hotels in Tegucigalpa; we chose the Prado since it is nearest the center of town. The lobby is large and very modern, and our rooms were moderate in price and very pleasant. Molly and Kingsley had one on the floor above us. It opened onto an inner patio, open to the sky, brick floored, and lush with planters. There was lawn furniture, and an umbrella-ed table made it a lovely private place for a pre-dinner drink.

Our room looked over the long red-tiled roofs of the building opposite and onto the square little houses tossed against the mountain behind like children’s blocks. It was charming and I never tired of looking at our view.

 

We fairly well covered the immediate area on foot…parks, old churches, stores, and a market that was a crushing blow to me since the vendors wore ordinary clothes (not a native in sight as far as colorful costume went). And the goods…aside from the usual food stuffs, it all was the cheapest stuff importable from Hong Kong. Molly wasn’t surprised; she says that through South America that often is the case. But I’m spoiled by the Guatemalan, Mexican, and Salvadoranean markets. I had particularly wanted to get Carli an Indian dress to take to camp…but I gather they haven’t seen one in Honduras since the early days of the United Fruit Company.

As we walked past the open, enormous doors of the cathedral, Bucher and I were entranced by the elaborate gold screen covering the entire end of the church behind the altar. It is characteristic of Spanish Colonial churches and Molly and Kingsley have seen dozens, of course. I hadn’t happened to run across one before. Kingsley slipped into the church to take a picture (which is permitted) and I followed just to look. Bucher wouldn’t have considered doing that…and didn’t particularly want to get closer as I did. Molly knew that, while an uncovered head was all right (I had covered mine with a handkerchief) bare arms, such as her dress showed, would be a shocking irreverence. I didn’t know that, but happened to have a dress with sleeves.

People were wandering in and out of the church, kneeling briefly, talking, and gathering near the altar rail, Naturally old Original Tourist “gathered” with them. I couldn’t see too well from the back of the group, but there was a statue of a woman set into a temporary sort of bower and banked with flowers. The people were going up, lighting candles, adding flowers, praying briefly, or simply standing and looking at it. We learned the following day that this was the statue of Our Lady of Suyapa, which had been carried from the basilica miles outside of town for a special festival.

Back to the cathedral itself. That immense and elaborate gold and silver screen at the end of the church had been brought over from Spain, as had the church bells. I’ve never seen anything like it. The pulpit, too, a great carved semicircle jutting from one side of the nave near the front, was the same fantastic gold work, and there were smaller but still fabulous gold screens around some of the niches for statues of saints near the front of the cathedral. Flood lighting was used to make it all even more impressive as the rest of the long church was unlighted.

 

Since this was Saturday night, we decided to go out for dinner and planned to visit a highly recommended restaurant on a nearby mountain. As usual, it had closed the week before. We always seem to run into this sort of thing. Instead we were advised to go to the “Club Zora” for a good dinner, dancing, and floor show.

It was quite attractive, semi-open with table and dance floor under corolux, and a large patio nearby. The band was adequate but the worst-looking bunch of characters I’ve ever seen…dressed in untidy shirts and rumpled slacks of whatever color or style they chose…an unshaven, grubby group of all colors and appearance, from the most African to a bearded beatnik-type.

It was hours before dinner came, but they did serve on immaculate linen with masses of silver. The food itself was hardly superb…French onion soup, hastily whipped up from what I suspect was French’s dried chopped onion flakes, and a very greasy and uncharacteristic shrimp thermidor that involved an unfamiliar but nice-tasting sauce.

As for the floor show…one very attractive young dancer who cavorted in a performance almost as brief as her costume and then disappeared for hours. I assume she reappeared; we didn’t wait to see. Still, we had had a nice evening, enjoyed dancing ourselves, and particularly enjoyed watching the other guests.

All the clientele were quiet, nicely behaved, and well-dressed, but I must make two points. First, each dress fitted about two-thirds of its owner; I cannot think what process is used to wedge those curvy young women into those dresses and keep the zipper from giving up once it is secured. Second, every other jaw was hypnotically pledging its dedication to Mr. Wrigley.

