Honduras - Life with Cowboys and Pirates

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Copan

Well after the exciting adventures with the volcanoes and lava I decided a 4:00am bus journey to Honduras was called for. It turned out to be an excellent idea as it had started pouring just after I got back to my hostel (The Black Cat) from Pacaya and hadn't paused all night... Sightseeing and rain don't really mix. Given the early hour, I had the mini bus practically to myself. This was amazing!!!!!!!!!!! Guatemalans believe that at least 30 people can fit in a tarago size minibus with their luggage so I was very very very happy.

A few hours sleep later and I arrived at the border. I had no problems crossing over, but the other backpacker did have to spend a few minutes in the interrogation room. I think its because he owns a coffee shop back in the states and border control suspect he's trying to move in on their business. (This area is renowned for growing coffee...) Anyway I did get to sign a form handed to me by a serious looking nurse in full mask and gloves to state I didn't have swine flu. Which was an easy thing to do because as if you would say yes. I did hear though that at the airport, travellers are being greeted with thermal imaging cameras. Good to see they are so concerned. I am not.

Anyway from the border I headed to my destination town of Copan Ruinas - a small town filled with cowboys and not much else. And whilst it sounds boring, I spent many an hour watching all the cowboys in their big stetsons and cowboy boots socialising in town on their day off. It is however actually famous for its mayan ruins, which although not as grand as Tikal, were certainly worth seeing if in the area. (Luckily I was!) There are other adventures to do around town so you could spend time horse riding or visiting coffee plantations or heading out to the awesomely named Macaw Mountain!!! I did none of those things because they charge an arm and a leg in US dollars to tourists. But I did get splurge on a visit to a butterfly house which was lovely and peaceful in the afternoon heat.

I stayed in the cleanest hostel I think I've ever seen ever called Hostal la Manzana Verde. So important was maintaining cleanliness that the staff would wake you up to turf you out of bed in order to make it. And if you dared to leave any item on the floor it was tossed on your bed to allow the thrice daily mopping ritual. No exceptions for anything, not even an open bottle of red wine. I now have some lovely purple clothes. 😊

In Copan I met a large group of christian missionaries at the hostal as I arrived, so I tagged along with them to visit the ruins, remembering along the walk why I love travelling by myself and not in a group. But the group did come in handy when I was finally able to afford an english speaking tour guide for a few hours!!!! I now completely understand all the ruins I've visited over the past month thanks to him.

Copan is renowned for its artistic carvings and a very special set of hieroglyphic stairs which describe the history of the mayan people pre their demise from glory. Unfortunately when the archaeologists were rebuilding these famous stairs, they put the stones back in any old order. So it doesn't really make any sense to anyone. The guide assured me that now with the aid of computers they would soon have it all written in the right way. As amazing as the ruins are archaelogically (and lets face it, I am not an archaeologist nor even a history buff) the coolest thing about Copan was the macaws that live in that part of the jungle. So whilst I liked the ruins, I loved watching the birds a little bit better!! Spent hours sitting on the grass watching them squawk and fly around. I suspect I may have looked like the tourists in Venice who take photos of all the pigeons...

Utila, Bay Islands

After a few very relaxing days laughing at cowboys and soaking up the Honduran lifestyle I made a move north through San Pedro Sula and La Ceiba to the Bay Islands. I sat next to the most annoying person I think I've ever met on a bus, who could not comprehend "no habla espanol" and looked at me like I was a deaf idiot everytime he asked me a question. It was a joyous few hours as he was keen on conversation and I alas was not. Even if I had my music in, he would tap me on the should to talk about something else which I could not comprehend. Sigh.

But getting to the Bay Islands was worth the journey, two long bus trips, one with no aircon (yay) and one with aircon (brrrrrrrrrrr), both filled well past their maximum, and then a lovely boat ride. Lovely because the picture makes it seem fun. Not lovely because the seas were a little rough. When I say a little rough I mean that everyone around me was seasick. They hand out free seasick pills at the ticket counter so if you're heading out this way I recommend them... Even the locals looked a little worse for wear.

