From San Pedro Sula, former murder capital of the world, two bus companies make the trip to Trujillo. The first available one departs straight away. We have no time to lose because the next bus will only leave in an hour. Expected travel time: seven hours. And we’ve already left Lago de Yojoa a few hours ago. This conflicts with our philosophy of slow travel. Trujillo is a godforsaken outpost of Honduras, quite literally the end of the line. Whoever wants to travel more eastward, towards La Mosquitia, needs to organise a boat. There are no roads.
I curse, throw my backpack on my shoulders and trot to catch the bus. My own fault. Wasn’t I determined to add Trujillo to our itinerary, despite the gigantic detour we’d have to make? Yes. Since I had read about Trujillo, I had to go there. No matter what.
Trujillo was the first capital of Honduras. Christopher Columbus moored here during his fourth and final sailing voyage to America and called the land Honduras, literally: deep waters. Because of that quirky history – and the salty Caribbean air – I didn’t want to skip Trujillo during our exploration of northern Honduras.
Columbus’ fourth sea journey
During his fourth and final voyage, in 1502, Columbus and his fleet had to shelter from a storm. He captured a local tribal leader in Panama, who later escaped and returned with an entire army, ready to chop some Spaniards in his sopa. That same tribal leader destroyed one of the ships of the expedition. Ship worms had damaged the other ships so badly that they slowly started crumbling. When the explorer sailed into another storm, he shipwrecked off the coast of Jamaica. A lack of a Spanish colony on the island forced him to stay for a year. A year of listening exclusively to Bob Marley. Damn.*
Despondent and aggravated from the four thousandth time No Woman No Cry, Columbus sent one of his men out in a kayak to seek help in Hispaniola. But the local governor of Hispaniola, the island on which today Haiti and the Dominican Republic are located, held a grudge against Columbus. He refused to help. In the meantime, Columbus had to predict a moon eclipse to convince the people of Jamaica to feed his men. His brother warded off a mutiny with a sword fight.
When aid finally arrived, the winds were so strong that the crossing to Hispaniola lasted 45 days. For reference: the kayaking scout made the trip in just four days. Two years after his return to Spain, Columbus died of the effects of arthritis, possibly contracted from food poisoning during his final voyage of discovery.
The road to Trujillo
All of that to indicate that a return trip to Trujillo is not a walk in the park. For nobody. And especially not if you’re in a hurry. Compared to other countries in the region, life in Honduras is even more laid-back. The other Central American nationalities, especially the neighbours from El Salvador, call the Hondurans lazy. Which indeed sounds a bit like Donald Trump urging his fellow presidents to be a bit less boorish.
The driver and ticket seller on our bus – both wider than they are tall – seem to be putting that national psyche into practice. I have just fastened my seat belt or I already hear the driver’s phone call to a roadside restaurant to order a meat soup as almuerzo. We have just left or we already take a break.
Two lunch breaks and the same number of fuel stops later, I watch how the bus from the other company overtakes us. The one that left an hour later, indeed. Precisely at that moment, our bus pulls over again. It’s that I still need my nerves, or I’d have permanently lost them.
“What now?” I roar at the ticket seller, “Haven’t you eaten enough yet?”
The ticket seller shrugs and points at the tire. Which lies next to the bus. I sigh.
“Don’t worry, man,” says the ticket seller. “Why are you in such a hurry? We’ll get to Trujillo. At worst tomorrow. Then you can relax on the beach.”
The bus that left two hours later passes by. But he is right, in the end, and a few hours after sunset the bus turns into Trujillo.
Relaxed and authentic or the next Roatan?
This is the end of the line, I already told you. There is a frontier atmosphere in Trujillo. La Mosquitia is full of drug traffickers and they all have to pass through this region to get their goods to the end-user. On the way here, the police stopped our bus several times for routine checks. And yet, compared to the very touristy Bay Islands, Trujillo is much more relaxed.
Looking for William Walker’s grave, we end up in a colourful Garifuna neighbourhood. Boys with dirty undershirts kick-start their mopeds. Girls with impressively modelled hairstyles stroll past. Seated in garden chairs in front of the front door, three old peoples comment on the life passing by, clad in pyjamas and with curlers still in their hair. It shines with life, local and real.
***
When we visit, there are hardly any tourists in Trujillo, even only a few local tourists. But on sporadic days when a lost cruise ship stops by, elderly Americans take over the dusty streets in their Bermudas. Poor Trujillo. A certain Randy Jorgensen tries to turn this sleepy town into the next Roatan. Jorgensen earned his fortunes with porn video stores. In Honduras, he was accused of paedophilia and pimping underage girls. He always gets away because he’s friends with the family of a former president.
