Name: Hoss & Lori Pollard (via rlt)
Email: hfpollard@tropicohn.com
Subject: RETIRING TO (MAINLAND) HONDURAS -- ONE COUPLE'S PERSPECTIVE
Date: 10/21/98
Time: 6:35:33 PM

Message

RETIRING TO (MAINLAND) HONDURAS -- ONE COUPLE'S PERSPECTIVE

BACKGROUND We have always loved the tropics and the sea, and have long fantasized about "someday" living on a tropical seashore/island. But where(?) becomes the question. The islands of the Caribbean are beautiful but expensive (and we wanted a place that would stretch, not shrink our retirement income). There are areas with a lower cost of living in the Pacific, Middle and Far East, but they are awfully far away. Ditto South America. Central America? For some reason we've never been really attracted by Mexico. From what we could find out, Costa Rica was a great retirement destination 10-15 years ago, but it has developed a lot, prices have risen (especially on the coasts) and many of the incentives used to attract North American retirees (easy residency, duty-free import of vehicle and household goods, no taxes on outside income, etc.) have been discontinued. Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua? Not much history of political or financial stability. (Although from what we've heard we suspect that Nicaragua will be the next "hot" retirement destination. If we were starting now instead of 4 years ago we would probably give it some serious consideration.)

About the time that our life situations became such that we could seriously consider "running away from home" we suddenly began to hear and read a lot about Honduras. We decided to have a look, and thus embarked upon a three week exploratory trip in June of 1996. We knew from our research that we were mainly interested in the North Coast and Bay Islands, and so planned to spend our time in those areas.

Right from the beginning we felt that we had found our place in the sun. Three things immediately impressed us (in no particular order): 1. The land. Absolutely beautiful! The Bay Islands are typical Caribbean Islands -- forested hills (except Utila, which is flat), white sand beaches, and crystal clear water. And the North Coast -- miles of beautiful, palm fringed, EMPTY beaches, backed by mountains which seem to rise straight from the sea. And of course, that all important (to us) tropical climate. (Interior areas of this mountainous country have a more temperate climate, for those who don't care for a constant diet of "hot and humid") 2. The people. In spite of many social problems, the Honduran people are by and large a happy people. They are also a very friendly people; strangers greet one another in the streets, and even out in the countryside people smile and wave as you pass them. And they are a helpful and welcoming people. Even though our Spanish was almost non existent at the time, we found that people would go out of their way to attempt to figure out what we needed and then to assist us if they could. 3. The cost of living. Sitting in a beach bar, watching the sunset, drinking beer at $.50 each (or rum and coke for $.70), later ordering a nice dinner for $3 or $4, we quickly realized that here was a place where we could live very well indeed on our fixed income.

We had fully intended to make this just a fact-finding trip, and had agreed to make no permanent decisions until we had had a chance to return home and digest, dissect, assimilate etc. our experiences. However, towards the end of our stay, by a series of coincidences, we found ourselves in a "right place at the right time" situation in which we were offered the opportunity to purchase a piece of property in Cayos Cochinos*. If Honduras was a dream come true, Cayos Cochinos was a fantasy fulfilled. We thought fast, said a prayer, held our breaths and took the plunge. We now literally owned a piece of paradise.

* Cayos Cochinos is a small, incredibly beautiful archipelago just off the north coast, consisting of two small islands and 13 sand keys. It is totally pristine and undeveloped, with absolutely no infrastructure. There are a couple of small Garifuna (Black Carib) fishing villages, and maybe 20 "gringo" houses, mostly vacation homes, scattered throughout the islands and keys.

OFF WE GO

Returning home, we began work on obtaining our building permits, residencies, etc. and tackled all the myriad preparations and arrangements that must be made before a move of this nature. By fall of 1997 we had sold our house in Tennessee and sorted through, sold, given away or packed up all of our huge accumulation of "stuff". In mid-November, with winter rapidly coming on, we loaded our remaining earthly goods into a 40 foot shipping container (which we would not see again for nearly two months), enticed our two dogs and two cats into their air crates, and headed south. At the end of a VERY long day (two airlines, three planes, with dogwalking chores at each stop -- and the only thing worse than getting a dog into a crate in the first place is convincing it to go back in after it has experienced a flight!), friends met us at the airport in La Ceiba and escorted us to the house we were to rent. The rainy season had begun, and it was pouring!! We spent the next week or so periodically looking at each other in amazement and saying things like "do you believe we've actually DONE it???"

