SAN PEDRO SULA, HONDURAS — The shuttle arrived at 5 o????????clock in the morning. Waiting for half an hour outside in Boston????????s extended winter only made me ready to get on the plane faster. Destination: Honduras. The heavy jacket would have to be lost somewhere between Atlanta and the rain forest.

There were nine of us in the group, almost all of us from different regions of the world. I was one of three Americans. A Chilean, a Thai, an Englishman, a Lebanese, a Bolivian, and a guy from Dubai were the others. A veritable bonanza of cosmopolitanism. Only a couple of us spoke any Spanish.

The Englishman, Phillip, had invited us down for the week to stay at his family????????s property. Abject poverty and children with guns isn????????t exactly something I crave to see, but Honduras is one of those places that no one you know has ever been to or even cares to go to. It has a story that can only be fully told when you????????re there, with these words serving as a poor substitute at best.

We took Taca ???????take a chance??????? Airlines, a pretty well-known (and cheap!) Latam carrier. We flew from Boston to El Salvador where we had a layover for seven hours, and from there we went to mainland Honduras, stayed the night, and flew to the small island of Roatan the next morning. The snack was ???????Aerochips,??????? something that looks and feels like potato chips, but tastes a bit closer to styrofoam.

Arriving in San Salvador was nothing like landing at a ???????normal??????? Central American airport. In a word, it was impressive. There were tons of gates, at least a couple dozen duty-free stores, and enough bars to make a Mormon missionary choke. Everyone was doing business and lots of it. But it is to be expected: El Salvador has one of the strongest economies in Central America.

With seven hours to kill, we wanted to go ten minutes down the road to Costa del Sol and try some of the local food. It would certainly be cheap and good. But we were stopped by one of the biggest scorges on this earth. Excise taxes — a real economy killer.

It was about $30 to leave the airport, even for the afternoon, and frankly none of us wanted to pay that much just for lunch. I could tell that the customs agents were disappointed to see that we wouldn????????t be going out. We ended up eating at the resident Subway, spending money that could have easily gone to the local economy had there been no fee.

Then, with another six hours to go and nothing to do, we hit the bar. The details of which are somewhat blurry.

San Pedro Sula, Honduras, was something worlds apart from San Salvador. Looking around, it was almost distinctly Soviet in its appearance. Everything ???????? everything –was sand-colored. It was confining and swarming with security. Men in uniform carrying machine guns were an uncomfortable sight for everyone. I couldn????????t wait to get out of there.

A boy, deeply tanned with shaggy black hair who was no older than ten, helped us to a taxi; the driver was most likely his father. The kid even tried to load our bags. They were too heavy, of course, so we did it ourselves. You had to admire his determination and desire to please despite not making much in tips. Maybe a dollar, usually less. So when the time came to slap some money in his hand and pat him on the head, we gave him a five. Greenbacks are like gold there.

The cab took the long, empty highway from the airport to the city where our hotel was. Darkness veiled the slums no more than a mile to either side of us. Thousands of people, right there, were living in shacks with dirt floors and aluminum roofs. I couldn????????t make them out at the time; it would have to wait until tomorrow. Until then, it looked like a big bunch of nothing.

What I did get to see was the ridiculous paradox that is the distribution of wealth in Honduran society. It????????s all completely backwards.

Driving through an upper-class neighborhood to get to the hotel, I saw huge houses that mirrored fortresses. The walls surrounding them were fifteen feet high, topped with nails, broken glass, and oftentimes barbed wire. Cameras watched the gates. I remember that the walls in Chile????????s La Dehesa suburb were half that height, and certainly not topped with deadly objects. It goes to show not only a small difference between more and less developed countries, but the contrast between the mansions and the miles and miles of shantytowns.

When you actually see it, in full daylight, it smacks you right in the face.

The people living in those small fortresses seemed like they might be scared of something; perhaps their less wealthy neighbors down the road. Everyone knows that old money in Honduras wasn????????t made fair-and-square. Government corruption and political parties support mainly by the elite has been the prescription for 23 years of minimal democracy. There????????s a price to pay for such a big bank account, and many people feel that the rich have taken too much and given too little. The barbed wire must be for the occasional rogue Robinhood, I supposed???????

We arrived, checked into the hotel, and our stomachs collectively growled. It was past midnight and we hadn????????t eaten since San Salvador. The concierge helped us out and about fifteen minutes later a couple of cabs pulled up to take us somewhere to eat. Only, by this time, just about everything was closed.

???????You could always go to Applebee????????s ???????? that????????s open late,??????? the driver told us.

We just couldn????????t get away from the American restaurants. But apparently we could also find some food at a nightclub nearby, so we decided to go there.

???????Have you ever been to Applebee????????s???????? he asked.

???????Sure, plenty of times.???????

???????I went there once a couple months ago. It was really good. Very fancy.??????? He spoke as if it were one of the most memorable experiences of his life.

