Honduras: Copan > La Ceiba

Nov 2025 |

Ride 2 of my Honduras tour, where the main priority was to get to La Ceiba so I could take the ferry to nearby Roatan Island. This 8-hour ride was too long and ended after dark.

I started the day with a tour of the Copan ruins in the morning, then I set out for La Ceiba around 11:30. This route is all "CA" roads, the main highways in Honduras (CA11, CA4, CA13), which are not exactly the Autobahn.

The ride out of Copan is nice (I missed seeing it riding into town in the dark the night before), following a curvy, narrow valley. At La Entrada, I was back onto the CA-4, a much busier road.

This route takes you near San Pedro Sula (SPS). As I got closer to the city, the traffic got downright ugly, with massive lines behind trucks. Given the city's reputation (just one example: "The Most Dangerous Place in the World"), I tried to route my ride to bypass the place. But this was not to be, as good ol' Google Maps had me on a route where a segment was not an actual road. I had no choice but to re-route and ride through SPS. At one point, a cafe racer bike aggressively roared up beside me -- but the rider just wanted to give me a thumbs up and admire my bike. Ce La Vie.

After surviving SPS, I rode on, working my way to the coast at Tela (where I should have stopped for the night). Then it got dark. As I finally approached La Ceiba, a torrential downpour hit. I slogged into a KFC and booked a hotel.

The ride to the hotel was another adventure: I ended up routed onto an unpaved road that was completely flooded, like a lake. There was no way I was going to ride through the center of the water, so I pulled off the street onto the grass. But the waterlogged grass was oozy muck, and I got stuck, my rear wheel spinning out. La Ceiba's safety is marginally higher than SPS, and this was not a neighborhood I wanted to be roaming around asking for help to un-stick my bike. I finally somehow managed to dislodge my back tire and made it to the hotel.

I ended up staying 4 nights in La Ceiba over 2 different stays, mainly due to a breakdown with my Tenere 700 after returning from Roatan (separate story). It's a unique town, with a Caribbean flair, friendly people, a bit run-down. The setting is amazing, high jagged mountains that I wasn't expecting on this coastline. Though La Ceiba is known amongst Hondurans as a party town with roaring nightlife, I don't think too many international travellers make the scene, most just pass through town on their way to the islands. Security is a big job here, with armed guards at most consumer businesses. Interesting aside: one day I watched a herd of cows walk by in traffic on a major street....

Ride: 363 km / 8 hrs

Stay: Hotel Trinidad