Citizen Smith

Sunday 31st January 1988

We awoke feeling well rough and hungover. Declan went for breakfast with the mob and Paul apologised for last night, even though Declan brought it on himself, but the atmosphere at the hotel was unsettled. Declan was sporting two black eyes and a swollen nose.

We walked down to the Mercado Israel Lewites Bus Terminal where we found three buses crammed full of humanity and huge queues for the ticket windows which were not open yet. The Mercado was named in honour of a hero of the Sandinistas.

Israel Lewites’ father was tortured by former dictator Anastasio Somoza’s National Guardsmen when he was 16, his uncle was martyred by the Guardsmen’s bullets during the famous assault on the Masaya barracks, and his other uncle, the rogue Sandinista gunrunner-turned Mayor of Managua, Herty Lewites, died mysteriously during his 2006 presidential campaign against President Daniel Ortega. That’s a lot of rebel blood.

A son of the Sandinista revolution, Israel Lewites, 32, was born into the very Kafkaesque heart of Nicaragua politics. He reminded himself of that that fact in October, when he suddenly set off to run across the country like a Nicaraguan Forrest Gump in a lone journey to protest what he says is the current government’s return to dictatorship. The three-week rain-soaked pilgrimage, on which Lewites embarked in order to honour his martyred uncle of the same name, was documented in photos in local newspapers. Yet unlike Forrest Gump, no fans united with Lewites in his cross-country trek.

We returned to the hotel to sleep and fully sober up. We lay on our beds dozing and sweating alcohol while the Citizen Smith brigade sat outside talking of anarchy and revolution. Citizen Smith is a British television sitcom written by John Sullivan, first broadcast from 1977 to 1980.

It starred Robert Lindsay as "Wolfie" Smith, a young Marxist "urban guerrilla" in Tooting, south London, who is attempting to emulate his hero Che Guevara. Wolfie is a reference to the Irish revolutionary Wolfe Tone, who used the pseudonym Citizen Smith in order to evade capture by the British. Wolfie is the self-proclaimed leader of the revolutionary Tooting Popular Front (the TPF, merely a small bunch of his friends), the goals of which are "Power to the People" and "Freedom for Tooting". In reality, he is an unemployed slacker and low-life criminal whose plans fail through his own laziness, cowardice and incompetence.

At 16:00 hrs. we paid for our room and walked unenthusiastically back to the Bus Terminal. The houses were mainly wooden shacks in this part of Managua and the local kids played baseball on the dirt roads between them.

At the Bus Terminal we greedily drank fizzy cherryade with ice from plastic bags and discovered that buses to Rivas left from elsewhere. Our next destination, Rivas is a city and municipality in southwestern Nicaragua on the Isthmus of the same name. The city proper is the capital of the Department of Rivas and administrative centre for the surrounding municipality of the same name.

We wandered back past the church where this morning they were enthusiastically letting off rockets but now they were singing “Haleluiyah”! We crossed the road to avoid some dodgy looking dogs. Most of the locals were sitting in their rocking chairs watching television.

We vowed not to drink so much again! Everything is very quiet on a Sunday evening. We sat about in the hotel courtyard while small birds with long thin tails (long tailed tits?) flitted about above us. Not the Nicaraguan Grackle or Quiscalus nicaraguensis which looks like a rook.

We then spent the evening in a vain search for the fruit juice bar that we had been in on Friday. When we did finally find it, it was closed. We trudged up to the La Ronda Bar for some much-needed refrescos (soft drinks) and an excellent chicken meal.

We went to bed early, awoken only briefly when the Socialists returned drunk at 23:00 hrs yacking loudly. The streets are dotted with “gravestones” in memorandum of heroes that fell in the revolution.

Rum

Saturday 30th January 1988

We walked to the Post Office by a new route, passing the huge sports stadium and finally crossing a lot of grassy vacant lots and damaged derelict buildings. We posted our cards, me handing in my bag as usual because I had my Ricoh KR-10 Super SLR camera. Despite three bag searches they have failed to find Declan’s camera.

We walked past kiddies rolling tyres like hoops with sticks and others flinging stones at birds with their catapults. We walked through an area of poor houses and wrecked cars where women were sweeping the dirt floors as usual.

Back at the hotel we washed clothes and sat in the sun. We chatted to Paul who was a postman from Belgium. In Belgium there was a scheme that allowed people to have a year off work while an unemployed person did your job and you got their unemployment benefits. He was taking this opportunity to travel.

At 12:00 hrs. (as traditional on a Sunday!) we went to the bar down the road with Paul and drank over a crate (24 bottles) plus 6 more bottles of Victoria beer. The waiter seemed miserable and hostile at first but got happier and friendlier as the afternoon went on.

We ate our evening meal in a rough local café where they served draft Victoria beer in plastic jugs. The fish was excellent. On the way back we stopped at the Hotel Lido where they were closed for beer but open for rum!

Two litres of rum later we were extremely intoxicated. Paul had a race with Declan in the hotel swimming pool before chatting to an extremely effeminate looking youth. Unfortunately, Declan had exceeded his safe alcohol limit and wanted to fight the world. He turned on Paul, calling him a wanker, and pushing him backwards.

Paul warned that there was no need for this and tried to defuse the situation before slamming a cracking head butt into Declan’s nose, knocking him flat on his back. He retreated to our room with a bleeding nose, and we were fast asleep when the police arrived to investigate the fracas. Someone had called the police in response to the short-lived fight. The local rum is dangerous stuff, and in Declan’s case injurious to his health!

Hotel Chapito

Friday 29th January 1988

We were up early and walked down to the centre for breakfast in the Hotel Intercontinental. Already, at 07:30 hrs, there were queues of cars and vans at the petrol stations enroute. We walked through the vacant grassy lots abandoned since the earthquake in 1972 and the Civil War of 1978-79. Only a few damaged buildings stood amongst the long grass.

Apparently on the evening of December 22, 1972, the city of Managua, Nicaragua, was hit with an earthquake of magnitude 6.2. Because the city was hosting a major baseball tournament that had added additional festivities to the pre-Christmas season, little attention was paid to the first tremors.

Small tremors are commonplace in this Central American country. Two elements in the site of Managua add to the terror of earthquakes. First, the foundation of the city is not solid rock as one might suppose but rather fragments of volcanic material that together add up to a sort of rock cushion, easily disturbed and shaken by seismic vibrations.

The other problem is the type of material used in housing construction, a local resource consisting of rough wood frames with adobe and stone infilling and with clay roofs. This type of house collapses easily when an earthquake strikes, as happened here on a grand scale.

As midnight approached the tremors increased in both frequency and strength and homes were shaking with such violence that many people moved out of their homes.

Soon fires broke out all over the city, triggered by the earthquake, and a state of near panic developed. All lights had gone out and the smoke and fires made it difficult for anyone to know with any accuracy what was happening.

Next morning the details of the tragedy became clear: 5,000 people had lost their lives, 20,000 had been injured, and the whole city looked like a place that was at war.

In the city centre the main buildings are the tall Banco de America, the Post Office, a cinema, the old central palace, the ruined cathedral and the new pyramidal Hotel Intercontinental.

Founded in 1952 in Managua as Banco de América Central, BAC was the forerunner of what is now known as the BAC Credomatic Group (Spanish: Grupo BAC Credomatic). By the seventies, the bank ventured into the business of credit cards using the Credomatic brand. Housed in the Edificio Benjamín Zeledón which is 61 metres tall and 17 floors above ground and was constructed between 1968-1970.

The Old Cathedral of Managua, known as the Catedral de Santiago (St. James' Cathedral) in Spanish, was designed by Belgian architects. Its neoclassical design was said to have been inspired by the look of the church of Saint-Sulpice in Paris, France. Construction began in 1928 and lasted until 1938. Belgian engineer Pablo Dambach oversaw the construction of the cathedral. The iron that was used to frame the core of the cathedral was shipped directly from Belgium.