When in Central America, one rarely forgets that the things we take for granted in the United States are a rare commodity elsewhere.

The car suddenly jerked. What the hell?

He was driving in the middle of the road, dodging the odd car occasionally. I looked out the window. There weren’t any lines painted on the road.

We made it downtown before long, as we turned the corner and there was Applebee????????s. But before we got out, I had one last question for him.

???????Where are all the buildings????????

???????What???????? He looked at me funny.

???????This is el centro, right? Where are all the big buildings???????? I felt stupid a second later for asking.

I had noticed that, as we originally approached the city from the airport, I had seen no big buildings on the horizon. Now that I was here, the biggest one I could see was only a few stories high. Perhaps they too were obscured in the night. It made it almost impossible to distinguish the shantytowns from the suburbs from downtown until you were actually smack in the middle of it. They all just run together.

The nightclub, called Mantra, was right across the street. Police cars and paddywagons with their sirens blaring were parked nearby, and a convoy of covered trucks full of soldiers armed with semi-automatics passed on the street. At this point, everything momentarily looked deserted. They stared us down at they moved by. There was no trouble, but I died a little inside.

We arrived at the entrance, ready as ever to eat. But, again, there was a problem. We were underdressed. T-shirt, shorts, and sneakers didn????????t impress the bouncer and he was refusing to let us in. This was apparently one of the more exclusive, ritzier night clubs in Honduras; a place for young millionaires and the children of the country????????s wealthy elite to blow their allowances. There was no way we????????d get in.

But Phillip has a big mouth and wouldn????????t have that.

???????Do you see this shirt? Do you see this shirt???????? He pulled the front side of his collar toward the bouncer????????s face. We were going to get our asses kicked. Applebee????????s was looking really good now. ???????This shirt is Emporio Armani!???????

Are you serious? Did he just say that he????????s wearing a $400 t-shirt?

???????Buena, pasan.??????? He frisked us and let us inside. I still can????????t believe that it worked. He must not have known better.

The inside was fancier than most of the clubs I????????ve seen in the United States. Corners filled with low-lying tables and candles were spread throughout. In another room, young Honduran couples danced to the tune of the latest Latin hits. It blared even where we sat, and when the DJ played ???????Caraluna,??????? my Bolivian friend Pablo swooned a bit. For the fortunate, this was the life.

We had our food with plenty of drinks ???????? sweet Nicaraguan rum ???????? to go along with it. I left to talk to the bartender for awhile. Taxi drivers and bartenders are the only kind of people who know a lot and will actually tell you about it on the cheap.

???????I????????ll have a roncola.???????

He was fast, and Nicaragua????????s Flor de Ca????a rum is insanely addictive. I made sure to tip him very well, in dollars. Conversation costs money, you know, and dollars speak louder than lempiras.

???????So, what kinds of people come here????????

He could tell I was a foreigner. The way I was dressed, the color of my skin, hair, and eyes, my accent; it all shouted gringo.

???????Look in the mirror, buddy,??????? was all he gave me. Maybe I was wrong. I gave him the eyebrow. ???????People like you.???????

???????Gringos????????

???????No, no, rich people.???????

The two are often intertwined. A rich person can be anyone, but a gringo in Honduras is almost always in the money.

???????And girls looking for rich people,??????? he tilted his head, indicating to his left. A woman in her early twenties, wearing a short black dress, was chatting up an older man in a suit. It????????s a sight that repeats itself over and over. Pretty girls from the lower and middle classes go to these clubs hoping to meet a man who can provide for them beyond their wildest dreams. It????????s a fairy tale tragedy in the making.

I left the bar to go back to my friends. We went to the hotel not long later, as we had a flight to catch in a few hours. The entire meal and drinks had cost, in all, less than $100 for everyone. Pennies on the dollar compared to the United States. To us it was a good night at a great price. To someone else, it was an entire month????????s salary.

The next morning, the same cab driver picked us up. We took the highway to the airport, the sun exposing what the darkness had hidden just a few hours earlier. There they were, all those tens of thousands of people, waking up to a dirty floor, a metal roof, and a future with no direction. Yet they press forward anyway, despite all the troubles, doing what they can to survive and make a living for themselves. This is the story of Honduras.

*****

This piece sets the scene for a long series of pieces I will be writing on my trip to Honduras. It will cover everything from politics to drugs to tourism to the local way of life; not necessarily following a chronological order of events of my experience there as this piece did. You can expect up to two pieces a week for the next few weeks until there is no more material left.

Afterwards, I will be writing pieces on other places I will be traveling to this summer, including Catalunya, Switzerland, The Netherlands, and the Czech Republic, all focusing on big topics that are relevant and important to the readers here.

Writing these pieces takes a while and there are some expenses for doing so. I would like to provide quality material that you, the readers, find interesting and valuable, on par with other web journalists like Michael Totten and Bill Roggio.

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