"Above - about the only view I could find of Tegucigalpa which lent itself to a painting.
 
I was able to take the Tica bus as far as the Honduras border. Again the scenery was quite spectacular, with the open farmland giving way to a chain of volcanoes, some of them smouldering. After a lot of messing about getting through customs, I changed onto another bus for the journey up to Tegucigalpa. It was a real relief to be climbing back up into the hills again after the heat at the border, which had been close to the coast. Though the scenery in Honduras changed to a less attractive scrubby type jungle, like I had seen so much of through Panama and Cost Rica, we did however go over an impressive pass, and I enjoyed the ride.
 
Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras, seemed a real mess of a place. Built in a deep bowl shaped valley, at an altitude of around 1,000 metres, I felt this city of about 630,000 people even managed to beat Panama city for squalor and poverty. At least Panama did have some nice parts, but this city just seemed an almost total slum. If there were a few better parts I did not see them. Despite the state of things I did manage to find a reasonable hotel, but with the sight of so much poverty I could not help having a feeling of unease, though for some starnge reason I felt safer here than I had in Nicaragua.
 
I spent 3 nights and 2 full days in Tegucigalpa; time that I would have considered largely wasted had it not been for the fact that during my stay, I had managed to get my return flight to the UK changed from Panama to Mexico. Not having to re-trace my route meant I would be able to cover a lot more ground, and as the departure date was also 5 days later than from Panama, I would have a little more time.
 
Founded by the Spanish in 1578 as a gold and silver mining centre, Tegucigalpa became the capital in 1880. The name in a local dialect means Silver Hill." - MH