Laura Zera

Stories to Connect Cultures

A Day Spent in Tela, Honduras

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It’s always amazing to me how much brighter my outlook on life is on the day after a transit day. After a long day on the road (and usually arriving at my destination at night), hotel rooms always seem to look a little grungy, people a little shifty, streets somewhat inhospitable. It was like that when I arrived in Tela. When I got up on February 5th, though, with the sunshine coming through my window my hotel room looked pretty decent. Outside, children played. The streets were alive with the bustle and noise of daily commerce. It was a whole new place.

Originally I had thought that I might take a boat tour over to the nearby Parque Nacional Jeannette Kawas or maybe rent a bike and ride to a nearby botanical garden, but when I woke up, I didn’t feel like going anywhere quickly. Instead, I used the day to stroll around Tela, drink a lot of coffee, do some people watching, and take in sunset on the beach.

I’d heard mixed reviews about Tela from other travelers, but I quite enjoyed it. I only saw about six other tourists throughout the day, and the rest of the people hanging out on the boardwalk or having a picnic on the beach were Honduran. Like Dangriga in Belize, Tela felt very authentic to me. The wares for sale along the main street weren’t oriented to tourists; there were Dora the Explorer backpacks, a lot of kitchen items, and a lotta lotta colorful plastic – China has been here, too!

Everywhere I went, I found political graffiti spray painted on building exteriors. I’m going to have to do some searching on the interwebs to see what that’s all about when I have some time.

There were several banks around the Parque Central hub. The one in which I changed some money also doubled as a furniture store. There were several sofa and loveseat sets, some major appliances, apparently a BIG sale going on, and then a couple of teller windows off to one side.

I had an early dinner that night. I’d found the restaurant where I wanted to dine — it had conch on the menu – while walking around in the afternoon and then mistakenly asked them “At what hour it’s open?” instead of “Until what hour it’s open?” When the waitress said six, I thought it very odd, but didn’t question it. I came back for dinner at 5:45 p.m. and then realized my Spanish stupidity as more and more people arrived the later it got. Doh!

The beach didn’t have stunning blue Caribbean water, but I could see it just off in the distance! What a tease. Closer to shore, it was pretty brown. I noted that there were lots of garbage bins tied to palm trees on the beach – always a good sign. More importantly, people seemed to be using them!

There was a good smattering of restaurants and bars along the boardwalk, although the only one that I found that had Wi-Fi was César Mariscos. Of course, it was also the most expensive restaurant. I self-sacrificed by buying a strawberry daiquiri while I was having a Skype chat with my hubby.

The Sinai hotel had cable TV (still no hot showers, but there was a TV).  At home I average about three hours of TV per week, most of it while on the treadmill at the gym, but with the dark streets of Tela being so uninviting, I zombied out on three consecutive episodes of House. Those writers really need to shake up the formula a bit – it is so predictable! What’s not predictable is my schedule. I haven’t decided where I’m going tomorrow, and I love that about this trip.

From Belize to Honduras by Water Taxi

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And a big ol’ taxi it was: there must have been about 20 people onboard! But again, I sat down and found myself facing the ever-present sign, “In God We Trust.” I wanted to say, “Yo Captain, I’m trusting in you, okay, to get this dang boat to the other shore. Show me what you’ve got.”

Argh, it was a long travel day on Feb.4th.  This blog post is full of practical details for other travelers doing the same route, though.
The available verbal, written and online information on the departure time of the Nesymein Neydy varied between 9, 9:30 and 10 a.m. I showed up at 8:30 to get a ticket and hand in my passport for immigration. The boat, however, didn’t leave until 11:30. Apparently, that’s a normal delay.
One passenger attempted to take an eight-week old pit bull puppy with him. “You allowed to do that?” I asked, as his puppy’s head popped out between the top flaps of the cardboard box in which he was being transported. “I think so,” was the answer I got. The pit bull never made it on to the boat. I’m still not sure if that was a good thing or not: stay with clueless owner that keeps you in a box, or stay with unknown person for unknown length of time until clueless owner can retrieve you. If I was the puppy, I would have made a break for it.  
We pulled up to Puerto Cortes, Honduras at around 2:45 that afternoon, and a good chunk of the passengers went over the bridge and around the corner to the bus stop. The downer about wanting to travel the northern coastline of Honduras is that you can’t! There is no road. (Same with trying to get from San Pedro Sula straight to the Guatemala border: must go through Puerto Cortes).
And hence the bus portion of the day began. I got a collectivo to San Pedro Sula (SPS), but despite many attempts at asking, it was still unclear to me from which terminal the bus to Tela left – I think there are a couple. Finally, the man sitting next to me jumped up and said, “Here!” He escorted me off the bus and two blocks down the street to the correct bus station. I really don’t know if my stop was his stop, but he sure helped when I needed it!
Unfortunately, at that time of day (about 5 p.m.), there were no more direct buses to Tela, so I had to get one bus to El Progreso, and then another to Tela. Bear in mind that these are the repurposed Blue Bird school buses, packed to the gills, and I had to stand for a long while on the last bus. I also hadn’t eaten since breakfast, so was getting a little bit weary.

Following about 100 paces behind me and my gentleman escort (who eventually went on his way) was another Canadian, a fellow named Curtis that had started out from Dangriga that day as well. Once he caught up to me, we rode the rest of the way to Tela together, arriving at about 7:30 p.m.

Our first two attempts to find a hotel room were a fail. It was Friday night, and Tela is the place where Hondurans from SPS get away for their beach weekends. On our third attempt (at the Hotel Sinai, based on our taxi driver’s suggestion), we got lucky. My room was cramped, mostly clean, and $15 USD. The rooms without private bathrooms were $12.
Curtis decided to shower and hit the sack, so I went out for a little wander to find some food. Tela has a reputation for being a little dodgy at night, so I only took a couple of dollars in my pocket and my room key, and off I went. The streets were so empty that it was a bit unnerving, and almost no businesses were open. I felt better when I reached the Central Square area and saw a group of people practicing Honduran folk dancing in the lobby of the City Hall building.
After going a couple of blocks further I found three or four basic restaurants. I bought a deep-fried thingy (have yet to find a name or description for it online) from the front counter of one and ate it as I walked back to watch more folk dancing. I was thus far underwhelmed with Tela, though, and hoped that it would look a lot more inviting during the day.