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Make your own Currency Cheat Sheet including Central American countries
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Business is conducted Monday through Friday and until noon on Saturday. Commercial business hours are from Monday through Friday: 9:00 A.M. to noon and 2:00 P.M. to 6:00 and Saturday 9:00 A.M. to noon. Lunch and business appointments are common here and usually last more than two hours. Almost all cities and major towns have post offices. The mail services generally can not be relied upon like they are in the U.S. To receive mail, it is best to have it sent to the Lista de Correos in Tegucigalpa. You should have the mail addressed to your last name only to avoid confusion. You will usually need to show identification to receive your mail. There are also a number of private mail companies that have been established in response to the generally poor mail service. They will assign you a U.S. address, usually in Miami and they charge a fee around $8.00 to $ 10.00 per month or more, depending upon the volume you receive and sent. The telephone system in Honduras is excellent in the metropolitan areas. You may experience frequent outages in the remote rural areas, however almost every town has a telephone office. There are also a growing number of Internet Access Providers in the major cities. Direct international calling is available. The Honduran currency is called the Lempira, named after a Mayan Chief who fiercely resisted Spanish Subduction. The bills include one's, two's, five's ten's, twenty's, fifty's, and one hundred Lempiras. Coins are minted into one, two, five, ten, twenty, and fifty centavos. U.S. Currency is very easy to change in both the banks and the "black market". Usually a better rate of exchange will be paid on the black market. Although there are several banks located in Honduras, there is only one main country bank ,The Central Bank, who also determine the rate of exchange weekly for the other banks. These banks include Banco Central de Honduras, Banco Atlantida, and Banco de Honduras. Almost all banks offer full services such as wire transfers, Western Union, and check writing. The current rate of exchange as of January 28, 1999 is U.S. $1.00 = L 14.02 Spanish is the official language in Honduras' mainland and is also the preferred language for conducting business transactions. There is a large amount of English/Spanish (Spangles) speaking bi-linguals throughout the country. On The Bay Islands many natives only speak english. All trade literature, correspondence, and legal contracts should be written in Spanish to be legally binding. The common employee in restaurant, grocery stores, commercial shops, only speak Spanish.
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