Jorgensen bribes, bullies and steals. He needs the land of the Garifunas to build gated communities for retired Americans with money. It’s not very different from the colonisers who grabbed this land from the indigenous people 500 years ago. Or the banana companies 100 years ago. The Garifunas believe that Jorgensen acquired the land illegally, but their protest is mostly in vain. “We used to play on this land as kids”, says one Rocky, “Now we can’t even set foot on it without a security guard kicking us off.”
Good for the economy? Mm, maybe. Although the Garifunas believe that the cruise ships mainly fill the pockets of the gringos in charge. And if they are happy by sitting in their garden chairs for the entire day, then who are we to scorn that lifestyle? But above all, excessive tourism changes a place forever. On the seaside, the humongous restaurants form one big wall. They’re overpriced and interchangeable – you can eat sushi or pasta in all of them. When we visit, all of the restaurants are empty. No cruise ship in the harbours. The waiters play on their smartphone in front of the door.
Click on the pictures to find out more about the Garifunas in these blog posts about ethnicity in Belize and about Dangriga, the Garifuna capital of Belize.
Things to do in Trujillo
Garifuna vibes and the beach
We came to Trujillo to soak up the atmosphere in a piece of the Caribbean on the mainland, where you don’t trip over a gringo in an alcohol coma every five metres. Walk out of the small centre and you will soon find yourself on unpaved streets, amidst colourful characters in a Garifuna atmosphere. You will also find beautiful white beaches, which you sometimes have to share with a cow. Trujillo is not a place where you have to spend an awful lot of time, but it is a nice stopover for a day or two.
Fortaleza Santa Bárbara de Trujillo
Nowhere in Trujillo does the past of Spanish colonialism, conquistadores and Caribbean pirates come to life more than in Fortaleza Santa Bárbara.
When the Spaniards proclaimed Trujillo as the capital of Honduras, they used its port to ship home the gold and silver they plundered inland. No wonder Trujillo attracted French, Dutch and British pirates like a cheese buffet attracts mice. Even Captain Henry Morgan, later immortalised as the face and name of a rum brand, regularly came to rob his supper in Trujillo. The cannons, however, which are still aimed at the Caribbean Sea, did not frighten the pirates much. 1683 saw the largest pirate gathering take place near Trujillo. Arrrgh!
Nowadays the fort mainly serves as a setting for the selfie sessions of domestic tourists. The building used as a prison by the Spaniards houses a small exhibition about the history of the city.
Entrance fee for gringos: L69 (December 2018).
William Walker’s grave
In the 19th century, the American filibuster William Walker wanted to conquer Central America and turn it into a US slave state. In his megalomaniac attempt, he became president of Nicaragua, where English became the official language for a while. He finally ran into a firing squad in Honduras in 1860.
According to Lonely Planet, Walker’s grave lies “just west of town, where the Río Cristales flows into the sea.” We walk to the river, but there is no graveyard there. We take the opportunity to swim a few laps in the sea. Two older Garifunas, seated on a stone, eventually point us in the right direction. The old graveyard is in the street opposite our hotel (Cementerio Viejo on Google Maps).
TRUJILLO: PRACTICAL
SLEEPING IN TRUJILLO
>>Hotel Emperador. Don’t let the historic (1787) Caribbean-style wooden façade trick you. Hotel Emperador is far from imperial. For L300 (December 2018), we get a typical concrete room here, no-frills but with a private bathroom. Hotel Emperador will not win any beauty prizes, but it is clean and the family who owns it welcoming and friendly. You can eat in the restaurant in the front, although we only sampled half litres of coke.
EATING IN TRUJILLO
>>Restaurants by the seaside. Built for the cruise ships, but all looking deserted in their absence. Because the prices of the meals were also above our budget, we ignored these restaurants.
>>Parque Central. Instead, we bought cheap baleadas (L10-15) from one of the sellers on the main square, Parque Central.
>>Café & Sabores. Delicious liquados (milkshakes), coffee, traditional breakfast and baleadas: this was one of our favourite breakfast and lunch joints in Honduras. Try to get a table in the American diner-style backroom, cooled to Arctic temperatures.
HOW TO GET TO TRUJILLO?
Both Cotuc and Cotraipbal offer direct buses from San Pedro Sula to Trujillo. Both ticket offices claimed a travel time of seven hours. We hopped onto a Cotraipbal bus that was about to leave. A ticket cost L240 (December 2018). Two Cotuc buses overtook us along the way. It may be anecdotal, but we would opt for Cotec next time.
ONWARDS FROM TRUJILLO
All roads east of Trujillo are eventual dead ends. This is the end of the line. Unless you arrange a boat to explore La Mosquitia, you will have to head west. To Utila, for example, the backpacker paradise island in the Gulf of Honduras.
(*Yes, I know the historic inhabitants of Jamaica are different from the current ones.)