Americas

[Visited: January 2005]

After I learned that the runway of Palacios airstrip was unusable and all flights from La Ceiba cancelled because of the bad weather, I decided to take a taxi to the bus station and give up to visiting the Mosquito Coast. I still wanted to go east, and as I saw a bus to Tocoa and Limón, I did not hesitate and boarded it with some good empanadas with me. Limón is a Garífuna village, and it seemed a good alternative to the Mosquitia. I wanted to visit a Garífuna village, which can only be found on the northern, Caribbean coast of Honduras, and offer a different face of the country. Rain continued to come down in enormous quantities, and I was happy to be in a bus. During our long stop in Tocoa, I bought an umbrella, a useful investment for the next days.
Our ride to Limón took over 6 hours, with ample stops almost everywhere. Outside of one of the shops, a pig had just been slaughtered, a crowd around it impatiently waiting to have a piece like vultures around the carcass of a recent kill. Indeed, the people were completely different from what I had seen so far in Honduras, clearly of African origin, tall, broad, strong people. From behind a tree, a huge guy showed up, with a broad smile showing white teeth, greeting me in English, and presenting himself as Carlos. He proudly talked to me about the Garífunas, their language, heritage, their speaking English but having Spanish names. When he talked to some of his friends, I could certainly hear this was a completely different language. I walked through the village, had a look at the beach that was grey with a wild sea and didn't live up to the cliche image of the Caribbean. The village was colourful, mostly wooden houses on stilts, colourful people walking through. What seemed to become an ugly fight when a guy in the street pulled out a knife of his pockets, it was solved peacefully.
When I came to the other end of the village, the last parts of the pig were just being sold. Then, the waiting started. I wanted to leave for Trujillo, and according to everyone there was a 2 o'clock bus. I waited, saw all kinds of people wandering by, waited more, saw buses in the other direction coming by, waited still more, and at 5 it was clear there would be no more bus that day. So I stayed overnight in Limón. The rain didn't stop, and when I finally left the next morning, my feet were wet from the swollen pools in the streets of Limón.

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Limón (Honduras)

Limón > Honduras > Americas

[Visited: January 2005]

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