From Catacamas to Valle del Yeguare

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

This morning our goal was to leave the hotel in Catacamas at 8am and we are happy to report that we were ready at 7:55am!  Not just on time but early!!  Ideally our goal was to arrive at Zamorano by 11am, we somehow ended up running behind.  But no worries, our ride was not boring for a minute.  Lori translated the newspaper for us and we learned that hospitals need sheets, some people were murdered in some city, and there's a pizza hut buffet!  Okay, I know those are the most extreme ends of the spectrum, and there were more news articles, but we weren't going to make her translate all of that.

Then we proceeded to do more "roadside watching", we've all heard of "people watching," well this is similar, but it's a group effort consisting of several white people riding around the country of Honduras taking photos of people, their practices and their land.  We were excited to see our first cattle crossing, no warning signs, but we had enough time to slow down and take pictures of the cattle just meandering across the road.  A little further down the road a local was carrying his cattle to market.  The trailer may look a little more primitive than you might be used to....

The picture is not great, but we try to capture what we can while we make progress traveling.  So how many of my aggie friends and livestock producers would like to still be carrying their cattle in a wooden cage??  It works!  Hopefully they were successful at the market or trade that they were headed to.  We all know what's it like to have a bad day at a sale :-/

Further down the road, after traveling about an hour and fifteen minutes we experienced yet another check point.  I realize I have not told you much about this so far, but as some of you may be aware, while traveling in another country it is always interesting to learn how their government and security work.  Each day that we have traveled we have seen police and military at various locations, but most commonly present where departments and cities change.  This particular checkpoint was by military, and of course they pulled us over!  We have hardly made it through any without being pulled over, we must look suspicious.  Two of them looked over our vehicle quite thoroughly, didn't ask many questions, and then just waved us on.  Not sure what they are ever looking for, I mean we do look funny sometimes but nothing too exciting in our luggage!

Along this ride we viewed some areas of "slash & burn," some fertile farm land, and of course more fish farms(ponds).  We crossed out of Olancho and into Francisco Morazan around 9:42am.  Surprisingly still quite far from our destination.  Along the road there was a great deal of lumber production and many lumber yards that spanned for about 1/4 of a mile each.  We made a short stop at a gas station, which in case you need it, carries hard liquor right next to the candy bars!  I opted for gatorade, as did several others.  In front of this area, there was a bit of a market area where some locals were setup selling goods and waiting for a bus.

Before arriving in Valle del Yeguare, which is where Zamorano is, we had another short laugh as we passed a small pickup with a PA system on the outside of it.  The driver was making announcements to the community which were projected from the megaphone on the top of his cab!  New meaning to media technology,  I think I will term this as a "Dispatch Truck."