If you like 4-wheel driving, the department of Lempira is the place for you! There are very few paved roads in this department. During the rainy season many roads become impassable, due to higher water in rivers (closing fords to traffic), landslides which can drop mud and rocks onto the roads, and can also wash the roadbed away entirely, and of course, simple muddy conditions.
But even on the best days, driving can be a challenge here. Of course, these are mountain roads, so there are curves, switchbacks, and steep inclines everywhere. Frequently, one side of the road or the other has, instead of a shoulder, a plummet.
3 comments:
Omigosh...no! I'd have a heart attack driving those roads. How in the world do they repair something like what's pictured in the last photo?
Wow, those look really cool.
Hey Suzanne - the rocks shown in that last photo are actually kind of soft, as rocks go, and the road can be made better with a bulldozer. We had some similar road conditions on the road to our property, which we have made much better.
The roads in Lempira are in bad shape, and often the heavy equipment operators don't know their job well enough to create dirt roads that can take heavy rains and runoff. So, road repairs are done during the dry season, and the first rain of rainy season pretty much ruins the (incorrectly) repaired roads.
When doing the repairs on the road to our property, my husband stayed on the job the whole time, constantly reminding the equipment operators to make a 'crown' in the middle of the road, instead of making it flat. That road has survived several rainy seasons, with minimal problems.
There are limited funds, of course, for road repairs . . .and those funds could go much farther, if the repairs were done correctly, instead of having to be re-done after every few months!
Post a Comment