The cathedral survived the 1931 Nicaragua earthquake, as only its iron core had been erected at the time. Four decades later, the cathedral was heavily damaged during the 1972 Nicaragua earthquake, and the building was subsequently condemned though it was not demolished. The Old Cathedral's tower clock was damaged during the Contra Civil War of the 1980’s.

There were mainly motor vehicles on the road but there were also still a few ox carts and horse-drawn trailers. We baulked at the price of the breakfast buffet at the Hotel Intercontinental, a whopping (by our standards) C$90,000 Córdoba’s plus tax, and we decided to skip breakfast altogether.

We went on a photographing spree around the The Plaza de la Revolución by the Lake Managua shore. It was formerly called Plaza de La República until July 20, 1979. It was built on what was originally called Plaza del Cacique Tipitapa, where it was said that there were ten thousand indigenous flecheros buried.

Lake Managua, also known as Lake Xolotlán (Lago Xolotlán), is a 1,042 km² (402 square miles) lake which is approximately 65 kilometres (40 miles) long and 25 kilometres (16 miles) wide. It’s name was coined by the Spanish conquerors, from Mangue (the Mánkeme tribes) and agua ("water"). The city of Managua, the capital of Nicaragua, lies on its southwestern shore.

On July 20, 1979, in the then Plaza de la República, the triumphal entry of the columns of FSLN guerrillas was carried out for the celebration of the Triumph of the Sandinista Popular Revolution after the flight of the dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle on the 17th of the same month and the fall of the puppet government of Francisco Urcuyo Maliaños.

We bought some great postcards in the lobby of the Hotel Intercontinental and went on to buy stamps for them in the Post Office. Declan tried to phone home again but discovered that today you had to pay in $US dollars so he skipped it.

We then went on a wild goose chase to find the Costa Rican Consulate, which we eventually tracked down by the Plaza España. We joined an ill-organised rabble to wait until our turn revealed that Declan required a visa which cost $20 US dollars. He paid up and was told to come back on Monday to pick up his passport.

We walked back, stopping at a juice bar for freshly squeezed orange juice. We also had the depressing experience of visiting a huge supermarket which had it’s few wares spread out to fill as much space as possible. There was plenty of sugar cane rum but very little wholesome food.

On the way back to the hotel Declan called into enquire as to the price of a room at the Hotel Lido. At $52 US dollars for a double room, it was well out of our league. We went out to eat fried chicken at “El Mango” comedor, the wind-tossed garden café hidden behind a breeze block wall down the road from our hotel.

A great many people seemed to be dressed in army green but not many of them are armed. We went back to write postcards at the Hotel Chapito and relax on our beds. We could afford this luxury as we were Córdoba millionaires! We idled the afternoon away dozing, eating melon and pineapple and reading our guidebooks and novels.

There was a colourful sunset and a lot of commotion as new arrivals met old friends. A lone guitarist (don’t you love the traveller who carries a guitar!) in the next room plucked a melancholy tune as we tried to orientate ourselves to the city of Managua using Kevin’s map (assume Kevin was a guest at the hotel).

For our evening meal we returned to the restaurant that we patronised last night. The meal was not quite so good, and we stayed off the rum, leaving early as three minstrels went from table to table serenading the diners.

We got back to the hotel at 20:00 hrs. to find a huge pack of newly arrived guests, including our old friend Paul Jacobs from Belgium, were going out on the town. We tried to get a drink in the Hotel Lido but the bar was closed and we ended up having an early night. I read my book until 22:00 hrs. before turning in.

Managua

Thursday 28th January 1988

The alarm clock chose to remain silent again but luckily, we awoke at 05:30 hrs. During the night we both heard a scrabbling, gnawing sound that we preferred to attribute to the occupant of the next room rather than to a large rat!

We hurriedly packed our gear, woke up the doorman and walked around the corner to the bus yard. There was a big queue for the only bus but luckily, they were hopefuls rather than ticket holders, so we got straight on and paid C$5,000 Córdoba’s for our luggage.

The bus left promptly at 06:00 hrs. with surprisingly few standing passengers. It was hot and cloudy but the sun somehow managed to stay in view. The scenery comprised of brown hills that looked like a vast procession of giant brontosauruses (dinosaurs).

We passed quite a few well-organised, neat-looking co-operative farms in the wide flat-bottomed valleys. We went on through huge, steep-sided valleys with the road clinging to one side near the top.

We drove through Estelí, officially Villa de San Antonio de Pavia de Estelí, which is a city and an active commercial centre in the north and known as "the Diamond of the Segovia". We saw a lot of political murals including the initials FSLN and a red 7 overlapping a black 7. We were familiar with Sandanista symbolism from The Clash Sandanista album. The Clash obviously thought that they were heroes.

The Sandinista National Liberation Front (Spanish: Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional, FSLN) is a socialist political party in Nicaragua. Its members are called Sandinistas in both English and Spanish. The party is named after Augusto César Sandino, who led the Nicaraguan resistance against the United States occupation of Nicaragua in the 1930s.

The FSLN overthrew Anastasio Somoza DeBayle in 1979, ending the Somoza dynasty, and established a revolutionary government in its place. Having seized power, the Sandinistas ruled Nicaragua from 1979 to 1990, first as part of a Junta of National Reconstruction.

Following the resignation of centrist members from this Junta, the FSLN took exclusive power in March 1981. They instituted a policy of mass literacy, devoted significant resources to health care, and promoted gender equality, but came under international criticism for human rights abuses, mass execution and oppression of indigenous peoples.

A US-backed group, known as the Contras, was formed in 1981 to overthrow the Sandinista government and was funded and trained by the Central Intelligence Agency. In 1984 elections were held but were boycotted by some opposition parties. The FSLN won the majority of the votes, and those who opposed the Sandinistas won approximately a third of the seats.

The civil war between the Contras and the government continued until 1989. After revising the constitution in 1987, and after years of fighting the Contras, the FSLN lost the 1990 election to Violeta Barrios de Chamorro but retained a plurality of seats in the legislature.

We also saw quite a few bullet holes in walls. The road was good and there was evidence of lots of improvements, such as pipes being laid. There were also a lot of efficient looking ranches and horsemen looking as if they were straight out of the movies. Most of the countryside was planted with crops or supporting grazing cattle.

We got to the low urban sprawl of Managua at about 10:30 hrs. and transferred to a pickup truck to the centre, costing us C$50,000 Córdoba’s, which dropped us off at the Hotel Intercontinental. We set off on foot to find a cheaper hotel which accepted Córdoba’s.

We walked across a windswept park and stopped for a Coca Cola and peanuts at a kiosk. There was a lot of open space and a wealth of damaged concrete tower blocks that looked like a set from “Full Metal Jacket”. The scenes of desolation after the closure of London's Royal Docks were a miserable sight for some, but the perfect setting for scenes from Stanley Kubrick's disturbing 1987 film. Stanley Kubrick used Beckton Gas Works in the East end of London. A manufacturing plant of Coal Gas until 1970 on the banks of the river Thames. Kubrick had buildings selectively demolished in places to make the buildings appear scarred from war. Signs were erected on some buildings to make it look like an area of Hué, a Vietnamese city. Managua was similarly war torn, but for real.

Local people stared down from the top floors of these cement husks. We walked around the old central palace. The National Palace is one of Managua's oldest buildings, undamaged by the 1972 earthquake. It was commissioned by President Juan Bautista Sacasa in 1935 and built by architect Pablo Dambach, who also built the St. James Cathedral. For more than 50 years, the National Palace housed the Congress and was still standing despite recent conflict. It was now dominated by portraits of Augusto César Sandino.

In the centre of Managua, a huge statue dominated the road with a half-naked soldier holding aloft a rifle with the FSLN colours flying from it. Apparently this statue was made from melted AK-47s shortly after the Sandinista triumph in July 1979.

