Attack of the Sandflys

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Following a border crossing, and two 8 hour buses we made it to San Pedro, which is the second biggest (and most dangerous apparently) city in Hondorous. Honduras has the city with the highest murder rate per capita in the world so we knew we had to be careful and stay safe. We were staying in a hostel down from a super big shopping mall so headed there (walking with a serious purpose to deter any thiefs, crooks or artful dodgers) in the hope of food. We needn't have worried too much about anything happening to us as outside every business shop was a guy with a massive pump action shot gun ready to go at any trouble. Even INSIDE the shopping mall there were lots of security - best to be safe than sorry l guess!

We had decided that our main draw to Hondourous was to go to Bay Islands which are off the coast, this was mainly due to our limited time frame in central america. So we headed from San Pedro to the port town of La Ceiba where you catch the 1hour ferry to Roatan. In keeping with the gun theme which is apparent here we had to walk through a metal detector to get on the bus, a guy behind was stopped and was found to be carrying a shotgun and pellets. These were both stored in the bagage compartment just incase the guy had some rage on the bus and decided to take it out on us fellow passengers - who knows where and what he was doing with all that!...

Bay islands consist of 8 islands in total, with three being the biggest. Of these one is totally out of bounds money wise and is reserved for people with helicopters and big yachts.... yar, the other two are open for muggle folk like ourselves. All of the islands scream tropical carribbean paradise and have white sandy beaches and turquiose clear blue waters, as well as the water being warm like the end of a bath.

We stayed on Roatan which is a little more expensive than Utila but there is much more to do besides diving. So whilst Craig was being a superstar scuba diver getting certified with a PADI Open Water Certificate l tried my hand at paddleboarding (its knackering but fun!) and also went to a couple of Yoga sessions to unleash ZEN JEN. We even found a one bedroomed apartment to stay in with its own kitchen, balcony and lounge all for the smart price of $40 USD a night for both! We literally could have moved in and stayed forever. This also gave us the opportunity to buy and eat our own food (which saved a lot of money as to eat out on Roatan is dear) and also just relax and have some chilled nights watching DVDS.

We spent a total of 6 days here and have no idea where the time went. Craig succesfully completed his PADI in 3 days and is now a fully qualified open water diver!...animals of the sea...BEWARE!. On the last day we took a water taxi down to another beach where you could hire snorkel gear and swim to the coral reef which was about 50metres away! amazing!...We spent a couple of hours swimming around here and saw a trigger fish (new favourite fish), parrot fish, spotted eel, lobster and conch to name but a few. It was great fun despite Craig making me laugh showing me his new dive hand signals, which everytime filled my mask up with water from grinning from ear to ear! One thing we didn't expect here was the sandfly colony which we intruded on which seemed to anger them!...they were EVERYWHERE, little buggers! We were both DEVOURED by them!!! They leave very nasty and itchy bites which take a long time to heal- great..after an SOS message on FB we were informed to use coconut oil - which mainly acts as a barrier to stop them getting you and they get caught in the gunk..We couldnt find any of this, but behold, babyoil works just the same. However, you do feel a little bit like a mass murderer as you look down on your legs to find lots and lots of dead sandflys still attached to you stuck in the oil!...Us- 1 Sandflys- 0.

Next stop was back to La Ceiba and for some white water rafting. We spent one night in La Ceiba here and that was definitely enough, we didnt feel too unsafe but we also didnt feel safe. Leaving one alcohol selling establishment we were kindly escorted to the taxi by a security guard from the bar who owned a very large gun which he held in one hand whilst pointing to the taxi we were to get in with the other. One highlight was being upgraded from a dorm to a double room for free IF we LIKED the hostel on facebook - ha. We were also taxi'd around by the owners of the hostel in exchange for a decent trip advisor reivew (which incidently we were chased up on to complete when we left the hostel by the owner - lol).

White water rafting is up in the jungle around La Cebia and it is very untouched. It was very adventureous and even before we had got in the raft they had us swimming up the river, jumping off HUGE hig boulders into the river and then floating down the rapids feet first. The rafting part was as fun and unlike the previous group the guide told us about we were able to follow his directions and understand what our left and rights where when paddling in order to guide us safely down the rapids. We were told the previous group were a bunch of Japanese tourists who could not speak english and had no clue what he was telling them to do - our guide said it was a long and knackering raft to say the least. On the more relaxed parts of the raft we could look at our surroundings which were off a beautiful green jungle, we half expected that Tyrannosaurus to come after us again Jurassic Park style!..we felt like the first people to ever go down the river. Hopefully it will stay like this.

We went from this onto a 8 hour bus to the capital of Tegucigalpa (try saying that after a few cubre libres) where we spent a total of 5 hours overnight in our room before getting up to catch the next early morning bus to get us to El Salvador.

Hondorous, it was short, but lots of fun.

Things we learnt

1) Craig can learn how to scuba dive

2) I have found a new personality called ZEN JEN

3) Sandflys are saturns minions...however, they do not win when faced against baby oil or similar!

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Comments

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[Momma Toni]

Fabulous sunset!
Hi your Honduras trip looked amazing! i have heard of sandflys and how horrible the bites are my sister got bit very badly by them and her legs came up like ballons in sri lanka! i will tell my brother joel who is going out there again in febuary about the coconut oil or baby oil treatment, the sunset in the carribean is simply stunning! glad you are both good and trucking on and that you have found your inner godess zen jen! love momma toni xxxxxxx