Trip to a wedding

I had to make a trip nearly across the country to a wedding. It was nine hours going and eight hours coming back. The difference was two different routes. Yesterday we took the real mountain road, going through the highest town in Honduras which is at nearly 1,800 Meters high, and the height differences were big, from sea level to 1,400 Meters down to 800 and up to 1,800. From here it was down hill to our final destination. Now the road was mostly in tip top shape, except for maybe 20 Kms which were either under construction or were old pavement with potholes. We did go through a place where there was only one way traffic, where we had to wait for the oncoming traffic to go through before we were let to go on.

We finally did get to the town we were going to which is Gracias, the cabecera or capital of the department of Lempira. I had never been there before. It turns out it is a very pretty town, plus they were celebrating the night before Lempira day today Sunday. Lempira is a national hero who is said to have faced down the Spanish conquistadores until he was betrayed and killed. I have some doubts about this story, mainly because the five original Central American countries each have their own national native hero who faced the Spaniards. I mean we didn't even exist as countries when the Spaniards came.

The town itself I guess has about 25,000 inhabitants, is some 1,000 Meters above sea level, has narrow cobblestone paved streets and is highly uneven with some streets with pronounced inclines. It also has a colonial fort but it was closed when I tried to go see it. The weather was great, about 22 degree C average. I had a very good time.

Today we came back via the carretera de Occidente, the Western highway, way less pronounced cliffs and completely paved mostly with concrete and all new, except for some 20 kilometers which have not been worked and still have old asphalt paving but in quite good condition. While we where driving on this asphalt a storm hit us, a big storm, in fact a lightning bolt hit a couple of hundred feet from us. Visibility went to very low and we advanced very slowly. Luckily it only lasted about 20 minutes.
Now I am home, tired and ready to go to sleep, just watching a Mexican football game between Toluca and America. An interesting game, both came out champions in the two last two Mexican Leagues played over the last year and they decide who wins the overall title. I am an America fan, they were winning but they just got a goal against so the game is tied.

Well here I leave a few photos of my trip. By the way, for some reason I cannot send photos directly from my phones gallery to gmail, I have no idea why.

And this is the trip back. As I said a nice road, but then we got hit by that storm.