Let me start off by saying that there is at least one tow truck in Honduras. In two years of living here, I have seen it once. It was being towed.
Imagine yourself 10 miles outside of the nearest town. Your cell phone is dead and you have just blown a head gasket. In Honduras there is no AAA service or 1-800 number to get someone to come help you. So what do you do when you break down, since Murphy's law states that it will happen in the most inopportune time and place? Trust the Hondurans to take care of you.
Many Hondurans who come back from working in the United States with a car in tow or the money to buy one. Most of the time the cars they buy have salvage titles or were made in 1986. This means that their own cars have a high probability of getting stuck on the side of the road soon or they have recently been in the same situation themselves. Honduras often seems like the place that old cars go to die, mainly because the average Honduran knows how to keep it running with spit and baling twine. So when your vehicle breaks down in Honduras, do not be afraid to ask for a hand. Someone might even be able to repair your car on the side of the road.
Hondurans will do whatever they can to get their car up and running until they can fix it. Their true love is a manual transmission. The first thing a Honduran will ask you is if they can try pushing your car while you start it. If they think it is the battery, they might even take the battery out of their car to try and restart your car. If they get it started, they quickly unplug the battery and send you on your way telling you not to stop the car. I have seen that trick work a number of times. When all else fails it is time to get towed.
Hondurans will tow anything and everything, using whatever cable or rope they can find. Trucks will tow cars, car will tow trucks. Cars will tow motorcycles. Even motorcycles will tow motorcycles (a feat that still astounds me no matter how many times I have seen it done). All using a thin piece of rope or in one case using a set of jumper cables, which they tie onto whatever they think will hold. Though sometimes they choose poorly, as I have seen more than one bumper pulled off during a tow. It always amazes me how ready a Honduran is to pull your car 15 miles at 10 miles per hour until you can find an open repair shop.
I have personally been towed by a 20 year old big yellow school bus (more on those in a future post). Trying to steer the car in neutral for 10 miles, especially when you are 3 feet from the bumper of something as big as a bus, will really make you nervous. The Hondurans see nothing strange about it. Once I called a taxi to come pick me up so that I could go track down a mechanic to take a look at the pick up that had suddenly refused to start on me. The taxi driver showed up, analyzed the situation and told me for double the fare he would tow me to the mechanic's so that I would no have to return. Where can you get towed for $10?
Poor Hondurans, who have struggle to keep running or to even own a vehicle, will spend hours trying to help you out. As much as you will try to pay them for helping you they will most likely act insulted and will only accept the payment that no Honduran has ever refused to accept from me, a Pepsi. So next time you find yourself driving around Honduras (or even the good ole US of A), forget the AAA card and just make sure you have a good strong rope in your trunk.
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