Throwing money at cops in Honduras is only bad idea if you don’t throw enough.

Leaving the sun-shining surfing shores of El Zonte behind I mounted up and headed for Honduras. The roads in El Salvador are fairly good compared to Guatemala so it was a nice three-hour ride to the border. There’s not as many dogs anyhow, definitely  more horses though but they’re easier to spot, they’re in much better shape than most cars here too.

The border area was the usual crap hole full of wandering leaches bidding for the last suck of blood from my body. Before I even stopped I must have had 15 of these leaches attached to me or my bike all with their teeth ready to suckle. Even so crossing out of El Salvador was a breeze, it only took 15 minutes. However as I had been warned crossing into Honduras was as fun as a box of frogs. It took two hours wandering about between oranges, apples and rubbish stamping this and that. Finally after almost all my cash had been sucked dry I was on my way, or so I thought .
As I rode out into Honduras I was stopped again by two cops. I was instructed to park in a nice shaded area so they could inspect all the paper work and my bike again. I decided to park right in the mid day heat so it might hurry things along but they had no interest in even looking at the bike. I handed over the paperwork and immediately one of them told me I had the wrong registration papers and demanded my licence. It was clear to me that if I wanted out of here any time soon I was going to have to pay so I just took five dollars out of my wallet along with my licence and fired it on the table in front of him. Next thing I knew I’m about to be arrested and have my bike impounded for twenty-four hours for attempted bribery. It turned out this cop could not be bought. They radioed for back up and a truck came to take me away.The thought entered my head to grab the first gun I could see and start blazing away but instead I just sat my self down and prepared for a night of luxury in some Honduras hell hole.

Just then his buddy appears and says I can get out of this if I’m willing to co-operate. Interesting I Thought, how to get off of a bribe charge, I’ll offer a bigger bribe. After all what else could they do? All I had on me without removing the lining in my jacket was ten Australian dollars. I handed it over along with the original five that one of them had hidden under his flask of tea and after showing them my now empty wallet they told me to get out of there and never try bribe a cop in Honduras again. I was told this isn’t Mexico you know.

I had originally planned on spending the night in Honduras but after that I decided I wasn’t going to leave another cent in the place so I rode the 150km to the Nicaraguan border and got the hell out of the country. The second border crossing went nice and smooth and I was free in Nicaragua about four thirty just as the heavens opened up. The roads are full of holes which are hard to see in the middle of a giant thunder-storm so I followed a truck into the dark of night to a town called Chinasomethingorother and got myself a hotel.
Tomorrow I head to the Costa Rica border but might not cross.