Utila-Omoa

Yesterday I undertook my "escape" from Utila. It was a long voyage. I thought I might make it all the way to Livingston, Guatemala in one day but there are so many chicken busses that it turned out to be impossible. Instead I ended up spending a gorgeous night in the charming town of Omoa. Omoa lies in the Northwestern corner of Honduras, close to Guatemala and still on the ocean. I took a ferry from Utila to La Ceiba, a tourist bus from Ceiba to San Pedro Sula, a direct minibus (slightly crowded, but with A-C) to Puerto Cortes, and then a chicken bus (pretty much just a crowded school bus, no AC or amenities) to Omoa. The chicken bus goes all the way to the border but I didn´t have the time.

Omoa was great. Quaint and charming... I met an American ExPat from LA who had just rented a big house on a big lot across from the ocean with the intention of turning it into a backpackers hostel. I was his third guest and he treated me great. He had converted to Rastafarianism and was really cool. He was an army medic and does some work at the hospital in Omoa so he was very happy to chat about healthcare and the system with me, and much appreciative of all of the medicine I left him with this morning. His buddy Christian owns this bar right on the beach by the pier so we hooked up with him for the night and he served up cold ones all night long almost for free. The music was great and I met this chico who danced for me all night long, and only paused to ask me for one Lempira (.05cents) so he would dance some more:


Slept the night really well and walking out this morning I saw a fort that the Spanish built in Honduras in 1750 to protect their gold exports from Pirates and the British. It is exceptionally well preserved. They used to keep politcal prisoners in the basement there during the dark years of Honduras´´ past not 20 years ago. I walked up to the highway and picked up the chicken bus again, which stopped ever 20 feet between Omoa and the border. It took 2 hours to cover about 32 miles. At the border I got my exit stamp and crossed between guards with AK47s to get into Guatemala, where little vans wait to pick up anyone and everyone between the border and puerto barrios along the way. The trip from Omoa to Puerto Barrios cost be about $3.50, and that´s where we stand now because I´m in Puerto Barrios waiting for the ferry to take me across the bay to Livingston. Livingston is a little Garifuna community of mostly African Descendents who mostly speak English and are very into Rasta. I should get there around 6.30pm local time and I´ll book a hostel from there.

One last thought. I got to see a lot of the countryside today- infinite expanses of mountains and ocean, banana and pineapple plantations for as far as the eye could see. It is really beautiful and magnificent here, and the people have such charm and most of them have great attitudes despite a relative lack compared to the US. The one thing I saw that struck me today seriously was an auto accident. Once in Guatemala we travelled a few kilos inland and stopped to pick up a woman who proclaimed there was an accident ahead in which people had died. Sure enough we slow down on the way by to see a devastating accident of a van in which there were obviously some serious injuries, if not deaths. Part of me wanted to jump out of the van right there and offer to help. Someone appeared trapped in the van. Others were cut up and banged up. I realized that despite my desire to help and the fact that there was no ambulance there, I´m really not a doctor and I don´t have anything useful but band-aids in my bag for them, and unless anyone needed CPR, I wouldn´t have any useful skills. Furthermore I was all by myself, my valuables in my lap, I just paid close to the last money I had to get into the van, and my bags were strapped to the roof. Tough... but we did pass an ambulance just down the road.

There´s a lot of help needed here.... both urgently and in the long run.