“El Guerrillero sin Nombre” (The Nameless Guerrilla Soldier) monument sits in the capital Managua and recognizes the sacrifice of the countless Sandanista (FSLN) peasant soldiers who fought for freedom against the government during Nicaragua's Contra War in the early 1980's. In one hand the revolutionary wields a pickaxe and in the other an AK-47. The association of a farmer's field tool and the AK-47 is often made; representing the farmer-soldier nature of those who wield the weapon. The FSLN maintains political control in Nicaragua to this day.

We continued down through the deserted windy vacant blocks to the railway station. We failed to find the Hotel Royal and flagged down a taxi to take us to the Hotel Chapito. He charged us C$6,000 Córdoba’s to drop us off at a seemingly deserted green and white building on a corner.

We discovered that this was indeed the hotel and paid C$26,500 Córdoba’s for a room with two beds comprising of straw palisades covered with nylon wheat sacks in what seemed more like a stable. We were issued with a sheet each and, after our passport details were taken, we set off to the restaurant cum garage on the corner for chicken and rice.

Afterwards we walked through the howling wind to a discreet door which led into a pleasant restaurant which sold La Victoria Beer for C$8,000 Córdoba’s a bottle. Apparently on a scale of 1-10, La Victoria is often rated two notches lower than Toña but it is a softer beer that many prefer over its competitor. Served cold throughout Nicaragua, La Victoria at 4.5% abv is tasty and perfect for quenching a strong thirst.

The verdict of a punter from Ohio (online at https://www.beeradvocate.com) about La Victoria which is brewed by Industrial Cervecera S.A. / Compañía Cervecera De Nicaragua was: This brew pours out a nice deep amber colour with a small white head. The brew is almost looks like tea in colour. The smell is rich skunky, with, grains, and malts. You pick up a hit of hops in this brew. The taste is bold with flavour. It is sweet, with malts and grains. Victoria is a real nice relishing brew. The mouthfeel is nice and clean. There is nothing overpowering in this brew, it has a nice brew to it.

We found it agreeable and sat and drank as the wind plucked at our tablecloth and strange fruit was blown from the trees around us. Managua, due to its tropical climate, varied topography, naturally fertile soils, and abundant rain and water sources, boasts a great variety of flora. Many different types of trees, some of which are not found elsewhere in the world, appear, including chilamates, ceibos, pochotes, genízaros, tigüilotes, royal palms, piñuelas and madroños (Nicaragua's national tree) surround the city.

We were chucked out when it closed at 14:00 hrs and we returned to the windy hotel courtyard to shower and sunbathe. Later on we went around the corner to a hotel bar for a few more beers, following a meeting with Kevin and the coffee-picking brigade.

Nicaragua’s Sandinista revolution became a romantic liberal cause celebre in the 1980s. When a plea came for international volunteers to pick coffee and other crops, there was a practical way for people to become ‘brigadistas’ and help the cause. British and Irish brigades of volunteers came to Nicaragua in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The brigades helped fill a labour shortage created as the US-funded Contra rebels attempted to oust the leftist Sandinista government, which itself had seen off the repressive Somoza regime in 1979.

At his farm cafe in Estelí, in the hills of northern Nicaragua, Dave Thomson chuckles as he recalls the Irish people who came here more than 25 years ago to help harvest the coffee. “They picked abysmally. I used to explain to them how they had to pick coffee. I used to tell them it wasn’t important how much you picked: the important thing was to do it well.”

For the coffee-harvest volunteers it wasn’t a case of quality over quantity because they picked slowly, sometimes harming the plant in the process, he says. “So, a lot of damage used to be done, and very little coffee used to get picked. And it often cost more to have a brigade up in the mountains than it could pick.”

We got back to the hotel at 18:00 hrs and lay on our beds for ten minutes before deciding to go out again and walk into the town centre to the Post Office and Telcor building. The Instituto Nicaragüense de Telecomunicaciones y Correos or The Nicaraguan Institute of Telecommunications and Postal Services (TELCOR) is the "Regulatory Entity" of the Telecommunications and Postal Services, a state institution, which has the functions of regulation, regulation, technical planning, supervision, application and control of compliance. of the Laws and Norms that govern the installation, interconnection, operation and provision of Telecommunications Services and Postal Services.

Declan tried to ring home but after a long wait got no answer. On the long walk back we stopped off at an expensive looking restaurant for an excellent steak dinner and half bottle of rum with orange juice. This cost us C$108,000 Córdoba’s each.

We found our way back to the hotel, more by luck than judgement and went to bed merry with alcohol.

AK47s in Nicaragua

Wednesday 27th January 1988

The alarm clock proved trustworthy, but we had a bit of trouble getting someone to let us out of the locked-up hotel at 03:30 hrs. Eventually, the doorman emerged smiling and yawning to let us out into the street and we walked down to the Bus Station.

The streets were deserted except for a couple of caterwauling cats attacking each other. The few locals that we saw were wrapped up warm, one with a soup tureen over his head like a helmet!

There was only one bus and we got on it. It left punctually at 04:00 hrs. and raced along good roads towards Nicaragua. We slept for the first two hours and then woke to a spectacular dawn. The scenery was desert plain with scrub trees and distant hills. The wind howled around the bus like a banshee.

We saw more bicycles on the road than usual and slowed down a couple of times due to cattle in the road, them being herded by cowboys. We passed through Choluteca which is a municipality and the capital city of the Honduran department of the same name. Situated in southern Honduras between El Salvador and Nicaragua, the city is generally considered the regional centre of southern Honduras and is a major transit point on the Pan-American Highway.

When Spanish conquistadors arrived in southern Honduras in 1535, the Chorotega indigenous people inhabited the area. In 1541, a town was founded there by Captain Cristobál de la Cueva which was known as Villa de Xerez de la Frontera de Choluteca.

We continued on through San Marcos de Colón which is a town, with a population of 12,870 (2020 calculation), and a municipality in the Honduran department of Choluteca, located on the border with Nicaragua. The town is located on the Pan-American Highway near the Nicaraguan border town of Somoto, and 192 km (119 miles) away from the capital Tegucigalpa.

Both of the towns were both pleasant looking, quiet simple places. At last, we went uphill and stopped at a preliminary checkpoint followed by Honduran Customs. We were quickly stamped out of Honduras and we set off downhill to the ghost town of El Espino.

We were the only people, so we continued through the deserted buildings with the intention of walking the 5 kilometres to the first Nicaraguan checkpoint. We passed a sentry post with stencilled Sandinista propaganda and walked along the deserted road between hills that looked like the film set for a Western.

A truck pulled up alongside us and a soldier with an AK47 jumped out and indicated that we should return to El Espino with him in a passing pickup truck.

The AK-47, officially known as the Avtomat Kalashnikova (Russian: Автома́т Кала́шникова, lit. 'Kalashnikov's automatic rifle'; also known as the Kalashnikov or just AK), is a gas-operated assault rifle that is chambered for the 7.62×39mm cartridge.

Developed in the Soviet Union by Russian small-arms designer Mikhail Kalashnikov, it is the originating firearm of the Kalashnikov (or "AK") family of rifles. After more than seven decades, the AK-47 model, and its variants remain the most popular and widely used rifles in the world.

The number "47" refers to the year the rifle was finished. Design work on the AK-47 began in 1945. It was presented for official military trials the following year in 1947, and, in 1948, the fixed-stock version was introduced into active service for selected units of the Soviet Army. In early 1949, the AK was officially accepted by the Soviet Armed Forces and used by the majority of the member states of the Warsaw Pact.

The model and its variants owe their global popularity to their reliability under harsh conditions, low production cost (compared to contemporary weapons), availability in virtually every geographic region, and ease of use. The AK has been manufactured in many countries and has seen service with armed forces as well as irregular forces and insurgencies throughout the world.

Back at El Espino we went into the old, abandoned Customs Checkpoint and were given a preliminary check of our passports and proof that we had at least $200 US. We then waited in another pickup for sufficient passengers for a worthwhile trip to the proper Emigration Point.

