Since I've taken this board's travel advice I thought it was only fair that I type up a quick trip report on my last visit. There was enough on Cali that it wasn't really needed last time, but there is a lot less on San Pedro Sula.
First the flight cost me $395 and before noon we had already landed. The airport is actually a little southwest of town by La Lima. If you want to go into SAP there are taxi's that will get you there cheap. There is a pretty decent motel that is supposed to be clean between the airport and the city. Runs like 70 bucks a night. Metrotel I believe. If you go into the city you'll likely end up spending over 100 bucks a night. I think the next time I go down I might stay at the Casa Luna because I've heard good things about them. Its supposedly a little clean boutique small hotel downtown. Other than that it seems like you have two options... expensive and decent... or cheap and nasty. I'd pick the first.
I spent the majority of my time in a quiet little town on the Caribbean. Great beaches but at night beware of bugs. You are out eating or partying indoors anyways at night, but man do they suck. Temps hit up to 100 during the day. Their main street is actually pretty lively at night for the size of the town (much cooler too). Not far from the park there happens to be an open market. Can't believe it but I actually ate some veggies down there. They were fresh.
Other than that you can stay around main street or on the beach. We stayed on the beach. To get to Tela you can try bargaining with a taxi, taking a luxury bus that is headed to La Ceiba (cheap way to do it.. different than the buses in Colombia). Or you can have your hotel pick you up at the airport (if they offer that). We went with the hotel pick up option like panzies in a new country. Probably more than bargaining with a taxi but was a stress free way to go. Overall I can't complain with a ticket and hotel for around 600 bucks.
Tela also has tourist police that are designed to help out us english speaking tourists. I was impressed by them and I think it is a great idea to encourage tourism. I doubt you'll find them in San Pedro Sula which has some very rough areas. From what I've read and been told they do have some drug issues but if you stay out of it they really don't have any interest in harming tourists. But as always... watch your ass because anything can go down. Don't put yourself in dangerous situations.
I drank my booze in a quiet little coastal town with tourist police and felt pretty safe. Unfortunately I didn't get out to see the ruins.. next time.
As for the reason I went down there.. things turned out very well. I felt a really good vibe the whole trip. There are a lot of bilingual schools in Tela and she spoke english at an impressive level. So not much of a language barrier issue. She had this laid back vibe about her too. Obviously educated but not in such a rush like we all seem to be in my city. She seemed pretty deep too and knew what she wanted in a guy. Tela girls like young gringos.
She called me elvis.. and that was quite fine by me. haha
I saw her friends pretty often throughout the trip and didn't really feel like the novelty item like in Cali. Although one of her close friends did hit on me in broken english. When your girl gets up to use the restroom you'll be surprised at what some of the ladies say walking by or even at your table like her friend. They all will give you a look too. Pretty good feeling and I'm sure if you are down there long it will go to your head.
Things changed towards the end of the trip when being introduced to her parents. Here in the states that most often means a grilling over dinner. Maybe the language barrier just wouldn't allow for that, but it didn't seem the same as meeting the parents would back home. Back home you'd expect to get the third degree from the father. There it seemed like mom was the one that had to approve. Maybe its just with that family. Her dad seemed like he just wanted to drink. It was a friday night so that's understandable.
I will say some of the questions are a lot deeper than you will encounter back home and the distance is the obvious reason for that. Personally I wasn't all that comfortable engaging in too much discussion about some issues because it was a new relationship. But it did occur to her mother that her daughter may end up moving away. I just played the its way to soon to know card. That's the best way to avoid that discussion. The we should take it slow... I'll take more trips and we can get to know each other answer puts a stall to those thoughts. Anyways that will put the mom at ease. The father... just get him a beer.
Not sure how brief this is anymore but it was a good trip. It was inexpensive and will be easy to do again and again. Next time I need to see the ruins and get all the way down to La Ceiba by bus. I hear good things about Roatan (supposedly an english speaking city off the coast on an island). You can only get to it by ferry or plane. I think I'll go the ferry route. Those planes they use in country are small.
Hopefully this will give some future travelers a new destination option. There are a lot of pros to picking honduras. For me the flight cost about half as much as to Cali. The beachs are excellent. The chicas are muy caliente despite what I've heard before on message boards. To my knowledge there is only one agency in the country. If you hit up the dating sites you can find a deep pool of ladies. I found mine well actually she found me on a free social networking site. The bonus with that method is IMBRA is completely out of the picture and you aren't ponying up any cash to an agency. My personal opinion is (language barrier aside) if you aren't comfortable sending her a message through her online profile or approaching her in public should you really try and date her? That's just me from the snickering I saw from my dates in Cali while they pointed that "couple" out.
Unlike in Cali I didn't see the gringo with the hot little number that my date would point out with a snicker. In my opinion the green card culture must be a lot stronger in a place like Cali than Honduras. Of course I'm not saying that some women on dating sites from Honduras aren't out to get them BUT San Pedro Sula hasn't developed that agency culture that can breed it.
Other than that there is a GM plant down in Honduras. Buy American guys.
