La Ceiba, Honduran Caribbean

Day 12: Copán ruins - La Ceiba

Although today we have the bus that will take us from Copán Ruinas to La Ceiba at 11 in the morning, making a technical stop in San Pedro Sula to change buses, our bodies are already used to getting up early, so before 5: 30 in the morning we are already awake, when we take the opportunity to work a little before collecting everything and going to breakfast. It is just under 8 when we go down to the breakfast room of the Mayan Way where we ask for a continental breakfast and an omelette, more coffees that lift our spirits to face today's transfer day, which will take us practically all day.
Seeing that it is still early, we took the opportunity to buy a few snacks and take a short walk through the streets of Copán Ruinas, since it is raining, not strong, but enough for the visit to Copán that we did yesterday, would not have been so Perfect if we had to do it today. Is there still any doubt with the luck we have with time on all trips?

It's 10 in the morning when we go up to our room to pick up the backpacks and 5 minutes later we go out to the street where we don't have to wait more than 2 minutes to take a motocarro or tuk tuk that takes us to the Hedman Alas station, the bus company with which we will go from Copan Ruins to La Ceiba and that is less than 500 meters from the hotel, but counting that it is drizzling, we do not feel like walking on foot.

They ask us for 30 lempiras to take us to the station. We know we can haggle but the truth is, how to haggle for just over a euro? We sincerely believe that it is not lawful to do so, when we can pay that price and we are really talking about a more than justified amount.
It took less than 5 minutes to reach the door of the Hedman Alas station in Copán Ruinas, located on the outskirts of the downtown area, and after marking our backpacks with a name and telephone label and having coffee in their small cafeteria for 15 lempiras, the bus that comes from Guatemala City arrives at 11:05, giving us a few minutes to load backpacks, take a photo for safety as we entered, just as they did on buses on the trip to Peru, review of handbags and there we go on our way to Ceiba, with a brief stop in San Pedro Sula, where we will change buses.

Hedman Alas in Honduras

Hedman Alas is the bus company that recommended us to take this trip to Guatemala and Honduras, for the transfers we had to do in Honduras.
There are two kinds of seats in Hedman Alas:
- Executive, which is what we have chosen, with reclining seats, foot support and drink and snack included in the price, for 292 quetzals in this route from Copán Ruinas to La Ceiba.
- Executive plus that we can say is practically comparable to the first class of an airplane. We have to say that the executive is doing very well, but if the trip is many hours or night, it is certainly worth paying a little more for executive plus, especially for having more reclining seats
You can book tickets directly at the offices or through its website //hedmanalas.com/, something more than recommended if you are traveling on very specific dates.

Punctual we leave Copán Ruinas, crossing the road of Honduras, with an increasingly clear day that seems to be chasing us wherever we go. As much as we want, we cannot look away from the window, trying not to lose sight of what is going on around us, and as we have said on several occasions, this type of transport allows you to "watch life go by", that although it is not the same as living it at street level, it gives you the opportunity to do it through this medium.

We arrive at the station Hedman Alas in San Pedro Sula at 2:25 p.m. and against everything that they had told us, we found a more than correct terminal, which we can even say is much better than the one we were in Guatemala City, at least externally .

As soon as we get off, they explain to us that they themselves are in charge of changing luggage from one bus to another and that we have to wait in the waiting room until they announce the next bus to La Ceiba at 15:05.

Here we find a waiting room with bathrooms and cafeteria service, where we take the opportunity to order a couple of coffees and a sandwich for 75 lempiras, which make food for this day in which the routes will be the protagonists.
Punctual warn that our will leave bus from San Pedro Sula to La Ceiba and there we are passing again a passport and ticket control, taking a new photo for security and accommodating ourselves in the executive seats for this next three-hour trip to La Ceiba, without intermediate stops.

After all we have read and we have been told about the security in San Pedro Sula, considered the most dangerous city in the world, something we hope to talk about later, we cannot get off the bus window, trying to capture some indication of that nickname with which this city is known, which we have to recognize, we have stepped on, with more

We need about 40 kilometers to reach Ceiba when an impressive storm surprises us, leaving the road practically flooded, something that makes us look at ourselves with the face of few friends and tomorrow we go out to Dirty calluses and we would not like to meet with a storm or cloudy days as companions for these next days.
We arrive at Hedman Alas station in La Ceiba at 6:30 in the afternoon, under a storm as strong as we did not remember in our travels, where the owner of La Casa de Nery is already waiting for us, who will be our accommodation in La Ceiba tonight.
When we booked the hotel, we asked if he could send us a taxi to pick us up, since they had told us, that as in San Pedro Sula, La Ceiba was not a very safe city and less at night. At the moment he said yes, that a car would be waiting for us at the bus station. But instead of a taxi has come to find the duel of the hotel, without extra charge, a luck because at this time of the afternoon, with everything practically closed, on the outskirts of the city and flooding, we believe that having to look for a Transportation would not have been too easy or a good idea.
After touring the flooded streets of La Ceiba, we arrived at the hotel, one of the best we have been on this trip to Guatemala and Honduras for free and it is that not only the room is huge, but that we are next to the beach, from where we can hear how the waves break on the shore with such force that it seems to reach the rooms.
We doubt whether or not to go out to dinner, since it is closed night and as we commented, for La Ceiba they do not recommend walking at this time. The weather does not accompany too much, so the owner of the hotel saves us when he proposes that they can ask us for dinner at a nearby restaurant so that we can have dinner directly at the hotel. We do not think twice and there we make our "home delivery" for dinner today, with an added table with the hotel owner and a dream in mind: that the weather improves and tomorrow we can go to Cayos Cochinos. And it is that just when we go to the room they explain that although it rarely happens, today the storm has had to suspend the ferries from La Ceiba to Útila and Roatán, so if it continues the same time, tomorrow is Very likely to remain canceled.

So we go to bed accompanied by the sound of rain, the tide and the thought put in Cayos Cochinos, the last Eden of the Caribbean.