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Published: March 2nd 2012
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My apologies in being so slack for the last couple of weeks... I am very slowly working on the last 3 countries of Central America.
First day of the new tour with Tucan, we arrived in Copan (Honduras) early in the afternoon and after a quick lunch and introductory tour, we headed off for our afternoon activities. 7 others and I decided to hit up the hot springs located in the nearby mountain which proved to be QUITE a good choice. There were at least a dozen different pools into which the natural hot spring water was fed into via pipes and we were warned quite severely NOT to step in the actual spring as the water was approximately 70 degrees Celsius and therefore too hot for a quick bath. A friend told me later on that a guy on his tour had ignored the warning and ended up with 3
rd degree burns on his foot – what an idiot!
After trying a few different little pools and declaring them “not hot enough!” we headed up to the top pool which was the hottest at 40 degrees. I swear I felt my skin melt a little as I got in.
It was amazing.
The best thing about the springs is that it was BYO friendly, so we sat sweating and boiling with a vodka in hand as the sun set, and felt extremely satisfied in our activity choice.
Once we’d had enough of boiling into human-soup, we headed down into the bbq area where the staff cooked us an amazing meal of mixed kebabs, rice, tortillas, beans and cheese. It turned out to be quite a cheap afternoon and probably my best memory of Honduras.
The next day we had a tour of Copan ruins, which although not anywhere near as impressive as Chichen Itza or Tikal, were still quite interesting and included a bird feeding area where I saw my first macaw (I may have been more than a little excited...). Afterwards, Chrissy and I with our new little Canadian friend Amy braved a tuk-tuk up to Macaw Mountain bird park and spent several hours whistling at the owls, parrots, tucans and macaws. They also had an interactive section where you could hold some of the tamer parrots and well... being such a bird enthusiast, you can imagine my delight as they put a parrot on each shoulder
and took a few photos. Chrissy even managed to get a photo of me as I snuggled up into the feathers of a rather large green beast of a bird and wondered how to smuggle it out of the park and back home with me – unfortunately the keeper must have read my mind as she quickly removed the birds from my affections and gave them to someone else. Meanie.
We used to remainder of the afternoon to visit the local chemist to procure some anti-histamine cream as I had been savaged by mosquitoes at some point in Antigua and could count up to 54 separate bites on my legs altogether. I still have scars to this day, almost 5 weeks later!
That was Copan done and dusted, so we hit the road for a delightful 11hour travel day to the supposedly beautiful Bay Island of Roatan. Immediately upon arrival it began to pour with rain.... and continued to do so for the entire 4 days we were there. Optional activities on the island included snorkelling, bike-riding, fishing, sunbathing and basically anything else that can be done outside. Our actual activities included trudging through mud and wet sand to
get into town, dodging gaping holes in the streets due to road works, browsing a thousand tourist stalls to avoid the weather and sitting on our deck staring desolately out into the rain in the hopes of catching a glimpse of sun. We did get a brief reprieve one afternoon at which point we all threw ourselves in a water taxi and sped off to the beach at West Bay but it remained cloudy and unappealing so we did little more than walk up the beach goggling at the ridiculous amount of tourists on sunbeds.
Mutual consensus was that even if it hadn’t been raining the entire time that Roatan would not have been a particularly interesting destination for 4 days and certainly not worth two 12 hour travel days to get in and out. On top of that, one of the girls on our tour was mugged by two young boys who threatened her with a knife then used it to cut the bag off her shoulder.
All in all, we did not find Roatan particularly favourable.
Another long bus ride to San Pedro Sula where we arrived late at night and were warned NOT TO LEAVE THE
HOTEL due to it being quite a dodgy city, so off to bed straight away in order to be up extra extra early for ANOTHER long bus ride the next day across the border into Nicaragua.
Thus, my travels through Honduras had thankfully come to an end. Whilst not a bad experience, I couldn’t really say that I would ever go back or recommend it to friends who are travelling. The country didn’t really offer much that we hadn’t already seen in previous places and seemed to have quite a lot of crime and unsavoury areas that we had to be wary of. Nonetheless, it was an experience to add to the travel bank so I am pleased to have been and ticked it off my list.
Onwards to Nicaragua!
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