Rain and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

We are beginning to realize that our time in Honduras is coming to an end, once we leave La Ceiba it will only be a couple of days in Copan then back into Guatemala. Although many motorcycle travellers have said that they were hassled by police in Honduras our experience thus far has been incident free. We have not even been stopped by the police or military, we have passed through many checkstop type setups but they have always just waived us through. So once again everyone’s experience is unique, and is just that, a unique experience.

We woke up to the sound of rain, so after a little fresh fruit and some Dunkin Donuts coffee, I decided to change Brenda’s front tire and change the oil in both bikes, it seemed better to do some wrenching than ride in the rain.

I had bought the new rubber before we went to Utila so all I had to do was change it on the rim, I had brought spare oil filters as I knew I would need to do an oil change on the road and the filters may be hard to find.


To my surprise, the oil was very difficult to find, I checked at gas stations, auto parts stores, motorcycle dealerships but I could not find any oil the same as what I had in the bikes. The closest I could find was a regular 15W40 for deisel engines, instead of semi-synthetic motorcycle oil, oh well, new oil is still better than old. So after walking around town for well over an hour I finally had some oil and finished the change, it was now after noon so we decided to stay another night and head out in the morning for Copan.

My helpers getting rid of the old oil.

This also gave us another opportunity to visit our friendly fruit vendor, we have a little banter going with him about the “daily price” of fruit. We generally buy the same thing but the price is always different, so we just pick out what we want and then laugh when he says the price. What made it funny was that for a whole pineapple, 6 mandarin oranges, 4 bananas, and maybe a small papaya the grand total was between 30-40 Lemira (1.50 – 2.00 US) depending on the price of the day, so it is hard to complain.


This was Saturday night again so the downtown area was busy again with weekend nightlife. We decided to visit the family run restaurant just down the street from the hotel, they make a delicious shrimp dish and have a nice menu selection to choose from. The restaurant is typical Honduran in that it is a Comidor or cafeteria style service, the ladies always smile widely when they see us and are patient while we make our choices. I think they like the fact that we (non residents) choose their restaurant when there are so many options available. But enough about food.



Sunday January 16th, wow, we have been on the road for 10 weeks.