38 miles.
I woke up to the amazing aroma of fresh-baked bread. You can’t beat fresh bread for breakfast!
Then on to the bus.
We were all meeting at the Texaco on the edge of Tegucigalpa, on the way
to San Lorenzo. The plan was for the
racers to leave from the Texaco, and the rest of us to drive a bit more to the
top of the 12km hill.
As we were getting toward the top of the mountain, I saw
something I’d never seen in Honduras before: windmills. Honest-to-goodness windmills – the kind used
to harness energy. Stepping off the bus,
it was obvious that it was a wind farm.
Not as big as the ones in western Kansas, but a wind farm. In Honduras.
I later found out that it is the largest wind farm in Central
America. Pretty cool, indeed!
 |
| Who knew? A wind farm in Honduras. Not the best picture, but you get the idea. |
OK, with our bikes off the truck and given the once over, it
was time to get going. All the climbing
that the racers did? We’d start out at
the top of the mountain and have about 7 miles of downhill before beginning a
little bit of rolling hills. The day had
lots of downhill as we descended to San Lorenzo and sea level. The expected high in San Lorenzo was supposed
to be 97°.
Starting out on our descent, I just wasn’t as psyched as I should
have been. I mean, it’s great to go
downhill right away, isn’t it? Except
that this was very unfamiliar road to me.
Unfamiliar twists and turns, with all-too-familiar Honduran driving
habits. So, I had the bike reigned it
pretty tightly, rarely getting about 30 or 35mph. I could actually feel the temperature rising
as the bike descended.
The road eventually flattened out and then began taking a
few ups and downs as we continued on. The
scenery changed quite substantially; it was becoming quite dry and desert-like
in this part of the country. I pedaled on.
And on.
Finally, I said, “Enough.”
I was done. My head just wasn’t
in it. My near miss with a semi the day
before had wreaked havoc on me. So I
climbed off the bike and waited. It was
kind of a Forrest Gump moment. I only had to wait a minute or two before a pickup truck pulled over to see what
was going on. It was Mario, from
Guatemala. I told him I was done riding
for the day and we put my bike in the back and I got in the cab.
I had met Mario’s two sons the year before on the tour and
it was nice to get to spend some time talking with Mario. He’s a pastor in Guatemala, so we had a lot
of things we could talk about. It was a
very enjoyable time. Plus, I got to
really use my Spanish.
We got to the finish line of the day and I got my bike
down. Then we waited for more of the
riders to come in. It was warm so I
walked to a nearby pulpería and bought a bottle of Coca Cola. There was a bit
of a party atmosphere at the end.
Someone handed me some watermelon, which I gladly accepted.
 |
| Enjoying watermelon at the end of the ride |
After a while, we made our way over to the hotel where lunch
was being served. We were offered a
choice of two meals: sopa de mariscos (seafood soup) or pescado frito (fried,
whole fish). I had heard about the sopa
at this place and there was no doubt in my mind that was what I was ordering. I was not disappointed. Not at all.
It was absolutely incredible! Even just the fish stock was packed with flavor.
 |
| Awesome sopa de mariscos |
With lunch finished, we headed to the park for the day’s
event. By this time, it seemed like most
people just wanted to get on the buses and head back to Tegucigalpa. Before long, we were doing just that.
It had been an awesome week.
One filled with fun and frustration.
Good times and bad. But,
thankfully, the good GREATLY outweighed the bad.
In the words of Arnold:
“I’ll be back.”
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