dirtier fingernails & cleaner minds: a travel blog by Freda Moon

The Honduran Panamericana

Along the Honduras leg of the Panamericana, we’re stopped four times by police in dark blue uniforms. They check our documents, diligently comparing the license plate number listed on our vehicle permit to the license plate on the van. Sometimes they look inside, performing the most cursory of searches. But the "very big problem" with our forms usually goes unnoticed -- and when the corrected lines are seen at all, the administrator's small notation explaining them away seems sufficient.

But, as it sometimes happens, if it's not one thing, it's another.

At our third check point, there are only two policemen, rather than the usual gang of men. The older one waves us down, then leaves his younger comrade to do business. Squat, with a pebbled face and almost unbearable smugness, the young officer asks for our documents, then barely glances at them. Had he noticed those wretched marks, he may have used them as his extortion pretext. But he had something better, something already prepared.

As a rule, in a situation like this, it’s best not to know Spanish -- best to be completely, rather than only mostly, inept at the language of our adopted region. Tim and I had learned this along the way.

So, when the smug, pebble-faced man asks, with great seriousness, if we have a triangulo on board, we shrug, look to each other, shrug again. We stare expectantly at the office and he stares back. Another stand-off. But this time our opposition is armed.

Tray-ayng-oolo, I repeat. No entiendo. No hablamos espanol.

Of course, we do understand. This is a shake-down so famous, it's written about in guidebooks. For only the second time on our trip, just a few hours from Leon, petty corruption has us in his grips. The most notorious of the many shake-downs in Latin American police lore -- save, perhaps, the "Oh, look, I found a [planted] joint under your seat" -- is hard to dispute.

The officer holds up a tattered little booklet containing the country's traffic laws and points to #10. Indeed, drivers are supposed to carry a warning sign with them, in case of an accident or blown tire, to alert fellow drivers. Drivers are also obligated to wear seat belts, stop at stop signs and drive one way on one way streets. But none of these rules are followed, much less enforced. Yet, it's hard to argue with black and white text and an armed officer in a shabby blue uniform.

Instead, we persist with our blank stares and butchered words. We go round and round with him as he points to cones on the road, TRIANGULO, draws a triangle in his book and pokes his pencil again and again at the image, like a frustrated Pictionary player. Finally, he turns the book over, and points to a pencil-written "fine" of $30 US. We owe a fine, una multa, he tells us, for not having a triangulo.

We shrug, look at each other, and back to him. We shake our heads, in total confusion. Frustrated and red-faced, his voice gets louder and more shrill with every TRIANGULO he spits at us. But finally, he can't do it anymore. He's missing over potential victims as they drive on by. He waves his hand, sickened. He lets us go.

We felt victorious. Pathetic, but victorious.

And, for the record, I no longer hate Honduras.