They walked straight, without hesitation. Few spoke much. Their compass point was north, towards the United States. Their goal for the day was Pijijiapan.
The town, 30 miles away, was the next stop on a trek by thousands in a caravan that has so enraged US President Donald Trump he has threatened to close the US-Mexico border and slash aid to Central America. Honduran boys Adonai, 5, and Denzel, 8, set off from Mapastepec still fogged with sleep.
No-one had a torch. Potholes were treacherous. Only the floodlights of the odd truck in the opposite lane of the highway helped them see a few feet at a time. Within minutes, a young man lay on his back, hugging his knee to his chest.
The single mother and her boys strode past, keeping pace with the long train of people. Her ultimate destination: Los Angeles, a city where she knows no one. Trump, who campaigned against illegal immigration to win the US presidential vote, has seized on this caravan in the run-up to the Nov.
Yet its members make up a fraction of the hundreds of thousands of people who every year flee violence and poverty in Central America for the United States.
