At a gas station in Ocotepeque we had a conversation with a casual guy. First we tried to distract his interest in how much money we had with us and if we had a gun, and then we asked him how was the road to Santa Rosa. He said that there are some really tough mountains over there and he didn't want to believe that we would walk to Santa Rosa. We didn't really trust his judgment, but did not ask other locals; it's hard to get objective answers here.
The next day we started the Ocotepeque-Santa Rosa stage. The man at the gas station was right. Brutal mountains with cloud crowns started to rise right in front of us. We were walking on a steep pass that was hard on the vehicles as well. After six miles the air started to get cooler around us. We saw pines and dark green coffee-plantations. We knew we were setting a new "record", we had never climbed this high before in one day. And my diarrhea wasn't helping... After ten miles it was getting really cold. Our breath started to fog. My belly started to cramp and sweat was all over us. We didn't dare to stop: we were afraid we would catch a cold.
István remembered those days when he traveled around the mountains in Austria with the 30 years old moped of our gramps, and sometimes he had to push the bike for a whole day uphill and had to stop every 25 yards. It was hard even to think, we were walking in a hypnotic trance. After twelve miles we glimpsed the place where the road, and the cars, disappeared into the dense fog.
We decided not to spend the night in that fog. There was a small house by the road and we asked for permission to spend the night in the yard. It was a cold night; we slept in clothes and sleeping bags. I don't have to mention that my night was restless. But all this suffering was worth it, we had the chance to taste a coffee made from locally grown, locally roasted coffee beans for the first time. It was an extremely warm feeling. Next morning we finished the last two miles and we arrived, up in the clouds.
A high mountain pass in Honduras
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