Laying low in Tegus

I've been in the capital city since Thursday with an unknown viral infection... i.e. feeling like death warmed over for the past week, which has been deemed a really bad cold. So I feel like a big baby but at least I get to chill in the glitzy glamorous capital of Honduras for a few days. And by glamorous I mean the Courtney Love kind of glamorous: loud, unpredictable, kind of fun to go out with for maybe an evening and then never again.

I've told a Honduran that Tegucigalpa (Tegus for short) is an example of poor urban planning, to which he replied, "it's not bad planning, it's just bad organization," which I would argue is a result of POOR PLANNING. What began as the two municipalities of Tegus and Comayaguela later turned into one merged city as two big areas smushed together. Urban sprawl in the 70s and 80s later contributed to more slums and barrios riding high up along the mountainside, which are periodically washed away by hurricanes. Riding in a taxi around town, there seems to be no rhyme or reason to anything. Streets are never marked. Dead ends and random backalleys are all over. Plus, until one stays here for quite a while, one never really knows where the "bad" neighborhoods end and the "good" ones begin. As a result, I've limited my wanderings to the hotel, the PC office, the mall and the fast food joints (arguably one of the epitomes in fine dining in Honduras, people dress up for Burger King). Maybe two years down the road I'll look back at these days when I was wary of Tegus and laugh. But for today I'm just ready to go back to teeny tiny San Jose, where urban planning consists of one main road and traffic is made up of cattle herds. I should be back tomorrow.