To sugar coat or not to sugar coat?...

This town isn’t exactly the safest. Going into this I knew that I can’t walk alone after dark and that I shouldn’t show off flashy jewellery, but I didn’t anticipate that anyone would actually have any issues. I thought this was just common sense and the organization was covering their butts to keep us safe as possible.

Twice this weekend Hondurans have told us that El Porvenir isn’t a very safe place to be. Honestly, we were out in La Ceiba (watching a pretty sweet band btw) and we told a table full of people where we were living and their response was to tell us to be careful and that they wouldn’t want to be out after dark in porvenir. This worried me a little because Hondurans have no reason to scare us if it’s not true.

Then last night we took a taxi home @ 2am and the taxi driver was hesitant to take us and said that he didn’t really feel safe going home alone at that hour. In the end he took us in and we loaded 2 taxis and I jumped in the first one and the other people from my house got in the second one. When we arrived I went to get out and wait for the others to unlock the door and the girls looked at me like I was crazy and told me that they weren’t leaving me here alone because there were 3 guys hanging outside of the school (which is kitty corner from my house). One of the guys approached the taxi and the girls made me get back inside and lock the door. There was a conversation in Spanish and then the driver told us to give him money. We were confused since we had already agreed on price and thought that was really weird, we tried to object and then Kaitlyn was told in Spanish “You don’t understand, we can’t leave unless you give him money”... basically long story short was that the guys apparently had guns and threatened the driver. I ended up staying at the beach house for the night because the drivers didn’t think it was safe to take me home...

Ugh. Will be following the rules and playing it as safe as possible from here on in.

But, having said all that I also need to add that these are worst case scenarios and we haven’t had any real issues. Both of the incidents that we’ve seen have been where people have claimed to have weapons and we haven’t actually seen them... that’s a plus, right?!

written by  Jennifer-Campbell on October 10, 2010 from El Porvenir, Honduras
from the travel blog: Wherever I May Roam...
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