Our trip to San Pedro Sula

Yesterday Sara and I decided to try out the public transportation, and hopefully end up in San Pedro Sula. It is a bigger city, about an hour away from Tela, that is if you're taking your own car. On public buses we were told it would take an hour and a half, but it was more like 3 hours one way! So Sara and I stared out on our adventure at 6:30 am, we walked over to a nearby gas station that is located on the main highway. We were able to flag down one of the buses within 15 minutes. Below is a picture of the public buses here. As you can see they are old American school buses, nice and yellow! They don't even strip down or repaint any of them, so most of the original words are left behind on the buses. So as Sara and I made our way to San Pedro we were pleased to find out the far was cheaper than we had expected only 24 limperas (about $1). I was such a nice drive staring out the window I could see green everywhere I looked. It was nice just to look around and take in the country, we passed many smaller villages, numerous random cows and horses grazing, and many abandoned buildings and homes. It's really sad to see how much trash is alongside the highway, even on the streets around our house, there is literally trash everywhere! I couldn't believe how many times I saw people throw garbage out the windows of the bus while we were moving! Just when I thought to myself how peaceful and relaxing this trip was going to be, an elderly woman stood up in the center of the bus and began preaching. That's right, preaching! For almost an hour she stood, yelling out and praying while closing her eyes, crying, and moving around her hands. I was surprised to see how many people gave her money afterwards, made me wish I could understand what she was saying. I would only catch every 5th word or so, not nearly enough to make sense of anything. Needless to say, it was really annoying, especially since she was standing right near our seat, basically yelling in our ears. The bus stopped at what we thought was San Pedro Sula, but it was actually a town called Progreso, about a half hour away from our destination. Apparently all the buses had to stop here,and we had to transfer to another bus. When we finally arrived in San Pedro Sula, we walked around the central park (right), found the Catholic Cathedral (the 1st picture at the top). We also stopped by the Anthropology Museum (2 bottom pictures)which was conveniently free on Sundays. While we were at the museum I found a familiar looking scale. It looked just like the one I had seen the man at the post office use a few weeks ago! :)There were many American fast food places, like McDonalds, Wendys, Pizza Hut, KFC, and even Cinnabun! We walked around the local market, which was pretty much like a gigantic swap meet, and fortunately we found our way to a large tented area set up with many table and chairs, live music, and numerous food stands.

Iwas SOOOO excited to see all the delicious local food! I dug right into my first official freshly made meal with meat in it!!! I ordered a combination plate with carne asada, homemade tortillas, salsa, rice, beans, and fried plantains.......this was by far the most delicious meal I've had yet!!

After only a few more hours in town, we decided to start our long journey back home, we were both really tired from all the walking around and the heat. We had to stop again at the town, Progreso where we stopped by a Wendy's to indulge in a chocolate Frosty....yum,yum!!! Then we grabbed another bus to Tela. After about 10 minutes on the bus we had to pull over because the bus had broken down. We had to sit around and wait for another bus to drive by. About 10 minutes later we were all piled into a different bus. Sara and I had to stand, the bus was completely packed, the seats and the aisle, people were sitting 3 to a seat, babies on laps and all! Just then, Sara saw the sign on the bus that said the max. capacity was 84 people, haha we thought! We were WAY over that!! To make our adventure even more interesting...who do you think I saw sitting in one of the seats next to us?! The elderly woman who was preaching on the bus from earlier that morning!!! What were the chances!!! I thought to myself, at least she wasn't preaching! I couldn't imagine having to listen to her all the way back, especially while being crammed up against other people! And of course just as soon as I had thought that to myself, sure enough, she stood up and began preaching all over again!!! Lucky by then, Sara and I had finally fought for a seat, so even though we did have to hear her all the way home, at least we could rest our legs for a bit! All and all, it was quite an adventure!!