Dispatch Number 87 -Two Years: Honduras

This is a continuation of a series recapping the past two years of travels through Latin America by car, each Dispatch is a single country summary from Mexico, through Central America's Guatemala-Honduras-Nicaragua-Costa Rica-Panama and through South America's Columbia-Ecuador and Peru. The loose plan is to continue driving to the bottom of the world, Ushuaia, Argentina. These are stories of characters, experiences and hardships.

Honduras
July 2009

With My Own Eyes
The coup began at 5am on Sunday morning. I planned on entering Honduras around the same time Zelaya, the Honduran President, was forcefully removed from office in a coup d' etat that left him standing on a runway in Costa Rica, still wearing his pajamas. It was Latin America of old, a coup hadn't happened in almost twenty years and I was itching to be closer to it.

I waited another week to assess the volatility, which at the time, was full civil disobedience and international political pressure. Everything was in play, the whole gamut: demonstrations, border closings, a media-storm, clashes between protesters and police with a smattering of political killings.

I was apprehensive to go alone and wanted to have someone who would watch my back with a sense of adventure. I found two men ready to leave Guatemala for turbulent Honduras. Jeff, a talkative Australian who was fluster-proof and Alex, a tightly wound journalism student from Mexico City with something to prove.

We wanted to see it first hand, to talk to the people and confirm or dispel what the press was saying. Jeff and I tended to be the more practical, while Alex's temperament was to run the streets of San Pedro Sula after curfew, when the streets would flood with trucks of National Police that played for keeps.

I attended rallies protesting Zelaya's removal from office and interviewed many about the coup d' etat. At the time, the running argument made by the government, was that Zelaya's removal was constitutionally mandated and this was used to great effect blunting domestic anger. After a few days in-country, Alex managed to find himself a journalism job in the turbulent capital, Tegucigalpa, as an assistant reporter. Jeff and I were relieved to have him go, for Alex had too much unbound energy and was a bullhorn of constant criticism for the two of us. Jeff and I headed for the mellower environs of the Caribbean coast. Along the way, we saw a couple of dead men (due to road accidents, not political violence).

Despite conservative cries from the extreme-right, there was no important liberal movement in Honduras. The oligarchy cried Communism and blamed subversive activities on an unnamed movement (there was none), and the people bought it like docile servants shaking their fists at the Communist threat branded with the flags of Cuba and Venezuela. Watching tv and reading newspapers at the time, felt like it was the 1950s in the United States, when Americans were mobilized against the Red Threat.

Ricardo, a heavy equipment salesman and I argued over dinner, the merits of the coup, (he was in favor of it), while he got a lady friend or his sister (my Spanish was so bad at that time) on the phone and attempted to match-make. My position was that if Zelaya's removal from office was constitutionally mandated, then he should have stood trial, instead he was led out of the country under gunpoint, hardly evidence of a legal mandate.

At the end of my stay, what impressed most was the effectiveness of the state propaganda machine and how it influenced public opinion and people like Ricardo. The lesson: regardless of the facts, tv matters more than any other single media when shaping public opinion. Reflecting on the effectiveness of media in Honduras, I could see how the propaganda model was deployed on Americans during the run up to the invasion of Iraq, how quickly and easily the majority of Americans bought into military adventurism.

Political Epilogue
Since Zelaya was unceremoniously stranded in his pajamas that morning in June 2009, the new government of Honduras has increased the use of political violence to suppress popular movements. The violence escalated dramatically since Pepe Lobo was elected President; union leaders, resistance organizers and journalists have been systematically murdered.

In 2010, Honduras was named the most dangerous place in the world to be a journalist, ten were assassinated in 2010. The United States and Canada are the only countries to recognize Lobo's government; in a rare show of unity, Latin American countries have denounced his government because of the illegality of the coup d' etat and sham election that followed.

People
Hondurans were friendly people with hard faces, until conversation started, then the faces softened. Compared to the overly-polite passive Guatemalans, they were direct and gruff. Greetings in restaurants were rare and when entering a shop or hotel, it was, Diga me, tell me, skipping the usual courtesies.

More people rode bicycles and the women kept their youthful figures later in life, whereas, in Guatemala and Mexico the women turn plump in their early twenties. An enjoyable part of the Honduran character is how open and expressive they are, opinions freely shared on politics and social issues. They were refreshingly direct.

Far away from the protest burdened cities and blocked highways, I met a Dutch woman on the Caribbean coast in Trujillo, not knowing at the time I would fall deeply in love with her. Marjolein and I made plans to travel together in Nicaragua.

