TEGUCIGALPA, HONDURAS - Tired, concerned Hondurans returning home on flights that reopened at dawn after a night-time curfew crossed paths Tuesday with fleeing foreigners at the capital's airport following the weekend coup.

'We've been traveling for two days with our children and their grandmother. We just want to get home. They'll be time for politics later,' said Patricia Sanchez, a Honduran engineer who learned of Sunday's coup on a journey back from Brazil.

Like everyone trying to enter the country, Sanchez's return was delayed after the curfew blocked all evening flights.

Interim Honduran leader Roberto Micheletti on Tuesday renewed the 48-hour curfew he imposed on taking control of the country Sunday, after the army packed off President Manuel Zelaya to Costa Rica, provoking international outrage.

Zelaya - removed amid a dispute with the military and courts over his plans to change the constitution and extend presidential term limits - has vowed to return on Thursday, in a move expected to stoke further tensions.

As thousands of pro- and anti-Zelaya protesters took to the streets on Tuesday, Honduran Rodolfo Alvarez, in an immigration line at the airport, blamed Zelaya for the country's crisis.

'We Hondurans want to live in peace and what's happened since Sunday is Zelaya's fault,' the 58-year-old lawyer said.

'He doesn't speak the truth and most of us don't want our country turning into another Cuba or Venezuela.'

Zelaya has moved increasingly to the left since he was elected to a non-renewable four-year term in 2005, closely influenced by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and other Latin American leftists.

His ouster nonetheless sparked indignation from across the political spectrum, including from US President Barack Obama.

'We want to know what Obama will do,' said 57-year-old Elizabeth McCambridge, one of a group of US volunteers who left early for the airport for fear of coming across riots or roadblocks.

'We've been a little worried. We've been watching what's happening very closely on the Internet,' said McCambridge, who had been working in an orphanage near Tegucigalpa for a week.

Another volunteer, doctor Steve Egge, said that the only evidence he had seen of the disruption was power cuts and news blackouts.

'We've heard that the military just turned up at supermarkets and took what they wanted and left,' Egge added.

'It doesn't look good. How are they going to resolve this''

Preoccupied passengers hurried through the airport in both directions.

'Some flight plans have changed but, given the situation, we can consider that everything is working OK,' said Ivette Zelaya, an airport public relations official.

Police and soldiers patrolled nearby, although few Hondurans expected the violence that has broken out so far, leaving dozens wounded, would reach the terminal, for now.

'It's bad around the presidential palace right now, but if Zelaya does what he says and returns Thursday, surely his supporters will follow and that could turn ugly,' said airport taxi driver Leoncio Torres.

Justice officials have ordered the arrest of Zelaya if he returns.

Ahead of that expected showdown, most visitors continued to leave.

A group of perplexed US teenagers stood in a long line at the airport.

'We were nervous because there's such unrest and weird things that don't normally happen going on around us,' said 15-year-old Andrew Nelson, who had volunteered in the Central American country for a week.

'I think my family is just as confused as we are. They'll be glad when I'm home.'