The old Duty-Free shop by the van looked sad and was half collapsed. It cost us 5,000 Nicaraguan Córdoba’s each for the drive to a series of sheds for our passports to be stamped and our luggage cursorily checked. The córdoba is the currency of Nicaragua. It is divided into 100 centavos. At this time there were C$20,000 to the $US Dollar. We then passed a final sentry post and joined a group of people who appeared to be waiting for some sort of transport.

Soldiers in a variety of uniforms, mainly rag-tag, loitered around and a donkey came along to supply them with milk from two urns on it’s back. At the Immigration Caravan we had presented our passports to an invisible being behind a net curtain, and stood waiting expectantly in the howling, dust-carrying, swirling wind.

They puzzled about the whereabouts of, or even the existence of a country called Ireland and concluded that it must be Northern Ireland where Declan earned a living as a Vendedor de Queso (He had worked as a delivery driver for French Dairy Farmers in West London before leaving for Mexico).

We also had to change 60 American Dollars into Nicaraguan Córdoba’s at 20,000 per $ dollar and came away with a huge wadge of C$ 1,200,000 Nicaraguan Córdoba’s.

At last, a battered old minibus, well passed it’s best, came rattling along the road. Surprisingly an orderly queue formed, and we all filed aboard the bus. It was full up when we set off for Somoto, but it didn’t stop them cramming on a few dozen more along the way.

We stopped once while a ragtag bunch checked the papers of the locals, led by an authoritarian looking man in a camouflage uniform. Contorted and cramped we eventually pulled into the dusty yard that served as a bus station for Somoto.

The 30-minute journey cost us C$1,000 Córdoba’s, plus C$1,500 Córdoba’s for our luggage. This is apparently a quirk of Nicaraguan bus travel, that people go cheaper than bags.

Somoto was a dry, dusty frontier town with a pleasant atmosphere. Somoto was settled by Olmec and Aztec peoples from Mexico, and subsequently inhabited by Chorotegas and Nicaraguas. The name Somoto originates from the Nahuatl Tépecxomotl, meaning 'Valley of Geese', while Spanish royal decrees of 1591 give the city's name as Santiago de Tepesomoto. Although the city is now universally known as Somoto, the name Tepesomoto is retained by the volcano overlooking the city to the south and its surrounding Tepesomoto-La Patasta Nature Reserve.

Somoto was granted town status in January 1867 and city status in March 1895. It has been the capital city of Madriz since that department's separation from Nueva Segovia in November 1936.

We booked into the Hotel Panamericano, just off the main plaza, where a double room cost C$24,000 Córdoba’s. We then had the Comida Corriente at the restaurant opposite on the other side of the plaza for C$8,000 Córdoba’s. This was a nourishing dish of rice, refried beans, meat and potato, served with a cup of pineapple juice.

We moved on to the Comedor of the Hotel Internacional for a couple of beers at C$7,000 Córdoba’s each. Unfortunately, we had to put up with an unsolicited monologue on the state of Nicaragua from a Swiss traveller.

There are a wealth of soldiers in town, most of them young, from the army camp adjacent to the plaza, opposite the rugged white church. Somoto's adobe parochial church, formally the Temple of Saint James the Apostle (Templo Santiago Apostól), was established in the heart of Somoto in 1661 opposite the city's parque central It is therefore one of Nicaragua's oldest surviving church buildings, pre-dating the Cathedral of León by 86 years. However, the present façade and bell tower were constructed as recently as 1875.

Somoto is also located near the Cacaulí Sanctuary, a site for religious pilgrimage since a boy claimed to have seen the Virgin Mary while collecting firewood in 1990 (She must have heard that we were there a couple of years previously).

Our next move was to buy tickets for tomorrows 06:00 hrs. “Express Bus” to Managua. These were purchased from the dingy village store one block down from the bus station. We returned to the hotel to do some washing and hung it out to dry in the back yard in a stiff breeze.

We then settled down to catch up on some sleep in our dimly lit room. It remained dim even after replacing the light bulb when the old one blew.

For the evening meal we crossed the square to the Hotel Internacional Restaurant for a good meal. We had rice, eggs, beans, cheese, fried banana and tortilla. We also had a couple of Toña beers, cerveza hecho en Nicaragua. Toña Cerveza is a Lager - Adjunct style beer 4.6% abv brewed by Industrial Cervecera S.A. / Compañía Cervecera De Nicaragua in Managua.

Current advertising says “Nicaragua is famous for many things, but none more celebrated than Toña’s smooth, easy-drinking flavour. So, pet that puma, befriend a pirate, and hike up a volcano—there’ll be a well-earned Toña waiting for you at the top”.

We were joined by the friendly old manager who talked detrimentally about American politics and gave us a few cooking tips. We popped into the telephone place and confirmed that it was the equivalent of $8 US dollars to telephone England.

We crossed the square with a family of pigs and the chains of the swings in the playground creaked eerily in the wind. The night was tranquil with fast-moving clouds flitting across the stars.

Windy City

Tuesday 26th January 1988

We got up at 08:15 hrs. and headed for the Nicaraguan Consulate. We got bus number 10, destination Alameda, at the bridge at a cost of 40 centavos for both of us, and we overshot the I.M.A. stop where we should have got off.

The bus terminated on a windswept hill and we had to take the next one back into town. We asked around in a pleasant residential area, where all the houses had security bars, and found the Consulate perched on a hill.

Our visa applications were dealt with by friendly, efficient staff and it it seemed expensive to us, Declan’s visa costing $25 US. Luckily it seems that as a UK citizen I don’t need one. We were told to come back at 12:30 hrs. to collect the visa so we went off to get breakfast.

We found that we were very close to the Parque Central and Boulevard Morazán with it’s American-style bars and restaurants, as well as some interesting churches and museums.

We had a great “desayuno rapido” in the Centro Comercial Los Castaños where the bookshop was. We stopped off at Dunkin Do’nuts on the way back to the Nicaraguan Consulate for a coffee and cherry donuts.

Some American soldiers stopped by for a takeaway. We got back to the consulate at 11:30 hrs., prepared to wait, but Declan’s passport was ready for collection. We walked back to the hotel through the busy streets, stopping briefly at the market.

There were quite a few soldiers about, in a multitude of uniforms and armaments. I bought some milk in the supermarket to wash down my malaria pills. We laid about in our room and read our books while our sheets were being washed and hung out to dry from the balcony outside.

It is still blowing well, Tegucigalpa should be called “the Windy City”, never mind Chicago! The cleaners witter and giggle around the washing machine outside.

At 15:15 hrs., we walked along to the end of Avenida 6, Comayagüela, to the “Mi Esperanza” Bus Terminal where we bought tickets for tomorrows 04:00 hrs. bus to the Nicaraguan frontier.

On the walk back we stopped to look for some honey and Declan fell in lust with the girl at the farmacia. He wrote out a love note in our room but bottled out of giving it to her in case one of the other sales assistants was her husband.

We dined out at Todo Rico’s Vegetarian Comedor, but the meal was lukewarm and no where near as good as it had been yesterday. Thus, we went on to have a chicken (scrap) sandwich just off the main square (Parque Central).

It was very cold and windy as we made our way back. Many of the locals had their balaclavas on. Of those sleeping on the pavements, only the lucky ones had nylon sacks to sleep in. One fellow lay face down in his T-shirt on the bridge.

We retired to bed early, hoping that the alarm clock would go off at 03:00 hrs.

Tegucigalpa

Above: Catedral de San Miguel in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.

Monday 25th January 1988

It was pissing with rain when we woke up at 07:00 hrs. but we decided to brave it and head for the El Rey Bus Station. Here we bought tickets to Tegucigalpa for 8 Lempiras on a first-come, first-served basis. There were no advanced sales for bus tickets.

Tegucigalpa, formally Tegucigalpa, Municipality of the Central District (Spanish: Tegucigalpa, Municipio del Distrito Central or Tegucigalpa, M.D.C.), and colloquially referred to as Tegus or Teguz, is the capital and largest city of Honduras along with its twin sister, Comayagüela.