 

Sunday Bucher and I surprised ourselves by having breakfast…our only “native” meal, the Honduran version of huevos rancheros, and quite nice, with fresh tortillas. After that we took a little walk past the Palacio Nacional and University, waiting for the Foxes to emerge. When they appeared, we hired a car and did a sightseeing tour around the city.

Early that morning Bucher and I had heard the cathedral bells clanging in brassy impatience, a band, crowds, and speeches. Peering from our window, we could see that the streets and corner of the park in front of the cathedral were jammed. We thought it might be a bit of a revolution, but found it was a procession forming to carry Our Lady of Suyapa back to her basilica.

As we came over the top of the hill on our drive, we saw that the highway ahead, down to the bottom, up the next hill, and disappearing over it, was an absolute ocean of people walking to the basilica…not fewer than ten or twelve abreast, with no apparent space between. They had been walking for almost four hours at that time and were about half way. Note: for obvious reasons we turned around and did not visit the basilica ourselves.

The drive was interesting…the town is charmingly colonial, as I have said, but up on the surrounding mountains are some handsome modern homes and apartment buildings, many literally clinging to the cliffs so that every floor appears adrift in space. Most of the embassies are on the Avenida de los Revolucionarios, a lovely boulevard with busts of important leaders of freedom set along it at intervals…the usual Simón Bolívar, José Martí, San Martín…others of the world, including our own George Washington and Russia’s Lenin.

There’s just one thing…the traffic in Tegucigalpa is unbelievable. Even Kingsley and Molly, who have visited much of South America and Europe, said they were awestruck. First, there are literally hundreds of the little Volkswagen buses zipping from corner to corner and darting back into traffic without a backward or sideways glance. and nine out of ten cars are Fiats, or that size car, which also whisk about like drunken mosquitoes. There are lots of large trucks, and one never knows whether one of a dozen motorized miniatures is lurking behind each, ready to emerge fearlessly at the first questionable moment. And then there’s the happy lack of concern for rules. You want to turn…fine, swing from the extreme right across four lanes of traffic for a left-hand change of direction. You might like to blast your horn to warn people, and possibly they will blast back, but more often smiles and screeching brakes are the only protest. Bucher refused to sit in the front seat of the taxi and Kingsley was noticeably bleached of countenance when we finished our tour.

One interesting place we stopped was a park that is full of reproductions of Mayan buildings and carvings uncovered in Honduran ruins. They are very well done, with even a scaled-down pyramid copying the major temple of Copán. Lovely planting, tall trees, curving walks, streams, and benches, statues and arbors…utterly charming and restful.

For lunch Sunday we took our taxi driver’s advice on one of the best restaurants; to our amazement, it turned out to be another pizzeria. Clean but simple in style, with perfectly superb Italian food.

By this time we had pretty well finished Tegucigalpa. There wasn’t much more to see or do. So we went to a movie, Zorba the Greek…which won’t reach Belize for two or three years. I find that, in these countries, the movies are in English with Spanish subtitles…which is nice for us. We went to the 6:30 show and had dinner when we got out at the rooftop dining room of the other main hotel. It was lovely, overlooking the city, and the food was excellent. But we were the only people there, which was a bit flat-feeling.

 

We left fairly early Monday morning to fly back to Belize. We had one small delay over clearing the country. Bucher went up to the tower to file his flight plan and they wouldn’t accept it until he showed a receipt for his landing fees. Coming back down to the main office, Bucher found that Aduana (Customs) wouldn’t let him pay his landing fees until he showed his copy of a filed flight plan. Kingsley took over and, happily, the man at Aduana had enough sense to just shrug and shake his head and agree to do it in a way that apparently was backwards to him, and Kingsley went back up to the tower with Bucher just-in-case. Aside from that, again, they couldn’t have been more casual about our clearance or modest about fees, unlike some countries.

The trip back was lovely. There usually are fewer clouds in the morning this time of year, and we could see far better this time. It was a pretty flight, smooth, and quick, and we were back in Belize City for lunch.