Hi Megan,
I went to the Christ Statue a few years ago. Again since it's always "there" for me i haven't gone back to it in such a long time, even though I agree that the views from there are spectacular. A visit there would take anywhere from a half a day to a day depending on how much time you want to stay there and if you want to have lunch there too. The zoo is nearby, but honestly don't get your hopes up about it, It's nothing like zoos in the US.
Valle de Angeles and Santa Lucia are great places to visit. Santa Lucia is mostly a sight-seeing town, while Valle de Angeles is a shopping town. Get early to Valle de Angeles if you like to shop since almost the whole town is stores!! The Pabellon de los Artesanos generally has the lowest prices but you have to watch what you buy because not everything is of top quality since the craftspersons put their work there directly. Other stores sell at a bit higher prices but have top quality on almost everything. There are diferent kinds of art, from serious to funny, and from very spiritual to very naughty!! Usually the trip to Valle de Angeles involves a roadside stop to eat "elote asado" or "elote cocido" (sweet corn boiled or roasted). They are tasty, get them freshly cooked just to be "safe" and as always drink bottled water or soft drinks. With only 2 weeks here you don't want to waste time getting sick.
Actually you don't need to fill any sheet declaring what stuff you are taking out, and you won't have to pay anything to take that stuff out of Honduras. You will need to fill a Customs form when entering the US though. Your airline will provide you the US Customs form. You might even be able to get it before you leave the US so you can understand how much and what things you can and can't bring back into the US. From what I gather you probably won't have to pay anything going to get your new stuff into the US i think the limit is $100 or $1000. As far as Honduran Customs is concerned they don't mind you taking out ship loads of legal stuff out of the country (protected plants and animals or items from them are not legal to get out of the country), hell the more you take out the better for the country since you leave important dollars here :-) .
About keeping only the $30 dollars for the airport tax fee, I would just like to say that I don't know what your travel budget is but I would generally want to arrive home with money left over. You probably won't fly a direct flight from your city to Tegus so there still is the possibility that back in the states you might need some money in case you miss your connecting flight or it's delayed or cancelled or some other thing. You might need meal, a phone call, a bottle of water if something like the weather doesn't help. Also when arriving at your home airport I'm sure that someone is going to pick you at the airport, but in case no one is there you might want to be able to make a call and/or take a cab home.
Again that's just me. I've generally never used that extra money but once, only once I had a flight from Costa Rica to Honduras, right when were about to take off there was a heavy downpour that closed the aiport for an hour, so I missed my connecting flight in El Salvador. The airline did payed for a hotel room, dinner, breakfast and 5 minute call home. But I wanted to call home for more than 5 minutes, and I also wanted to call my office and my mom. So that extra money came in handy. Then the next day we arrived very very early to Tegus so there was no one waiting for me at the airport (Even though I called the night before!) so i had to take a cab home for $10 !!! That was the only time I did need that extra money and I was glad I kept those $50 bucks as a reserve. Now that I carry credit cards and they are more widely accepted I have another alternative in case things go bad during the trip.
As for calling from Honduras to the US, I read that your cellphone company has an international plan, it's about $2 a minute from Honduras to the US, very expensive. My advice is get the international plan ONLY if you don't have to pay anything even if you don't use it. That way you can have that as a last-resort means of comunication. In general when you need to call home, the cheapest way to do so is to go to cibercafe and call from their phone booths, it's usually 1 to 2 lempiras per minute (about 15 US cents per minute). You next best choice is calling from a cellphone. The rates for the 2 cellphone companies here is 25 US cents per minute. Either buy a cheap prepaid phone here or buy a cellphone card for someone that will allow you to use their cellphone.
Those international calling plans , specially the international roaming is very expensive, if i take my phone from here to the US , calls would be about $1 / minute!! Then my nice credit card company gave me a free subscription to a "Global One" calling card, with the standard rate of $5 /minute to any number in the world!! I stuffed both in the bottom of lowest part of my luggage just because I could use them first and pay later, in case I lost everything on my trip and couldn't get someone to give me 5 dollars to get a calling card. Seriously, don't use those expensive plans unless you really , really , really , really need to. For regular calls home you can probably plan ahead the time of the day that you have someone drive you to a nearby cibercafe or have a nice person (your fiance maybe) let you use his phone to call home. Hell if you are staying in El Prado neighborhood you are about 5 to 10 minutes from my office (depending on traffic), I'll let you call home for free if you can get here! LOL. Really i hate those expensive plans very much.
I think I read that you wanted to visit the Bay Islands. Getting there will take you about a whole day and another day to come back, so with only 2 weeks travel time, I suggest you do plan well the places you want to visit. I know mostly about Tegus, but the other people in the group can tell you more about the Bay Islands and Ceiba. Ceiba is a port city from where most people launch by air or sea to and from the Bay Islands, and they have great beaches too.
Keep your questions comming. Glad you were able to contact David. I always like to have alternatives when travelling , just in case.
Talk to you soon too. I've talked enough a lot for today.
Angel Cstillo
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