The Infamous "Honduran Time"

Being fashionably late is acceptable to some extent but the people here take it to a whole new extreme. If you say you are meeting someone for almuerzo (lunch) at 12 you aren't expected to actually arrive until 1! Its bearable when meeting friends but within my family this laid back pattern is hard to put up with. When asked when we are leaving there will never be a straight answer and when they say ahorita (now) it could still be a few more hours until we actually do what we have planned. This has caused me to do a lot of waiting around. I don't want to be late so I stick to my "normal" timing and deal with the long periods of time I spend waiting to hear the sweet word "vamos."