Tegucigalpa’s first mention in records is in the 1560s, when silver deposits (“tegucigalpa” means “silver mountain” in the Nahuatl language) were found in the hills to the east. It was given town status in 1768, and named a city in 1807. With wealth from the country’s mines pouring in, the city’s location at the centre of key trade routes became highly advantageous, and Tegucigalpa soon rivalled the then capital, Comayagüela.

In 1880, the Liberal President Soto officially shifted power to Tegucigalpa, and in 1932 Comayagüela became a part of the capital. Since then, the nation’s economic focus has shifted to San Pedro Sula, but Tegucigalpa continues to function as the nation’s political and governmental centre.

After the dissolution of the Federal Republic of Central America in 1841, Honduras became an individual sovereign nation with Comayagua as its capital. The capital was moved to Tegucigalpa in 1880. On January 30, 1937, Article 179 of the 1936 Honduran Constitution was changed under Decree 53 to establish Tegucigalpa and Comayagüela, being sister cities physically separated by the Choluteca River, as a Central District.

Tegucigalpa is located in the southern-central highland region known as the department of Francisco Morazán of which it is also the departmental capital. It is situated in a valley, surrounded by mountains.

We boarded the comfortable bus for the four-and-a-half-hour trip to Tegucigalpa. The road was smooth tarmac but narrow enough to make overtaking perilous. The countryside was verdant, dank and green below the low grey clouds, and every accessible inch seemed to be cultivated.

At each stop a swarm of pedlars surrounded the bus with their wares displayed on poles so that they could reach the upper windows. A lot of the road was cut through rock and the steep embankment sides were painted with political emblems and graffiti. We passed several army camps and soldiers joined and left the bus along the way.

We pulled into the city at 12:30 hrs. and booked into the Hotel San Pedro by the Bus Station for 15 Lempira for a double room on an upper balcony. We then went out to explore the modern looking city of Tegucigalpa. It took a while to orientate ourselves to the map but after a frustrating start we relaxed with a Chinese meal in a ubiquitous Chinese Restaurant and set off refreshed.

None of the roads were numbered but we managed to find the Tourist Information Office and from there we took a very long walk to the “Book Village”, a shop in a very modern, clean shopping precinct which sold new and second-hand English paperbacks.

On our return we had a couple of Salva Vida beers in a cheap restaurant by the hotel for 1.30 Lempiras a bottle and got a free saucer of chicken soup. The city is full of fast-food hamburger and pizza places, and I even spotted some VDU computer terminals! The traffic is a bit chaotic, but the women are pleasantly distracting.

At 18:30 we went out and followed Avenida 6 through the street market and across the bridge that smells of sewage. A strong wind swirled around the street throwing dust about. We found the “Todo Rico” vegetarian restaurant and had a good meal and some nice coffee in paper cups!

Our latest search of the town revealed that the Ticamaya Hotel, despite what the South American Handbook said, didn’t have American cable TV and that there were no decent bars in town. “They all seem to get pissed in shit holes”! said Declan in disgust.

The streets were dark and quiet as we made our way back to the hotel, with only rubbish blowing along the sidewalks and the odd drunk shouting from doorways.

San Pedro Sula

Sunday 24th January 1988

We got up at 08:30 hrs. and had breakfast at the restaurant opposite, which offered fried bananas with everything. Then we met the two Americans and loaded our gear into their green Ford pickup. We were then comfortably installed in wooden bucket seats for the journey to San Pedro Sula.

San Pedro Sula is the capital of Cortés Department in Honduras. It is located in the northwest corner of the country in the Sula Valley, about 50 kilometers (31 miles) south of Puerto Cortés on the Caribbean Sea.

Before the arrival of the Spanish, the Sula Valley was home to approximately 50,000 native inhabitants. The area that is home to the modern city served as a local trade hub for the Mayan and Aztec civilizations. The Spanish conquest brought about a demographic collapse from which the native population would never recover.

We didn’t know then that San Pedro Sula was to become the "murder capital of the world" until early 2016 when Caracas, Venezuela, surpassed its homicide rate. According to the Los Angeles Times, in recent times "the homicide rate is stoked by the rivalry of the brutal street gangs, mostly descendants of gangs formed in Los Angeles and deported to Central America in the 1990s, including Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and the 18th Street gang. Their ranks are fed by the disastrous economy of Honduras and emboldened more recently by alliances with Mexican drug traffickers moving cocaine through the country."

By 2019 San Pedro Sula had dropped to number 15 (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_murder_rate#:~:text=List%20of%20cities%20by%20murder%20rate%20%20,%20%2080.74%20%2042%20more%20rows%20Top). The top 5 on the list of cities by murder rate were Rank City Country Homicides (2019) Population (2019) The top 5 were in Mexico followed by 6 Caracas Venezuela 2,134 2,858,933 7 Acapulco Mexico 600 837,914 8 Cape Town South Africa 3,065 4,488,545 and 9 St. Louis United States 194 300,576 42).

The road was smooth and tarmacked and there was a pleasant breeze. We stopped early on to clamber across an Indiana Jones style swinging wire and wood bridge across a wide river. The sort of bridge that Indy get across and cuts the wires to leave the baddies swinging and dropping into the gorge below.

Back in our seats in the back of the pickup truck we continued through a green rolling landscape where all accessible land was cultivated. The scenery was reminiscent of the English Lake District and the road twisted and turned like a snake. We stopped for a couple of beers on the outskirts of Sula, at a restaurant with a panoramic view over the valley.

The juke box played loud reggae-orientated music. When we arrived in the town centre, we bid farewell to the Americans who had been good company. We booked into the Hotel San Pedro which looked expensive, but we got a double room with communal toilets for 14.70 Lempiras.

We had a snack in the hotel restaurant and went out to find the Bus Station. We kept to the shadows as we had sunburn from being roasted in the sun in the open back of a pickup, the strength of the rays being masked by the breeze.

The town seemed quite modern with a few towering bank buildings amongst the square, coloured tiendas (shops) that we had become familiar with in Central America. At 17:00 hrs. we went to the flics (cinema) and paid 2.5 Lempiras each to see “Fatal Attraction” at the huge Cine Tropicana.

Fatal Attraction is a 1987 American psychological thriller film directed by Adrian Lyne from a screenplay written by James Dearden, based on his 1980 short film Diversion. Starring Glenn Close, Michael Douglas and Anne Archer, the film centres on a married man who has a weekend affair with a woman who refuses to allow it to end and becomes obsessed with him. At one stage she kills his pet rabbit and gave rise to the phrase “bunny boiler” for a female stalker.

The film quality was good, and the film was entertaining, and several bats flitted about in the darkness, clearly visible as they flashed across the path of the projector.

Above: Scarlet Macaws at Copan Ruinas.

Back at the hotel we had a good meal followed by orange cake and strong black coffee. A rat scurried down the stairs, ferreted around behind the counter, and scampered back upstairs without any show of concern from the other customers.

At 20:30 hrs. the cafeteria shut and we went back to our room. San Pedro Sula is a very modern, almost European-looking city, a bit like Athens, with white and black-skinned people as well as the usual brown-skinned inhabitants.

Our hotel is big and it looks as though it should be a lot more expensive than it is. We went for a brief walk around the surrounding area but everywhere was closed. There were people sleeping on the pavement and a few loitered on street corners, many wearing machetes.

We had a coca cola and watched television in the hotel lobby before turning in at 22:15 hrs.

Copán

Saturday 23rd January 1988

My alarm clock failed again but luckily Frank came to our rescue, banging on our window at 05:35 hrs. We leapt up and packed, scrobbling through the dark market to the Bus Stop with Frank reeling off another anecdote.

We got on the half empty bus at 06:00 hrs. but it didn’t leave until 06:20 hrs. The route was winding, uphill and on a dirt road which is “often impassable in the wet season” according to our guidebook. We left Frank still rabbiting by the window. “I expected you to beat me up this morning”, had a different meaning to what he intended, meaning “I expected you to be up before me this morning”.