LIFE IN HONDURAS

We could easily write a book here, but will attempt to keep it reasonably concise. To begin with, as much as we are looking forward to moving to our island paradise, we really are enjoying La Ceiba. It is a delightful city; it's big enough to have most anything you need, but small enough to be friendly, laid-back, and reasonably safe. Although definitely a Latin American city, it has a distinctly Caribbean flavor. And the area surrounding La Ceiba is spectacular. Within 20 minutes or so of town you can be at an unbelievably beautiful beach (with public bathhouse and picnic area - admission about $.75 per car), beside a cool mountain stream, or floating through a mangrove and cypress swamp wildlife refuge complete with manatee, howler monkeys, and crocodiles. We feel we will have the best of two worlds -- once we move to the island we will still be in LaCeiba frequently to shop, visit friends etc. We continue to find the people friendly and helpful, and have made good friends among both the Honduran and ex-pat communities. The opportunities for Honduran friendships will increase as we learn more Spanish. Fortunately there is an excellent Spanish language school, Centro International de Ideomas, in La Ceiba.

We are currently living in a three bedroom, two bath, furnished house in a nice middle class residential neighborhood. The rent is $450 per month, plus we pay a $30 neighborhood association fee which covers street cleaning and maintenance, water, trash pickup, and security (armed guards patrol well lighted streets on bicycles(!). Electricity runs $30-$50 a month depending on how much we use the air conditioning. Phone service is very inexpensive, except for international calls. Grocery bills can vary tremendously depending upon personal taste. For example, I buy fresh produce in the market - beautiful tomatoes for 30 or 40 cents a pound, cabbage and potatoes for 10 or 20, great avocados for 20 cents each, a bag of 15 oranges for less than 20 cents, etc. On the other hand I have a "gringo"* friend who prefers canned fruits and vegetables. She buys U.S. imports at the supermarket (yes, there is an "American style" supermarket in La Ceiba) and complains about her grocery bills. For some reason chicken and eggs are relatively expensive (about $1.00/pound and $1.00/dozen respectively) but beef and pork are quite cheap. The other day for example I purchased two pounds of "special" ground beef (so lean I have to add fat to the pan before I fry it so it won't stick) and four rib eye steaks for just over $5.00 I have found that with many items there is a choice between a U.S. brand and a Central American product; learning to use the C.A. stuff can have a major positive impact on your over-all costs. We eat out fairly frequently. A quick lunch in a "comida rapida" ("fast food" - what we would call a cafateria) can be had for a dollar or two; while dinner in a nice resturant may run $5-$10, exclusive of drinks (beer and rum are cheap; wine is quite expensive, comparable to what one would expect to pay in the states.)

Wages here are very low. The unskilled laborers who prepared our building site earned a little less than $5.00 a day. Of course they were clearing with machetes rather than chain saws, and excavating with picks, shovels and wheelbarrows rather than bulldozers and front end loaders, but we still feel we came out ahead. Skilled labor is of course more expensive but still very cheap by U.S. standards. We are currently paying $250 a week for a team of 2 excellent concrete and block masons (this includes their food and lodging, since they are from the mainland and have to be provided for while working on the island). I have a cleaning lady twice a week (she also does my laundry and ironing); I pay her about $1.10 per hour. This is a little above the going rate, but (a) she is good and I don't want to risk losing her, and (b) the gringos who referred her to me were already paying that and I couldn't really get away with less. (The good news is household help is cheap, the bad news is that good help can be hard to find.)

Cable TV is available, and varies greatly in quality. Typically it is about 1/2 Spanish (a mix of Spanish language stations and U.S. stations dubbed in Spanish) and 1/2 English. Satellite systems comparable to Primestar etc. are becoming available; at present they are quite expensive, but we expect the price will come down, as prices usually do after new techonlogy acquires a little age. For example, our internet service just dropped from $30.00 a month to $21.00 -- we assume there must be a new provider in town!

We have not been keeping a really detailed breakdown (a lot of what we are spending here is connected to the house project) but a quick ball-park estimate is that it is costing under $1,000 a month for the two of us to live here. We aren't splurging, but definitely not pinching pennies either.

I understand that private medical insurance is available here at a reasonable cost. Quite frankly we have not bothered to look into it at this point. Medical care is extremely cheap here (standard cost of an doctor's office visit is about $10.00; a friend just had a dental checkup and teeth cleaning for $15.00). And we figure that for anything really major we would return to the U.S., where we both have insurance. We do have a rider on one of our insurance policies that covers evacuation to the U.S. in case of emergency.

Outside of Roatan, Tegucigalpa, and maybe San Pedro Sula, English language reading material for purchase is hard to find. However, ex-pats of all nationalities maintain active book exchanges (both formal and informal), and so there is lots of stuff to read floating around. There is a small weekly English language paper called "Honduras This Week"; you can have a look at it at http://www.marrder.com/htw/

The concept of home delivery took a little geting used to. You can have almost anything (including your groceries!) delivered to your front door. (Unless it is very large or heavy, the delivery will probably be made by bicycle. The pizza guy has a mo-ped.) Vendors wander the streets of the neighborhood crying their wares -- everything from freshly baked tortillas, to green bananas (a staple), to shoe repair, to fellows who will "chop" (with a machete) your grass, shrubs and trees.

