Santa Rosa De Copan, the Ruta lenca

May 17. 176 miles.
We decided to take a longer route to the west. We headed to Esperanza, the highest town in Honduras. the road was great. paved, curvey, high and cool.
We were in Esperanza on market day and it was pretty busy. we left our jackets and tank bag at a hotel to walk around and eat lunch and we were on our way. unfortunately for the area of strongest indigenous culture, there was really no traditional dress. Some headscarves, but i would hardly call that a head dress as it had been described in the lonely planet.

The road out from there was bumpy and rocky to San Miguelito, then it was pavement again with nice views. it was cool still and many of the houses had wooden graneries, the first we have seen.
We got to Gracias way earlier than we expected so continued on to Santa Rosa for the night. It was bigger than we expected and had a well kept colonial center.
We eventually found a hotel in our budget, but not too far be low our comfort zone. unfortunatly, i over looked that we were at road level and on the street. boy was it loud! and with an incesant dog next door.
there are just so many hotel things to take into account. overall cleanliness, if there are sheets and pillow cases and if they are clean (because sometimes...), how the bathroom looks, if the toilet works, if the fan works, do the windows open, is there a dog barking yet.... you cant always figure all of this out before you move in. finding hotels is the most tireing part of the trip for me, because it falls under my responsiblities and i sick of it right now. some are just awful. our hotel budget is getting pushed to its max because of the undiscussed bed bug incident and some other uncomfortable nights.
luckily food is cheap.
we met some nice guys (american students)in Santa rosa and had dinner with them. always fun to meet new people.

lake Yojoa and a micro brewery!

60 miles
A couple hours away but too far away for the day before, is Lake Yojoa. A beautiful huge lake with some intact ecosystems and abundant wildlife. An american started a micro brewery and guesthouse that is in a quiet place. So we took a day off and enjoyed some dark beer.
We rented a row boat to go out the river to the lake, and went for a great hike in national park Cerro Azul Meambre. The entrance reads "los pinos" "panacam" it was really hard for us to find not knowing those two magic words. the park spans a large area. we took three other roads that said Nat park cerro azul and they are all just communities living up in the rain forest with their animals. But signs saying welcome to nat park cerro azul keep you going.
we were losing all hope of any actually preserved lands in Central America, and i was getting very sick of getting nowhere on very steepass dirt roads. we finally found it, closer to Agua Blanca than we even started looking, after spend the first half of the day wandering. It's a great jungle preserve with easy self guided trails to great vistas. They have some really nice bungalow to stay in for 700 limperas. We didn't stay their but if you wanted a nice place it would be a great setting.
Also along the eastern shore of the lake their are a bunch of fish restaurants with huge fish from the lake and huge jars of crazy pickled things.

Entering Honduras at Gualsaule rode to Cumayagua

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May 14th, 185 miles. all day.
What a morning, 20 minutes to the border. I waited in line to go through aduanas and when I finally arrived at the window i was told that i have to go buy a pig flu mask to be waited on. what a racket.
so i went out to the bike and put on a bandana bandito style and it worked. Got my stamp on the little offical / unoffical piece of paper. We crossed over the bridge and the pig flu "police" pulled us over. We shouldnt have stopped.
"why do you need our passports if we are on our way to immigration right now@"
When the guy saw our bad stamp from Guatemala he got all control freek on us.
after an explanation and letter that went no where he called in the jefes. who we had to wait for.
we seemed to be the only people who had to fill out papers the whole time we waited. The pig flu lady just sat there while everyone else cruised by.
when they arrived they needed to bring our passports to the bigger jefe back in Nicaragua. So we got our passports back and follwed him on the bike- his idea was to run the errand on his own with our passports...
the big jefe saw no problem and made a call to immigration to let us pass. yeah.
back we go and drove by the pig flu people.
we paid $2 each to leave nic and $3 each to enter hond. that was all easy and fast.
Then, we had to pay around $40 to bring the bike in to Honduras!
We cant complain much because we got away with paying nothing the other time we entered, but it was still a shock.
Or notes said it cost $7. But their paperwork in the window said it was $7 for the permit, $10 for someone to fill out the permit and $12 to "transcribe" or something equally redundant and a few other fees that were all bullshit.

the big sign says "you pay this amount, dont pay more, you wont be asked for more. help us stop corruption"

the entire paper pushing process got on my nerves, which is no place to be because it doesnt make anything any easier for anyone.

then you give copies of your stuff, which you should have. Then you make copies of their form that is - i will add, Already in triplicate.
walk away, make 2 copies of 2 things, and request two things on the same piece of paper to see if it will throw the aduanas guy into confusion.
go pay this part over here. wait.
but the first bank lady charged me $3.44 more. so i said " the big sign says you pay this amount, dont pay more, you wont be asked for more. help us stop corruption"
And i went back over to aduanas guy and said that she was charging me more. (i know it was very little money, but i was anoyed.)
he said "i cant do anything about what she is charging. that is the price." I reminded him of his sign and that he should change it.
then i went back and asked her again why it was more. She pointed out her sign and said, it is the $10 plus 12% tax. You do the math. i tried to argue this with her. $10. 12%. doesnt come close to $13.44. i wasnt getting anywhere. i handed over the $14. because there is no change. and took a deep breath.

Then,go pay the other part over there. He needs 4 more copies of forms in triplicate.
bring everything back to the aduanas guy and get your receipts back.
There is nothing wrong with their system. it is beaurocratic to the bone. that in its self is enough to drive me nuts.
That took TWO HOURS.
We need breakfast!
So we continued out of town and drove past the pig police so we had to keep going...

We finally found somewhere to stop for a cold fried chicken breakfast for Steve and icecream for both of us.

The road was hot for a while. Once we got up into the hills is was some of the best rode Steve has come across anywhere. Great views, constant curves and very little traffic. We passed though Teguc pretty easily and on up into the hills and curves most of the way to Comayagua. Passed lots of construction traffic back up on the bike in this stretch. There is no need to wait in the lines, just roll up to the "flager" and they usually wave you ahead into the oncoming traffic. There is enough room bikes to squeeze by.
Stayed in Comayagua, pretty nice colonial town, great plaza. good food options.

Granada to Somotillo

This was a pretty hot drive and we didnt get the earliest start leaving. The mountain road between Granada and Managua was great smooth curvy and cooler. We visited San Juan Oriente for a quick pottery drive through and had lunch overlooking beautiful crater lake Apollo. Unfortunately we took the road just south of Managua as opposed to along the lake west of Mangua. This was an easy mistake because the turn-off signs appear for this road about a mile before they appear for the main road. For a big portion it was paved then not paved in sections of about 20 feet. So you never adjust your tire pressure, you just keep at it and its awful, and hot. Luckily there were some nice views of the volcanoes through out the day.
We stayed in Somotillo, the town abuot 20 minutes from the border. it is dusty and loud and should be avoided. we stayed in the nicer of two hotels and there was no running water in town so all is done with a bucket. and the hotel is still $12.50. it was a very hot night. street food was the best we could do for dinner, luke warm chicken and gallo pinto. We are both pretty sick of the fried chicken tasteless rice and bean thing by now - and we still have honduras again...