Seriously, not clickbait.
When we first arrived in Honduras, we received a 90-day tourist visa stamp as unfortunately it wasn’t possible to get a visa for a whole year. This visa was to last us until the start of November and instead of getting a new visa we had planned to get a 30-day visa extension. This would last us until the end of November when we would be leaving Honduras and the c-4 anyways for our travel holidays. So, this was our plan, to head to San Pedro Sula for a weekend, get a 30-day extension at the immigration office and return to our projects after missing only one or two days most of school. Sounds quite simple, all we had to do was not mention that we were volunteers since we have a tourist visa which leaves us in a bit of a grey area. As you can imagine, it didn’t go to plan.
So, on Friday, we left our projects to head for Santa Rosa, a little city to spend a couple of nights and do a bit of shopping and relaxing. The hotel we stayed at was really nice and had a rooftop seating area which had a view over Santa Rosa. Santa Rosa is a lot bigger than gracias, there’s a lot more places to eat, to shop and has a lot more people. On the Friday we went on a search for baleadas (not too difficult to find in Honduras) and we had a look around some shops. There was a lot of thrift shops but also some bigger bougier shops as well. We were planning to have a movie night on Friday so for tea we just bought some snacks since we weren’t too hungry after having a late lunch. We ended up just chatting instead of watching a movie which was nice to chat to everyone after being apart for three weeks. On Saturday we had a shopping day, I bought three tops, two being striped -oops definitely didn’t need any more- and also a little peplum blouse for teaching. After spending as much as we could afford (and a bit more) all ten of us went to this cute little café next to our hotel. I got a cheese and chicken panini which was delicious. Unfortunately, there was only two people working and there was ten of us, so we were there for at least two hours and some of the dishes and drinks were handed 45 minutes apart. On Saturday night we went out for tea, most of us went to this chicken place that was really delicious – Esther and I shared a platter but were defeated, there’s only so much chicken two girls can eat. After tea some of us headed out and we found this club that looked the best out of a bad bunch. There was a deal on tequila – 2 shots for L45 – which was too good to pass and after a couple of doubles we decided to hit the dance floor with our best salsa moves.
The next morning we headed for San Pedro Sula, unfortunately I wasn’t feeling too great (I was just ill not hungover I promise) but luckily unlike most Honduran roads it was a smooth road all the way since we were in the city, allowing me to sleep pretty much all the way. The lady who owns the guesthouse we stayed at in San Pedro picked us up from the bus terminal. Her and her son were lovely and welcome project trust volunteers every year. They showed us where the mall was and assured us that even though it’s only a ten-minute walk that they’d be happy to give us a lift if we didn’t feel comfortable walking. After dumping our bags, we headed straight to the mall since Allana and Jennifer (two other volunteers who don’t live in the Lempira district so therefore haven’t seen since the airport) were coincidentally in San Pedro on a school trip that day. It was great to see them and have a chat even if it was only for a brief five minutes. And most importantly they pointed us in the direction of the food court.
This was the first time in three months that we’ve seen proper shops – pull and bear, bershka, Stradivarius, Zara – so it is fair to see we were very overwhelmed. We spent the whole day shopping although I didn’t go crazy like some people *cough* Emily *cough* Lois *, since I only bought one pair of jeans, not three. The food court was just as overwhelming – pizza hut, noodles, burger king, kfc, dunkin donuts, subway – and I won’t lie, we spent the majority of our day there. There was frozen yogurt which was amazinggg but I can justify that since it’s made of real fruit, and the ice cream was perhaps the best I’ve tasted, so I can justify that as well. It was so nice to be with everyone and eat good food, so I can’t complain, but everything was so American and so unlike the Honduras we know and love that it was difficult to not feel un-settled. We decided that we had our first taste of what it must be like to have reverse culture shock and that although the mall was great, we didn’t want to spend any more time there.
On the Monday morning, Blanca (owner of guesthouse) and her son took us to the immigration office. We had our passports, we had our flight itineraries, we had our dollars for the visa, we had our story, we were ready. Izzy goes up to the lady at the desk and hands over her documents. It was all going well so far. Now as I mentioned at the start, we couldn’t say we were volunteers and we were all very clear on that. Blanca, however, was not. She walks up to the desk to where Izzy is standing and says to the lady “I have ten volunteers here”. Passport closed, documents handed back. Our chance of getting our visa extension was gone in about five seconds. Two of the volunteers had to go into a meeting room with the man in charge to try and explain our story and hopefully get the visa extension. He said that he needed some documents from PT and our representative (Vegas) to come to San Pedro Sula. We spent a lot of time sitting and waiting, with phone calls back and forth to Vegas and Project Trust, who were also calling the Man at immigration, and it was decided that we would spend another night in San Pedro and return to immigration the next morning with some additional documents.