The terrain was very reminiscent of Nepal with palm thatched mud huts, cultivated mountain slopes and winding rivers. On the bus we were packed in with workers with their tall wicker cowboy hats and their little sons all clutching machetes.

We passed through a checkpoint where a few of the local passengers had their bags checked at random. Most of them carried woven nylon sacks. At the border we were stamped out of Guatemala at one wooden hut and then we walked 100 yards to the next wooden hut to be stamped into Honduras. It cost Q3 Guatemalan Quetzals to leave Guatemala and 5 Lempira to enter Honduras.

There was no shortage of money changers loitering about offering to exchange 2.40 Lempiras for $US cash or 2 Lempiras per dollar for traveller’s cheques. Currently in 2021, 1 Honduran Lempira = 0.030 Pound Sterling.

While our tourist cards were filled in, we watched a car being fumigated to ensure that no pests crossed the border. I was relieved that there was no trouble over my passport stamps. There were stories that there could be issues if you had Israeli or Egyptian stamps, but mine were not even examined. It had been worrying me for some time that I may be refused entry to Honduras.

We changed up some traveller’s cheques and boarded a minibus for the 12 kilometres to Copán. This cost us 2 Lempiras each. The “road” was a rollercoaster dirt track. The bus conductor swaggered about in his Sylvester Stallone “Cobra” T-shirt handing out leaflets about a miracle health doctor.

Chickens and cattle scrobbled about in the fields and living compounds. At Copán village we crossed the smart central park and booked into the Hotel Brisas de Copán for 5 Lempiras each. Our first priority then, at 11:00 hrs. was food and we had comida corriente in the Paty Restaurant for 3.50 Lempiras.

The afternoon was spent at the fantastic Copán ruins which was almost deserted and pleasantly quiet. Discovered in 1570 by Diego García de Palacio, the Maya site of Copan is one of the most important sites of the Mayan civilization. The site is functioned as the political, civil and religious centre of the Copán Valley. It was also the political centre and cultural focus of a larger territory that covered the southeast portion of the Maya area and its periphery.

It was the capital city of a major Classic period kingdom from the 5th to 9th centuries AD. Copán was occupied for more than two thousand years, from the Early Preclassic period to the Postclassic. The city developed a distinctive sculptural style within the tradition of the lowland Maya, perhaps to emphasize the Maya ethnicity of the city's rulers.

We paid 3 Lempiras to get in and passed through the gate where four brightly coloured parrots sat on the fence. The site was like a film set for an Indiana Jones film and we took a lot of photographs of the stone carved faces and clambered up and down the stepped edifices.

We sat at the top of one pyramidal structure overlooking the ball court and ate oranges in the tranquil peace. The ruins are in the woods and there are lush grassy courtyards amongst the stones. We went on to follow a nature trail through the very English-looking woods but saw nothing more exciting than a black butterfly with vivid red spots on it’s wings.

The main stairway of the Copán ruins was badly eroded, but you could still make out the carved hieroglyphics. The whole thing was shadowed but protected by a huge tarpaulin. The stone columns with Mayan Indian figures carved on them were impressive and clearly detailed despite their age.

We walked back into the town and took a few minutes to peruse the small market before returning to our room. Declan began a battle with the local insects as strange animal calls came from the surroundings.

We slept for an hour and then went out to survey the restaurants in Copán town. We met two Americans sitting at a stall on the corner of the plaza and ascertained that it was a cheap source of Salva Vida beer at 1.50 Lempiras a bottle. Salva Vida (lifesaver) is a Lager-style beer brewed by Cerveceria Hondurena, S.A. / BevCo Ltd. in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. We got chatting to the hippy-looking bloke and his friend with the thick glasses and straw hat. They were both living in Belize at the moment.

We went for a meal with them in a restaurant just passed the mercado, eating steak washed down with beer. We were served by a cheeky looking waitress and the music was western pop and rock. We went on to the Americans hotel room to continue drinking beer and to listen to some music on their Walkman stereo system.

These boys were not politically correct, saying “that jewellery is so ugly, why I wouldn’t give it to a nigger”! The hotel boy cringed and grovelled as he delivered and opened bottles of beer, until it got embarrassing and we sent him away.

At 23:30 hrs. we went back to bed but Jim and his mate, who had long hair that squaddies in Belize wanted to cut off, went to investigate the local disco. They offered to give us a lift to San Pedro Sula in their pickup truck tomorrow.

Dust devils

Friday 22nd January 1988

We had an assortment of goodies for breakfast purchased from the local shops and market. Sardine sandwiches, bananas and milk. Frank the Yank (Francis) appeared at our door talking incessantly and Declan sobbed in despair as this time there was no retreat. “Do go on”, he said, but Francis failed to catch the irony.

The water supply failed today. We went out and toured the market, but the quality of leather goods was a lot poorer than those that we had seen in Mexico. We caught up on sleep for several hours in the afternoon and then went in search of the Post Office.

This was on the corner of the town where the houses gave way to arid wasteland which led away to the distant hills. We sat on the steps of a blockhouse tienda (shop) drinking Coca Cola and watching soldiers working with a mechanical digger. Dust devils swirled around us and local youth pissed up against the wall opposite. It was a bleak place.

We ate in a new restaurant with a tin roof supported by living palm trees. It was a bit expensive, but the food was excellent. We then returned to the hotel and sat in the garden, avoiding Frank the Yank by hiding in the bushes while he went out.

We chatted and discussed the stars in the night sky and Declan smoked. Frank caught us on the way back and we got the rundown on his life and loves before we excused ourselves and went to bed at 22:00 hrs.

The woman who ran the hotel seems to have taken a shine to us, showing us her new earrings and running out to buy us beers and chilli snacks. Two rabbits and a chipmunk slept in their cages and two tiny white puppies dosed on the curb outside our room.

Chiquimula

Thursday 21st January 1988

First, we went to the Rutas Orientales Bus Station to buy a bus ticket to Chiquimula which is another city in Guatemala. It is the capital of the department of Chiquimula and the municipal seat for the surrounding municipality of the same name. It is located some 174 kilometres from Guatemala City and within Guatemala known as "La perla del oriente" (the Pearl of the East).

In 1851 during the Battle of La Arada the Guatemalan military won over El Salvador and Honduras military forces, which is why Chiquimula was named "Ciudad Procer" Hero City.

We waded through the bus ticket touts trying to get on a bus leaving immediately and quickly bought a ticket for Q4.85 each for the bus leaving at 10:30 hrs. in the efficient ticket office.

We then had breakfast and loitered about the Hotel España until 10:00 hrs. As we boarded the bus another one reversed into it and smashed the windscreen. However, the glass stayed in place and was quickly patched up with a couple of stickers.

We were sitting right at the front so we could see the dodgy driving at first hand. The road was good and the terrain relatively flat and we got to Chiquimula in three hours, which was one hour less than we expected.

We got off the bus and pushed our way through the busy market in the town square, with it’s low canopies, and booked into the Hotel Dario at Q10 Guatemalan Quetzals for a double room. We washed some clothes and sat in the pleasant hotel garden in the sun.

We popped out and bought two tins of Gallo beer, much to the consternation of the woman in the hotel who told us that they sold them here. We bought a few more with half an orange to squeeze into them and sat watching a young lad doing the gardening.

As the sun began to set we were joined by another American “of Irish Descent”, who rabbited (talked) on for ages about his travels in Honduras. He said he was retired but was farming in Canada and came down here every year to escape the winter. He went from -30°c in Canada to +30°c in Central America.

We had supper in a dark barn-like edifice across the road from the hotel, run by a well-built lady who the Yank said always tried to seduce him. We were served by an elderly woman who cackled a lot and seemed delighted that we were patronising her humble establishment.

A police corporal sat at the next table; all the best people eat here! We had beefsteak and fried bananas while one of the resident youths paraded around with a white rat on his shoulder.

In the evening we sat in the central park where music, predominantly Madonna records, blared from the Public Address System on the bandstand. The local youths loitered around sporting their fashion gear as we sat drinking Gallo cerveza from a tin.