On a rain soaked mountain road along the Caribbean Coast was my worst get-the-truck-stuck pickle to date. A land bridge, barely as wide as Azulita, my truck, gave way and crumbled from under us as we tried to cross it. The truck settled on its axle, at the edge of a hole large enough to swallow it.

Before this episode, I had some experience getting stuck, in Mexico trapped on a beach, buried in sand, another time, semi-submerged in a small river with water running inside the cab; all of them workable situations, but this one was bad. There was nothing we could do on our own, to move it forward or backward would send the truck into the hole.

The Russian couple, Dmitriy and Olga went down the hill for help, we needed a pull-out. He came back with a old Toyota FJ40, and after we built a rock ramp with a tree and an old door to help it pass out of the hole the yank out went well. The big Sunday drive I promised everyone was spent getting unstuck. We made it two kilometers up the road.
Dmitriy an adventurer in his own right and a survivalist trainer put it this way, The only difference between a regular car and those with four-wheel drive, is in a 4x4 you get further down the road before getting stuck.

After I left the Russians and New Zealander, Michaela at the edge of the Mosquito Coast, where the road stops, I drove into the Wild West interior of Honduras, Olancho Department, known for rough-hewn ways, it is the same region where exiled President Zelaya came from. A region modeled on the old west of farmers and cattle ranchers linked by dirt roads and dry dusty towns.
Men worked on horseback, Real cowboys, I thought.

I met Oscar in these remote reaches, a traveling salesman who sold guns, but I could only see him hustling leather-holsters. We both stayed in a hospedaje that had cell block rooms with shared bathrooms for a few bucks a night.

After gun talk with Oscar, I got bored and thirsty, and was tired of yellow dust in my mouth, and went for a beer on the plaza. Without local guidance I was at the mercy of the place, I had set foot in cross-dressers bar. Even the owner was a feminino. It was the last thing I expected to find in Marlboro country. They stared at me like fresh meat, I steeled myself for my mistake and ordered a beer.

They had hunting lurid eyes. I squirmed and was conscious of every move, making nervous tick after nervous tick unable to mask my discomfort. A group of cross dressers sat at a table looking my way whispering, smiling and winking.
Is this how women feel? I'm sorry, I'll never do it again, passed my thoughts.
My bravado had to be propped up with a second beer, leaving after the owner told me to come back at seven when he'd have a nice girl or guy for me.

Strawberry Pop-Tarts
After months of craving Strawberry Pop-Tarts, I finally found them, in Danli, a small city known for cigar making, near the border with Nicaragua. I ate them for dinner and for breakfast the next morning in bed, crumbs all over my chest. I stocked up and refused to let other travelers see them. The secret supply ran out soon enough, left deprived, the cravings started over again and lasted for months, until Marjolein found them in Panama City. I had all but given up on seeing or tasting them again. In every city I stayed in, during my walks, I would search every grocery store for Pop-Tarts. Once, I found fig newtons. I dreamt of care packages with Pop-Tarts in them.

Did you know:
In 2001, the United States' military airdropped 2.4 million Pop-Tarts in Afghanistan during the US invasion. Cultural and political imperialism comes in many forms.

Today he said, more than ever before men had to learn to live without things. Things filled men with fear: the more things they had, the more had to fear. Things had a way of riveting themselves on to the soul and then telling the soul what to do..

-Bruce Chatwin, Songlines

For Past Dispatches on Honduras hit these select links and look for a Nicaragua summary in next Dispatch Number 88-

A Colorful First Night in Honduras-
http://travelingdave-intheamericas.blogspot.com/2009/08/dispatch-number-28-my-corner.html
Presidential Coup with Alex-
http://travelingdave-intheamericas.blogspot.com/2009/09/dispatch-number-36-alejandro.html
Presidential Coup with Jeff-
http://travelingdave-intheamericas.blogspot.com/2009/12/dispatch-number-51-jeff.html
With Love from Russia-
http://travelingdave-intheamericas.blogspot.com/2009/12/dispatch-number-50-drinking-with.html
When I Almost Lost the Truck-
http://travelingdave-intheamericas.blogspot.com/2009/08/dispatch-number-30-russian-saying.html
Oscar the Gun Salesman-
http://travelingdave-intheamericas.blogspot.com/2009/08/dispatch-number-27-oscar.html
The Cross Dressers-
http://travelingdave-intheamericas.blogspot.com/2009/08/dispatch-number-33-bar.html

David
Ayacucho, Peru