I headed to Utila, the cheapest of the Bay Islands. Whilst lacking sand, it has a very laid back just landed on an island away from the rest of the world feeling to it. And although it caters for tourists, the island makes you feel as though you are a local. Its a mix of born and breds with expats - so everyone speaks english or caribbean english (which might pretend to be english but is difficult to understand... think Pirates of the Caribbean accents times ten - you can hear some of the words but the cadences make it sound unreal). The weather here is hot hot hot and the water beautifully clear. The town only has one main road, so its impossible to get lost. But the island is 100% focused on diving. If youŕe not diving, this is not the island for you.

There are however pirates on the island, but more the modern drug lord kind. Ha ha!! The day before I got here a plane crash landed on the island that was transporting huge amounts of cocaine north. So there has been lots of military helicopters and midnight raids of bars and things here. Apparently the whole thing went up in smoke but the locals are sceptical. Its all very bizarre.

Utila has bee awesome fun and relaxing. Everynight is BBQ night somewhere here, with lots of salads, rice, potatoes and fish. Its expensive but worth spending money on. All the bars and restaurants and really just old looking beach shacks out over the water. Its filled with crabs (they live in holes all over the island and are always scuttling across the road) and also hummingbirds which is pretty exciting! Everyone has hummingbird feeders. There's not a lot of places to choose from so the restaurants and bars tend to open alternate days to reduce the competition. The town is very run down looking - not built up, luxurious and touristy! I'd hate to be here in hurricane season though. SCARY!

I settled down with Altons Dive Shop to do my open water certification, which was going exceptionally well until I did my first open water dive. Turns out, I didnt really like the sensation of diving! So I spent my first 40 minutes crying underwater - an impressive feat as most people didn't know it was possible. My second dive was better because we were practicing skills and I had something to keep me occupied other than the looming ocean around me. But then dives three and four I was plagued with equalisation problems. So I gave it one more try and you know what. I loved it. Another girl in my group also spent most of the time crying underwater, so we were crowned the special ed course. For four divers we had one instructor and two teaches aids... But they got us there (thanks Britta and Phil for holding our hands for five days straight)!!!!

I got to do some awesome dives with great people and see some cool things - plus I can say I learnt in the Carribean which is cool. I saw little squishies (jellyfish), and lots of bright fish, oh and silver fish swimming together in a shoal (I was waiting for them to form pictures like in nemo) though I missed the turtles, oooh and I saw a nasty stone fish thing and lots of pretty coral and some nasty coral. One of the divers handed a piece to me and it promptly stung the buggery out of my hand. Lucky he couldn't hear me speaking underwater!! On my sixth dive we could hear dolphins in the water, so when we got out of the water, we went swimming with them. We followed them through the ocean and then jump in and swim with them all around us. I'd say maybe 60 or so dolphins were there, all playing in the bow wave, jumping out of the water and swimming deep deep below and in between us. It was special.

So all in all it turned out to be an awesome challenge. Altons is very social and the entire dive shop does everything together, including dinner and nights out at the bars. But underwater they are super professional!!! Highly recommend them!

Tegucigalpa

It was hard leaving on the 6:15am boat to the mainland this morning but there are more adventures to be had... For now, Im shacked up in downtown Tegucigalpa, the capital. Don´t visit if you were planning to. I have to be back at my hostel before dark. Boogey men I guess. Im getting used to being surrounded and protected by guards with machine guns wherever I go. (You should have seen the dudes protecting the bus today stopped for lunch - three guards, three handguns and two shotguns in view. How can it not be safe here!

P.S. Only heard five gunshots overnight.
P.P.S. Am waiting on some underwater photos. I´ll add them specially later!!
P.P.P.S Border crossing day tomorrow!

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Comments

[dan]

bronzed
well it looks like your having a great time, plus you seem to have worked up a very intense tan!