Back at our hotel our room was like an oven, the walls having acted like storage heaters in the heat of the day. I got another can of Gallo beer which was a treat served with a squeeze of orange juice and a pinch of salt, and we sat outside.

Francis the Yank appeared and rambled on for three hours about Honduras. As well as his own experiences he told us that Honduras, officially the Republic of Honduras, is a country in Central America. The republic of Honduras is bordered to the west by Guatemala, to the southwest by El Salvador, to the southeast by Nicaragua, to the south by the Pacific Ocean at the Gulf of Fonseca, and to the north by the Gulf of Honduras, a large inlet of the Caribbean Sea.

Honduran society is predominantly Mestizo although Honduras was home to several important Mesoamerican cultures, most notably the Maya, before the Spanish Colonization in the sixteenth century. The Spanish introduced Roman Catholicism and the now predominant Spanish language, along with numerous customs that have blended with the indigenous culture.

Honduras became independent in 1821 and has since been a republic, although it has consistently endured much social strife and political instability and remains one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere. In 1960, the northern part of what was the Mosquito Coast was transferred from Nicaragua to Honduras by the International Court of Justice.

The literal meaning of the term "Honduras" is "depths" in Spanish. The name could either refer to the bay of Trujillo as an anchorage, fondura in the Leonese dialect of Spain, or to Columbus's alleged quote that "Gracias a Dios que hemos salido de esas Honduras" ("Thank God we have departed from those depths").

Francis took every opportunity to speak English as hardly anyone in Chiquimula does. Declan fled into out room and we were joined by a Guatemalan Civil Engineer who wanted to practice his English.

Sadly, he could hardly get a word in edgeways while Francis was off on one of his monologues, and this one lasted until midnight! It was still extremely warm when I went to bed.

Cockroaches in Guate

Wednesday 20th January 1988

We slept reasonably despite a high level of traffic noise and music blaring from over the road. We kept the lights on to keep the cockroaches at bay. After a bit of conflicting information, we found two people who gave us the same directions to get to the Honduran Embassy. Take bus number 14 to Zona 10.

It cost us 10 centavos and was a short trip along the wide Avenue Reforma to the affluent area of Zona 10. Avenida Reforma ("Reform Avenue") is a main boulevard in the east-centre part of Guatemala City, the capital of Guatemala. It is considered one of the main thoroughfares of Guatemala City. It is 2.26 km (1 mile) in length and has an average width of 60 meters (197 feet) from sidewalk to sidewalk.

It runs from north to south, connecting the north-central areas of the city (Zones 1, 4, and 5) with the southern districts (Zones 9, 10, 13, and 14). It divides Zone 9 from Zone 10. The Zona Viva, where multiple modern buildings can be found, is adjacent to Avenida Reforma. The southern end is at the Obelisco, where it is continued by Avenida Las Americas.

The Avenida Reforma was originally known as Boulevard 30 de Junio (June 30th), to commemorate the victory of the liberal forces of Miguel García Granados and Justo Rufino Barrios. In Zona 10 there were high walls topped with broken glass shards and barbed wire to keep the “peasants” out.

There was also a lot of green space with grass and trees and fancy-looking restaurants. We found the Honduran Embassy at 16 Calle 8-27 Zona 10 (Telephone 373921) where it carried out it’s operations in the open air of the forecourt. I found out that I didn’t require a visa, but Declan’s Irish Passport caused the usual confusion, and we were told to return at 12 noon.

We found a pleasant place to have breakfast in a touristy garden area. It was a really good breakfast with excellent coffee for Q2.50 Guatemalan Quetzals each. Coffee lovers often have a special place in their heart for Guatemalan coffee. It’s no longer one of the top largest producers on Earth, after being edged out of the top 5, and it’s also not the biggest producer in Central America, but they’re still putting out some excellent quality coffee beans.

For a relatively small country, Guatemala has some very distinct regions when it comes to weather and soil conditions. There are a number of growing regions in Guatemala, each one inspired by diverse climate and soil. While similar in some ways, they all have unique characteristics that contribute to a wide assortment of flavours.

There are over 300 microclimates at play among the various regions here, and 14 ecoregions. More than 80% of the coffee farms here are small-to-medium in size, with only a couple of percent being larger in scale. The percentage of shade-grown coffee from Guatemala is in the high-90s.

We returned to the embassy where we had to wait for a further half hour and pay $3 US dollars for the visa. Luckily an American gave us a lift back to our hotel in his red Volkswagen Beetle. It seemed to be a challenge to drive safely in Guatemala City.

We went out into the sunny afternoon to see what was on at the various cinemas and ended up in one of the city squares. Here we watched a snake getting the better of his “charmer”, biting him once on his wrist and leaving a fang embedded in his finger.

He carried on his act regardless, despite having undermined his credibility as he had claimed that the snake bite was deadly poisonous. The crowd retreated rapidly as he approached carrying the-metre-long reptile by the tail, the women shrieking with horror.

We browsed around Arnels bookshop which had a good stock of English books, but they were expensive at Q15 Guatemalan Quetzals each.

At 18:30 hrs. we went out for another Chow Mein con Pollo in a restaurant with a ridiculously loud jukebox, followed by a walk to settle our food down. The bright electric lights above the road and the shopping plazas made the place look like a less lively Hong Kong.

We ended up in a quiet but friendly bar with a shark sign over the door. We stuck to soft drinks and our bill was only Q2 Guatemalan Quetzals. We walked back to the hotel at 21:30 hrs. through the young courting couples in their modern western clothes and the sidewalk stores selling pens, watches, bags, fruit and clothes.

In our room we waged war with the cockroaches that were cheerfully eating our peanuts and infiltrating our bedding.

Corazón Satanico

Tuesday 19th January 1988

We got up feeling “well rough” and had breakfast which made us feel better. It was tempting to stay here in Antigua as all our friends were moving into the Hotel Placido. However, we decided to leave for the good of our health and our finances. We said “adios” to all and gave out a lot of telephone numbers for future encounters in London before jumping on the bus to Guate.

We went to the Pension Meza where we had stayed previously but there were only communal dormitory rooms available, and it was full of the usual beanbags that we tried to avoid. We decided to go elsewhere and after a bit of scrobbling about we got an excellent, clean double room at the Hotel España on Avenida 9/Calle 15 for Q11 Guatemalan Quetzals.

We then went on to the clean and immaculate and efficient Banco Internacional to change up some more money. The sidewalks were assaulted by choking black exhaust fumes from the buses and trucks on the road.

I have just remembered that last night we ended up talking in bad Spanish with the eccentric Italian and the Canadian skinhead in “Los Pollos”! This morning we saw the Austrian girl who hadn’t even started her Spanish classes but was already staying out all night drinking on her first day in Antigua.

We had a short kip (sleep) in our hotel room and then went to the cinema. For Q1.50 Guatemalan Quetzals we saw the end of a crappy American comedy. “Hamburger: The Motion Picture” is a 1986 teen sex comedy film directed by Mike Marvin and starring Leigh McCloskey. The film was largely inspired by fast food jobs and the Hamburger University program of the McDonald's Corporation.

This was followed by the excellent “Angel Heart” which is a 1987 American neo-noir psychological horror film and an adaptation of William Hjortsberg's 1978 novel Falling Angel. The film was written and directed by Alan Parker, and stars Mickey Rourke, Robert De Niro, Lisa Bonet and Charlotte Rampling.

In 1955 Harry Angel (Rourke), a New York City private investigator, is hired by a man named Louis Cyphre (de Niro) to track down John Liebling, a crooner known professionally as Johnny Favorite who suffered severe neurological trauma resulting from injuries he received in World War II. His investigation takes him to New Orleans, where he becomes embroiled in a series of brutal murders. Favorite's incapacity disrupted a contract with Cyphre regarding unspecified collateral.

The sound and picture quality were good, with subtitles in Spanish which aided our learning of the language. The film was called "Corazón Satanico" in Spanish. After the film we had chicken and chips and came back to our room to find a load of small cockroaches scurrying for cover on the floor.

