Real World, Schocking Covers

by FERENC IVANICS
We arrived in Santa Rosa somewhat tired. I was in bad shape, though getting better from my intestine infection, István, my brother was starting to feel bad with similar symptoms. We assume it's inevitable, one have to deal with it.

We took a break just before Santa Rosa and I started to thumb a newspaper we had found somewhere. Three homicides that weekend. We weren't really surprised, it's like that here in Central America. But there's something that shock us: newspaper and magazine covers. There's a lot of violent deaths in Central America. Homicides and fatal accidents. Photos of the dead are exposed on full pages and covers in color, without any blurring or cloaking. Total horror. A father wants to by some cigarettes at a stand, and his 4 years old child, while licking an ice cream, observes the "real world": a farmer crippled with a machete, a businessman shot in the head, a prostitute cut open, a youngster crushed with his motorbike, etc. This is absolutely normal in Mexico, Guatemala or Honduras. We don't like it.



The center of Santa Rosa is basically in good shape. The suburbs are to avoid. Garbage, stench and extremely suspicious faces. When we arrived they were preparing for the Easter Holy Week with some tinted sawdust pictures on the main street. It requires a lot of patience but the result is spectacular. We spent the night at the Red Cross, my brother threw up during the afternoon hours and got better instantly, maybe it was just an indigestion. Lucky for him.

Cloud Forests

by FERENC IVANICS
By looking at the roadside milestones we knew that we had walked some 13 miles uphill. But we didn't know how high we had managed to climb. We asked some locals. It was strange, none of them knew. A young lad said that he had a gadget in his car that showed our exact altitude. He checked, returned and said proudly: 33 miles. Ah, sure, 33 miles... We thanked him and moved on. Later we learned that we were shivering about a mile above sea level (some 1600-2000 meters). Downhill it was easier, but since the movement worked on different groups of muscles, after a while it hurt the same.

They call the forests we saw near the pass, and every forests alike: humid rich, full of springs and tree-ferns, cloud forests. These cloud forests are under national protection.


From a gardener's perspective it was an interesting experience to see what local farmers grow. Apples, peaches, strawberries, even first-class vegetables! After another seven miles we were down in the semi-desertic valley again; full of hopes that we wouldn't have to climb another behemoth like this. How much we miss the plains. :)

Up in the Clouds

by FERENC IVANICS
At a gas station in Ocotepeque we had a conversation with a casual guy. First we tried to distract his interest in how much money we had with us and if we had a gun, and then we asked him how was the road to Santa Rosa. He said that there are some really tough mountains over there and he didn't want to believe that we would walk to Santa Rosa. We didn't really trust his judgment, but did not ask other locals; it's hard to get objective answers here.


The next day we started the Ocotepeque-Santa Rosa stage. The man at the gas station was right. Brutal mountains with cloud crowns started to rise right in front of us. We were walking on a steep pass that was hard on the vehicles as well. After six miles the air started to get cooler around us. We saw pines and dark green coffee-plantations. We knew we were setting a new "record", we had never climbed this high before in one day. And my diarrhea wasn't helping... After ten miles it was getting really cold. Our breath started to fog. My belly started to cramp and sweat was all over us. We didn't dare to stop: we were afraid we would catch a cold.

István remembered those days when he traveled around the mountains in Austria with the 30 years old moped of our gramps, and sometimes he had to push the bike for a whole day uphill and had to stop every 25 yards. It was hard even to think, we were walking in a hypnotic trance. After twelve miles we glimpsed the place where the road, and the cars, disappeared into the dense fog.


We decided not to spend the night in that fog. There was a small house by the road and we asked for permission to spend the night in the yard. It was a cold night; we slept in clothes and sleeping bags. I don't have to mention that my night was restless. But all this suffering was worth it, we had the chance to taste a coffee made from locally grown, locally roasted coffee beans for the first time. It was an extremely warm feeling. Next morning we finished the last two miles and we arrived, up in the clouds.

A high mountain pass in Honduras