*"gringo" here refers to any foreigner who is not Central American or Islander. We have friends who are from Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Canada, The United States -- ALL "gringos".

THE DOWN SIDE

As we have extolled the pleasures and benefits of retirement in Honduras (and we really do love living here) occasionally someone has insisted "there must be a down side, what is it?" And of course there is -- life is always about trade-offs, isn't it? The following items, although not of major importance to us, would certainly bear thinking about by anyone considering such a move.

The infrastructure does not work as well or as efficiently here as we were used to. It is not at all unusual to find oneself without telephone, water and/or electricity for a period of a few minutes to a few hours (or a few DAYS, although that is rare). The roads vary from mediocre to terrible -- only the roads between and around major cities are paved, and even within the city there are many areas with unpaved streets. One quickly learns to allow considerably more time for any travel.

Good -- and very affordable -- medical care is available in Honduras. However, in the event of a major emergency you are NOT going to be med-flighted to the nearest level 1 trauma center! (If immediate access to state-of-the-art medical technology is very important to your sense of security, you will not be comfortable here.)

This is a very laid-back culture (in our minds, a plus). Nothing happens fast, little happens when it is supposed to happen, (contrary to popular opinion, the Spanish word "manana" -- as in "your order will be delivered manana""-- does not mean "tomorrow", it simply means "not today"!), and no one gets upset about the delays. This can drive "type A" personalities straight up the wall!

Shopping for anything can be a bit of a challenge. Just finding the proper store is the first hurdle (would you believe that fabric stores don't sell needles and thread?) And then service, while friendly, is not necessarily very efficient. Distribution systems seem to be a problem; one learns to stay stocked up on necessary non-perishables, as one never knows when a given item will simply disappear from the shelves for a time. And there are some things which are simply not available or are prohibitively expensive. (Most ex-pats -- as well as those Hondurans who can afford to -- make periodic visits back to the U.S. or Canada which include major shopping sprees.)

A FEW BITS OF ADVICE

The usual caveats apply with regard to purchasing land in another country, but they go double for Honduras. There have been many problems with titling land here, as well as instances of outright fraud. Take your time, know with whom you are dealing, and be sure to have a good Honduran lawyer, whom you trust, involved in all phases of the negotiations. (Although it has worked out well for us, we could never in good conscience advise anyone to jump into a land deal as rapidly as we did.)

If you have not experienced living in another culture, and particularly in a less developed country (fortunately we had, and knew from experience that we could be comfortable in this environment), spend as much time in the country as possible before doing anything permanent. Ideally, plan to rent for a year or so before buying. For every ex-patriot happily living out his retirement years in some exotic location, there is another who loved it at first, gradually grew more and more disillusioned and frustrated, and finally packed up and moved "back home". And it is not always easy to guess at the outset into which category any given individual will fall.

Read "Don't Stop The Carnival" by Herman Wouk. Recognize the fact that, although it is a work of fiction, nothing much is exaggerated with the possible exception of the time frame (the process usually takes 3 or 4 years).

If you do make the move, make every effort to assimilate into the culture as thoroughly and as rapidly as possible. Learn to speak the language, eat (and like) the food. Join a church, a service club, a study group, or whatever suits your interests, and get to know the people in it. Your life will be much happier and fuller. Realize, however, that you will always be a "gringo", just as an immigrant in the U.S. is always a "foreigner". Be grateful for the acceptance you receive, and don't expect those among whom you are living to alter their ways and customs to suit yours. Always keep your sense of humor. And enjoy the adventure!

Hoss and Lori Pollard

P.S. SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT ROATAN

Many Americans are attracted to the Bay Islands. We have some indirect experience with life on Roatan (a sister and brother-in-law living there) and so offer the following.

Costs, from buying property to buying groceries, are considerably higher than on the mainland, although probably still reasonable when compared to other Caribbean islands. Interestingly, much of what is for sale on Roatan is imported from the U. S., rather than from mainland Honduras. The availablilty of goods and services is generally much more limited than on the mainland. (My sister's visits always include a shopping trip.)

Raotan is more "Americanized", and there is a larger ex-pat (especially from the U.S.) community.

It is possible to live comfortaby on Roatan without ever learning more than a few basic phrases in Spanish. Although a growing number of mainland Ladinos are moving to the Islands seeking work, the original Bay Islanders were and are an English speaking people.

If you are a diver Roatan is paradise. Great diving can be available literally right ourside your door. We, on the other hand, must travel to the islands for diving.

After living here a while, we much prefer La Ceiba, while the above mentioned sister and brother-in-law love Raotan and would never consider living on the mainland. So it's all a matter of personal taste.