The Most Violent City on Earth - also known as the Murder Capital of the World

 

 

Sometimes you find yourself in unintended surroundings

San Pedro Sula, Honduras, is one of those places. We hit Honduras hard during our time there in the last few days.  From Tegucigalpa we caught a bus to the north, in order to make connections to Guatemala and ultimately, Belize.  

On the way, it was beautiful.  This part of the trip has provided us with a lot more greenery and lush jungle conditions.  

However, Honduras was a pretty rough place.  You look for variety and different experiences when you travel, and we encountered that and much more.  Let's just say Honduras was "interesting".  

Upon hearing that our destination was San Pedro Sula, there was always a pause.  One of the comments from our own group was - "it's the Murder Capital of the World".   Apparently there are more murders there per capita than anywhere else, including places like Chicago and Detroit.

The reasons are numerous: human trafficking, drugs, gangs, extortion, sex trafficking, shootings, kidnapping, ransom, revenge killing, smuggling, beatings, mutilation, you name it.  

So I did a Google search on "why is San Pedro Sula so dangerous?" (try it yourself, really, type that sentence into your browser).  I came up with some very sobering answers.  One such article was entitled "The Most Violent City on Earth".

Needless to say, we were rather nervous to spend the night there.  We actually went out for dinner at night and a short walk around.  Before long, we were on a dark side street and there were some gnarly looking dudes following us.  We were nervous and uneasy and hustled back to the hotel.  

There were armed guards everywhere, even for restaurants and car rental places.  Some businesses have two or three heavily armed guards, like in the picture below.  

When time came to leave the next day, we were ready.  It was one of the few places we've been on this trip where people stared at us.  There are not a lot of gringos who go there, for obvious reasons. 

A little more adventure meets us on our way. 

So we got out of Dodge and travelled north.  The only way we could make this trip was to pay a taxi to take us to Guatemala, a three hour trip.  It was not cheap.  But it was actually a nice part of Central America geographically speaking. Green jungles with rivers along the shore of the Carribean Sea. 

 

When we reached our destination Puerto Barrios, our goal was to take a boat to cross over in Belize.  This was a lot more trouble than we realized.  This part of the world is not terribly organized or well governed.  We had to hustle to get the paperwork and border documents in order, and of course more money had to change hands.

Belize was an hour away, on what a turned out to be a questionable "ferry" boat ride.  It was overloaded with cargo.  It started to get stormy. You know it's gonna be bumpy when they hand out plastic sheeting to cover yourself from the rough seas.  We were not quite prepared for quite how bad it was.

There were times during the boat ride when I began to look back over my life and wonder what brought me to this point.  Fiona and I (along with TK and Jenny, who are travelling with us) were concerned for our lives.  It was a terrible boat trip.

The boat was too small and the ocean swells were too big, and it was windy and choppy and very rough.  I really began to worry when we got out in the middle and could not see land on either side, or in any direction.  

At one point the motor cut out, and I thought "this is it! We're gonna die!"  But the pilot switched tanks and got some gas back into the engine and we eventually made it to the other side. 

We were absolutely soaked but relieved to have survived.  I was exhausted.  It was a really dangerous ride across the open sea.  I would not recommend that trip to anyone. 

So we reached Punta Gorda, Belize and since it was late and we were tired and wet, we decided to stay the night.  It was a pleasant evening, and we reviewed the last couple days, where danger was around every corner.  

 

 

This has been an eventful trip, but the adventure level in the last few days has been off the charts.  At what point does excitement turn into ... fear?  We were there, or very close.  

 

But now we're in Belize, and will meet up with friends tomorrow, Ken and Mary. They are flying down to join us for some travel times, along with TK and Jenny.  

I hope things are a little more mellow in the next week.