Honduras

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Honduras

After school, I never thought I´d spend 7 hours on a school bus. But that is how we got from Belize City to Punta Gorda. They squish as many people as they can on the buses and thru the aisles and make stops wherever someone wants to be picked up. You rotate from knees on the seat in front of you squashed down a bit to head on the seat in front of you to sitting up straight...every 10 minutes or so. It seemed extra hot that day. We finally arrived in Punta Gorda just before sunset, slept there and got to watch some Olympics and find out Brett Favre´s really playing for the Jets, and woke up to get on the ferry. The ferry takes you across to Guatemala again, where you go thru immigration to enter, then get on a bus to the Guatemalan border to exit. We met up with a bigger bus, and met some Aussie girls in line. Good thing we did, because we did not have enough money to pay to get into Honduras. This took us to San Pedro Sula, which is a bigger, bit dangerous city and is apparently the HIV capital of Central America. As soon as we were off the bus, a kid was straight onto us. First he was asking who was the most handsome of him and his friends, in his little wife beater. He led us around the bus station to the ATM and to buy our tickets. He would not leave until we gave him some money, cheeky little bugger. Walking thru, everyone is shouting at you trying to get you to come with them, and the guys were staring extra hard. We got on our bus to La Ceiba, which is where you get the ferry to the Bay Islands. We were hoping to make it to the islands that night and be able to get settled.

We were a little less than an hour into our trip when the bus pulled over and was broken down. There was an older couple on our bus, an American guy and a local lady, and she came to tell us we could get on the other bus that had pulled up but that you had to pay again. The Aussie girls and us hopped off, grabbed our luggage, and jumped on the next bus, still hoping to get to the islands by nightfall. The local lady said that road was notourious for highway robberies at dark and sometimes the bus drivers are involved. By the time we got to La Ceiba it was dark and the last ferry had fucked off, another night in a fucked up town. So we spent the night there chilled out and watched the olympics. Next morning we got to the pier at 8.30am to catch the morning ferry but what do you know the fucking thing is broken and it wont be leaving till 4pm in the arvo so we head back to La Ceiba and fuck around till 3pm.

The ferry was not fixed yet so we had to catch this piece of shit tug boat which actually turned out to be quite fun. When we got on evryone wanted to be up the front for the drive out but I guess they didn´t know it was going to be super rough and the boat was going to be swaying all over the shop. Within half hour of the boat leaving there were people greening out and throwing up. Miss Christensen nearly being one of them. I was sitting inside watching a video while Carrie was up front. I cruised out to see if all was ok but Carrie wasn´t feeling so well so I got her to come inside cause it wasnt as rocky but that didn´t really help much either. Carrie felt so sick it brought her to tears so we moved to back of the boat so she could watch the land which finally started to help.Whilst being out there I got talking to this seppo while Carrie sat there and chilled out, during mid conversation we looked over to see this kid run for the edge of the boat to throw up but tripped cause the boat was so rocky and spewed all over the floor and himself and then got up again and ran for the railing whilst throwing up. We where pissing ourselves laughing. What do you do. That´s about when old mate took over the DJ booth and busted out with ´´To the left to the left´´ by Beyonce, which is the direction the kid was running. He blasted music the rest of the trip.

We pulled into dock on Utila after the prettiest sunset we´ve seen and were bombarded once again, but this time by gringos from all the dive shops wanting you to come stay with them and giving you brochures. After being so sick, I just wanted to lay down, so we let the boys go off and find a place. One of the girls told me later that I looked really angry and she was scared of me. Michael followed the Aussie bloke. The seppo´s girlfriend and I sat there and I asked her what time itwas. She said 830, but I knew it wasnt cause the sun just set. Then she said 745. I had a look myself and it was only 645, dont know what seasick drugs she was on. We ended up at a dive shop where our door opened up onto the deck and the crystal clear water. They had a wharf with hammocks and it was two storeys so you could jump off the top. Probably the prettiest place we´ve stayed.

We didnt do any dives the first day, but we were told there was goods snorkeling down at another beach you could see from our wharf. So we got gear and headed down, but you hadda pay $3 to enter thru the beach and we had no money on us. So we found this run down hotel and snuck thru a walkway and some workers out to water. We left our hats and sunnies and thongs, and Maureen left her purse and some other stuff. We set out to snorkel between these two ships being fixed, turned to see all fishies and maybe stingrays and all you could see anywhere was freaking sea grass. And it got super shallow super quick, and super hot, you could see the heat rays thru the water and it was just deep enought to cover you laying down, but you couldnt really flipper. After swimming a bit more, then standing up and flippering over a bit and swimming some more, we gave up on seeing any actual moving things and headed back. We got out of the water and my hat, sunnies and thongs were gone, but everyone else´s stuff was still there. I got the shits and started walking back cause the sand was burning my unthonged feet, when one of the guys on the boat started yelling something and lifting his hat up and down. Michael headed over, and the guy gave him my stuff, claiming his boss found it and didnt know whose it was. Obviously he thought I was pretty stylish.

The next day we got our dive on and did two dives which were pretty good, we did a drift dive around this big wall and we saw a massive barracuda, puffer fish, and all sorts of schools of fish-there was never really a time when you couldnt see at least 20 fish. We drove around to another part of the island for our second dive. When I had to use the emergency only toilet on board, I should have known what was to come would not be good. I spent the next two days not eating or drinking anything and was too weak to dive, so had to give my dive to Michael. The diving guy assured me they were going to the shittest spot, but when they came back, they showed me video of a huge turtle cruising around. The medicine finally kicked in and we went on our last two dives and saw a barracuda being cleaned and a colourful group of squid. There was a big barracuda that hangs under the wharf every night, Barry. And there was a sting ray right outside our room one night.

Utila had this sweet bar called Tree Tanic. It took this guy twelve years and proabably 100 pounds of weed, mushrooms and acid to build this place. It was out of this world all the walls were made of bottles, ceramic tiles, hand crafted timber posts and heaps of other wierd shit, its one of those places that are really hard to describe you just need to check it out. It would be a great place to get stoned at or take a trip it would be like a little wonderland. We got up the next morning for the 620am smoother ferry to start our journey over to El Salvador.

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