That afternoon we went to the mall, pretty much the only place we could go since it’s too dangerous to just wander and had lunch then late afternoon we went to the cinema. Blanca’s son speaks English and informed us that Monday night is the cheapest night for the cinema since tickets are only L45 (£1.50). So, he came with the ten of us and we watched maleficent 2, we went to an English screening of the film but there was Spanish subtitles. We bought snacks and I really enjoyed the film and it was nice to finally watch a film that I didn’t gave to watch on my phone.
On Tuesday we returned to the office, we had printed off more documents that PT had sent us and at this point we were sick of two days in the mall so were hoping for a decision, whatever the outcome. Tuesday went a lot quicker than Monday; two girls went in with all our documents into a meeting with the same man from the previous day. A card game or two later, they came out of the office. The decision was made that we were being kicked out Honduras, we had to go to Belize. When Lois told us we all started cheering in the immigration office, which we quickly stopped when we realised that to the people working there it probably looked a bit dodgy after having our visa rejected. But this news meant that we were getting a three day holiday – so I guess being illegal immigrants and getting kicked out of the country could be worse??
So, to explain a little bit if you’re interested – because our visas were rejected this meant that we had to leave the central 4 for 72 hours. Then when we return, we can get another visa. Since our visas were going to run out early November, the Sunday, and this was the Tuesday, it meant that we were pushed for time and needed to get out as soon as possible. Belize is the closest and easiest country to get to out of the central 4 so that’s why that was the country we went to.
We decided that the best course of action was to spend another night in San Pedro then get a 5am bus the next morning to Guatemala then a 2pm ferry to Belize. This meant another afternoon in the shopping mall. While we were eating our pizza hut we were made aware of a state of siege that was going on in Guatemala and could affect our ability to move freely. After another day of phone calls deciding whether or not to continue with our travel plans, since there was a risk of getting stuck with limited time on our hands, we were told to wait and Project Trust would let us know the next morning whether it was safe to go our planned route through Guatemala. So that evening to take our mind of the stress we went back to the cinema, this time to see Hustlers. Blanca’s son didn’t come with us to this one – didn’t think he’d enjoy it as much, but it had JLo and who doesn’t love her.
The next morning there was 4am calls with Project Trust to find out whether we should get on that 5am bus, and they pretty much told us to go back to sleep and they’d let us know the plans when we wake up. A few hours later – still very tired – Emily was woken up by a call from Rosie, and we were told that it was safe enough to go through Guatemala and we shouldn’t have any issues. After breakfast we set off on our day travel to Belize, we were still trying to make that 2pm ferry but it was looking tight. On our second bus, the tyre flew off while we were on the road and so we had a delay to get it fixed, at this point it was looking very unlikely that we would make it. Once we got through the border crossing, we still had about a 20 minute drive and only 15 minutes until our ferry (and the last ferry of the day). A man said that his bus could fit all ten of us and it would cost around £5 each (I think, I can’t really remember) and that he would take us straight to the ferry terminal. So in a rush, they chucked our bags on the roof and we clambered into an already full mini bus. On our way to the terminal we seen some extent of the state of siege. On the same straight road within the space of five minutes we were stopped by officials to get our passports checked. One guy also wanted to check our rucksacks all stacked up on the top of the bus but the driver said “son mujeres” and so he didn’t check them – a bit sexist but saved us time so not complaining. At this point we had missed the 2pm ferry so we asked the bus boy if there was another one after 2 that we may have just not read about online. He assured us that there was one at 3pm and we could get that. How naïve of us to believe him.
When we arrived at the ferry terminal, these Men came up to us and told us that they had a private boat and it would cost us £35 each (I think, again my memory is bad). We said no because we were going to get the public boat at 3pm, in which their response was that there is no such thing and our only option was to get their boat. This bit was all a little confusing, but there was a lot of shouting, we were told there was one at 3 but they were obviously working together and ripping us off a ridiculous amount because we were ten white girls. Anyways, we asked around and there was no other ferry so our options were to stay a night in Puerto barrios and get the first public ferry in the morning or get the private boat that was more expensive. We decided that staying an extra night would probably cost more than paying a bit extra for the boat. It would also mean that we’d miss another day of school as we still had to stay in Belize for 72 hours. So we got on the private boat, and we got to admit it was a lot of fun. Esther, Lois and I were right at the front of the boat and it was speeding along and bumping down on all the waves which we were getting full hit off. Fun at the time, a lot of regrets afterwards – I couldn’t sit down for about five days.
Anyways, all a little dishevelled, sore, tired and skint, we made it to Belize!!!
This is now extremely long and not very exciting so I’m going stop here and write a part 2 of this post about our time in Belize.
Hasta luego x
Erin In Honduras 