I showered, washed some smalls (underwear) and had an early night for a change.

Polloburguesa

Monday 18th January 1988

Declan was up early cooking the black beans that we had bought in the market. They had to be boiled for two hours with garlic and onions. We had them with boiled eggs for breakfast.

After breakfast we took the bus into Guate where we blundered through the busy streets in search of the Tourist Office. This we found in the new territory of Zona 4 in an affluent area of high-rise buildings by a huge roundabout. Most of the street traders were selling pencils.

We found out that the Honduran Embassy was in Zona 10 but it was closed now until tomorrow. It was only open from 08:30 hrs. to 12:00 hrs. noon. We then did the rounds of some travel agents to find out the costs of various flights to South America (thus avoiding the Darian Gap between Panama and Columbia).

The cheapest route seemed to be flying from Guatemala City to Bogotá via San Andreas Island for $244 US dollars. The only way to overcome the necessary “onward ticket” clause was to buy a return ticket to San Andreas Island, thus arriving in Columbia with a ticket out of the country and then exchanging the return half of the ticket for a single internal flight to Bogotá.

San Andrés is a coral island in the Caribbean Sea. Politically part of Colombia, and historically tied to the United Kingdom, San Andrés and the nearby islands of Providencia and Santa Catalina form the department of San Andrés, Providencia and Santa Catalina.

We had a coke and decided to see what the Honduran Embassy had to say tomorrow. Back at the bus stand I was nearly run over by a motorbike while crossing the road in search of peanuts. We got on the bus and waited for an hour before a 90-minute juddering journey back to Antigua.

We were cold by the time that we jumped off the bus at our hotel so I made some beef stock drink to warm us up. We had supper in the Suchow Chinese Restaurant as usual. We said that we would meet Urkan in “El Tarro” but it was very quiet and moved on to Mio Cid’s.

Here we got talking to an Austrian girl and the Scandinvian piss artists (A savant of drinking, someone who makes it look like an art form, a true patron when it comes to sinking piss. Someone who can down 24 beers and carry on like a champion.) when Byrn and Peter came in.

A colossal drinking debauch ensued. Everyone was chatting happily with all the “regulars” assembled under one roof. Tamara, the excitable little Aussie girl and Chris the dark-skinned Aussie were in fine party mood. “Lucky Chris” had been beaten up and robbed in Guatemala as well as being robbed in Guate.

Today he had been run over by a bicycle carrying two people. Byrn and Peter had a great time in El Salvador but reported that the country was devastated by last year’s earthquake and the civil war. Apparently now all the government departments in El Salvador are working in tents in a large compound.

The 1986 San Salvador earthquake occurred at 11:49:26 local time on October 10 with a moment magnitude of 5.7 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent). The shock caused considerable damage to El Salvador 's capital city of San Salvador and surrounding areas, including neighbouring Honduras and Guatemala.

According to Wikipedia the Salvadoran Civil War was a civil war in El Salvador which was fought between the military-led junta government of El Salvador and the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) (a coalition or "umbrella organization" of left-wing groups) from 15 October 1979 to 16 January 1992. A coup on October 15, 1979, was followed by killings of anti-coup protesters by the government and of anti-disorder protesters by the guerrillas and is widely seen as the start of civil war.

The fully-fledged civil war lasted for more than 12 years and included the deliberate terrorizing and targeting of civilians by US-trained government death squads including prominent clergy from the Catholic Church, the recruitment of child soldiers and other human rights violations, mostly by the military.

An unknown number of people disappeared while the UN reports that the war killed more than 75,000 people between 1979 and 1992. The war ended with the Chapultepec Peace Accords, but in 2016 the El Salvador Supreme Court ruled that the 1993 amnesty law was unconstitutional and that the El Salvador government could prosecute war criminals.

The United States contributed to the conflict by providing military aid of $1–2 million per day to the government of El Salvador during the Carter and Reagan administrations and provided significant training. The Salvadoran government was considered "friendly" and an ally by the U.S. in the context of the Cold War. By May 1983, US officers started to take over positions in the top levels of the Salvadoran military and were making critical decisions and running the war.

Counterinsurgency tactics implemented often targeted civilians with the United Nations estimating that the FMLN guerrillas were responsible for 5% of the acts of violence of civilians during the civil war, while 85% were committed by the Salvadoran armed forces and death squads.

Byrn was explaining to the Austrian girl about how he was going to buy the brightly-coloured woven wrist bands that the indigenous Indians were selling and to resell them in the United States at a huge profit. “I see”, she said “and then you can send the profit back to the Guatemalan Indians”. “Fuck off! You’re joking”? exclaimed capitalist Byrn.

Laars and Tom grappled in the back room and everyone got happily drunk. As valued customers we got a free Cuba Libre each when we told the bar staff that it was our last night here in Antigua. At 02:00 hrs. we went into “Moscas y Miel” for more Cuba Libres and then on to “Los Pollos” for more beers and a “Polloburguesa” (Chicken Burger). We got back to the Hotel Placido and bed at 04:15 hrs.

Mosh

Sunday 17th January 1988

We found a new place to have breakfast. I had mosh, a watery porridge. Mosh is a milky oatmeal beverage served for breakfast in Guatemala and some other Central American countries. Unlike in the US and Britain, it is simmered for a long time with lots of liquid, making it drinkable. In this version, we soak the oats overnight, so that they cook more quickly in the morning.

If you want to try it at home you will need ½ cup rolled oats (quick cooking will also work), 2 ½ cups of milk (we used low-fat milk, but any milk, including almond or soy, will do), 1 teaspoon agave syrup or honey and ¼ tsp cinnamon.

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Combine the oats and 2 cups milk in a large jar or bowl, then refrigerate, covered, overnight.

2. In the morning, bring the mixture to a low boil, then reduce heat to low and cook, stirring frequently, until creamy (about 15 minutes).

3. When oatmeal reaches desired consistency (it should be drinkable), add the remaining ½ cup milk, agave and cinnamon, and stir over low heat for 1 more minute.

4. Serve in two mugs.

This is an Oldways Whole Grains Council recipe, courtesy of Kelly Toups.

I was pleased to find that they served the nasty brown frijoles (refried beans) in a separate dish, so it was optional.

At the hotel we did some more laundry and chatted to Eric and Diana, the Dutch couple. Later we went to the market and had fun buying avocado, pears and eggs. Avocados cost only 15 centavos and eggs were 19 centavos.

Back at the hotel there was a commotion as the Aussie girls arrived to find a room. They left to go horse riding and arranged to meet us later at the sauna. We buggered around for a while, killing time, then set off to the sauna.

We walked up passed the Estadio Pensativo Football Stadium and along the dusty road to Jocotenango (alternate: Xocotenango; translation from Kaqchikel: "place of many plums") which is a small municipality in the northeast section of Guatemalan department of Sacatepéquez and is situated north of Antigua Guatemala. It has seven zones, two villages, and one hamlet.

We passed a drunk man who was sitting down pissing on his jean-clad legs. They do like a shant (getting drunk) here, these locals. Last night we encountered one scrobbling about on his hands and knees with coins tumbling from his pockets.

Also, on most nights you encounter at least one fellow sliding home along the wall or hugging a lamppost. We found the sauna and health food shop just before the village square. It was good to sit in the steamy heat in our green togas and then leap into the cold shower.

We got really clean at last and got dressed wet as we had no towels, but we soon got dried out in the evening sun walking back. We ate with the Dutch couple Eric and Diana in the Suchow Chinese Restaurant and were joined by Tom and Laars.

The evening was spent fairly uneventfully drinking in Mio Cid’s with John, the Northern Irish journalist and a Swedish loner. We met Urkan and Sabine and said that we would meet them later in “El Tarro” but when we got there it was shut and so we moved on to “Moscas y Miel” but they wouldn’t admit us as they were (understandably) just closing at 01:30 hrs. on Monday morning. We went back to bed.