Independence Day in Central America

Independe day celebrations, nice, but all buses have to wait for the whole parade to cross, and that was in every town!!!

We have spent the last few days rushing around, crossing borders on my way to Belize.
After spending a day in North Nicaragua, in a town called Esteli we made our way up to the border with Honduras.
All of this can be done on one of the several fleets of international buses, but they are a lot more expensive, up to 5 times more expensive. Besides one thing I got is time, so I get to see the countries I am crossing.
After taking four different buses, two in each country, last night we arrived in Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras.
A fairly large, fairly ugly city, nested in a dramatic valley, and with a cooler climate, as it is set about 1000 metres above sea level.
Tegucigalpa Cathedral
Sadly the city is so paranoid about security that everything closes really early, and just after dark you hardly find anything open, not even a place to eat.
I have to wonder how much of this is created by the press, that may push the stories to attack the government, or simply to sell more papers. Yesterday the main article on the paper I had picked up was the shooting of 3 people in the capital.
The town is a bit like Sunnidale without Buffy, overridden by vampires that come out at dark, people lives on gated, chained buildings, scare to come out, in case mugged by gangs.

We are trying to get all the way to the North border with Guatemala tonight, but things here go slowly. And today is Independence Day, so I am certain we will be blocked in our way by parades, demonstrations and parties.