San Pedro Sula

Health and Safety

Both Hospital del Valle, San Pedro's largest private hospital, and the slightly smaller Hospital Bendaña have English-speaking staff, many of them foreign trained, accustomed to dealing with expatriate and visitor patients.

The U.S. Embassy in Tegucigalpa operates a branch American Citizen Services Office staffed by a consular agent in San Pedro in the Banco Atlántida building on Parque Central. It is open Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoons from 1 to 4.

When you arrive, ask the folks at your hotel front desk for the lay of the land, namely where you should not go. Certain east-side sectors of the city have seen an increase in gang violence, which has captured the attention of the international news media, and are unsafe day or night. (There's nothing of tourist interest in or near these neighborhoods.) Stick to taxis at night. Have your hotel call one if you are going out to dinner, and have the restaurant or nightspot hail one for you when you are ready to call it a night. Beyond that, the standard big-city travel precautions apply: Avoid handling large sums of money in public, keep car doors locked and windows rolled up, and leave the flashy jewelry back home.