A strange place to put a restaurant. Tegucigalpa

The bottom of the beaten-out taxi scraped cringingly against the uneven surface, as we shuddered our way up the mountain, the constant din of the engine thundering in our eardrums, like a jet plane taking off. None of us had any real confidence in arriving at our destination, being as neither we, nor the taxi driver actually knew where it was we were going and the rapidly descending fog blocked the path.

We were silent for a while as our eyes absorbed the magnitude of what we were seeing. Narrow, crumbling pavement dropping away into the street, corner stores with broken windows, open guttering and small clusters of people talking, lingering, listlessly staring into the street.

As we grind around another corner and shudder to a hault at the traffic lights, an uneasiness settles over the car. Being hi-jacked in a taxi is not unheard of here and the street is unsettlingly empty at this junction. Delinquency is rife and gangs divide up the city in an ongoing terratory war. You don't walk the streets with anything of value. You don't get caught on the wrong side of town. And you don't break down in a taxi half way up a mountain side in the dead of night.

If we listened to the prevailing wind, we wouldn't step foot outside our hotel, but then, in this line of work, the prevailing wind blows from the vantage point of a select few whose primary interests are in keeping the power and the wealth within the same hands. Despite the glorious rhetoric of building up Honduras and eradicating poverty, spouted out with impressive conviction from the comfort of an airconditioned office with leather sofas, it's much easier to combat if you can press an electric button and wind up your tinted window as you drive by.

The withered rust heap of a taxi chokes into life and we pull away from the junction. I feel as if I am being watched and stare out of the window. My eyes lock with those of a young adolosent girl on the street. They are dark and penetrating, wide and soulful and I can feel her gaze long after the car has turned the corner.

There is a steel bed serving as a roof on one of the tumbledown houses to our left, and some people are lining up at a fastfood stand, waiting as their tortillas are flipped into the air and filled with various kinds of meat and spices. The smoke rises and the fat spits from the little grill, as the vendor with the backwards cap and faded vest, wipes his brow.

We rumble onwards, climing higher and the lights of the city grow distant behind us. The night time that envelopes Tegucigalpa covers the scars and the damage exposed by daylight. The slums and exhaust fumes are wrapped up in the darkness. The lights are twinkling and the city is calm. It's amazing how so many things look less threatening from a distance.

An almighty thud jolts me back into consciousness, as the front wheel of the car drops into a deep crack in the road. There is a collective gasp from inside, followed by a long silence; no one wanting to awknowledge that we have probably just cracked the drive shaft.

The road becomes more remote as houses are replaced by trees and the terrain roughens, as we swerve around the steep corners trying as hard as possible to avoid the crevices, all the time the right side of the taxi clunking disturbingly against the ground. Visibility is poor as the clouds drop and the taxista chuckles "el hombre lobo sale por aqui" (The wolfman comes out here").

As we stop at a fork in the way while he telephones a friend to check our location, I half expect an armed gang to descend upon us from the trees. It's hard to believe that a restuarant could exist up here, as the road has now all but disappeared beneath us and we are grinding up dirt tracks and grass. I flash back to being in Guatemala when locals advised us against walking up the mountains alone, because of the "bandidos".

A combination of an over-active imagination, advice from unhelpful sources and a daily paper with a dedicated section to assassinations and robbery - "sucesos" - is enough to fuel a deep paranioa. But such hysteria is not healthy and, although I am not denying the need to excercise caution, it is also not helpful to regard each and every person as a possible assailant.

Eventually we see a sign for "La Cumbre" and we pull in to the high gated place. There is a collection of 4x4s and expensive cars, like some bizarre oasis in the midst of the desert, or a party that only a few are invited to. I remember being told once "life is all about being part of the club". I can't think of anywhere where that applies more. Central America will never pulls itself out of the mess its in while the same old people remain in charge.

More to come soon.