Blogs from Honduras, Central America Caribbean - page 5

Shared taxis – like literally shared with strangers – are the norm here in Honduras and it was in such a cab that I made my way from the hostel to the ferry terminal, realising what a beautiful place Roatan Island is along the way. The place is a Caribbean paradise and it’s no wonder that the place has become over-developed and over-commercialised. There really needs to be a balance in places like this – enough development to give the place decent infrastructure but not so much that any sort of original ambience is completely destroyed by cruise ship passengers and hotel resorts. Thankfully the ferry back to La Ceiba wasn’t anything like the rollercoaster ride over here and I even managed to get some sleep along the way. It was the second leg of a ... read more

We left Caye Cauker early in the morning and arrived in Belize City, a short walk to the bus terminal, to catch a chicken bus to San Ignatius on the Guatemalan border. Only a couple of nights stay, but it would break our journey as we made our way to to the Guatemala. And lucky us, we arrived just in time for the annual town reggae evening. I don't think we slept till the wee hours. San Ignatius a small rural town in lush sub tropical rain forests was quite touristy but we found it quite pleasant and the Belize people very friendly. We wandered the streets discovering the market and local walks and ruins. Along with a top breakfast at a spot called Pops. The next day we hopped on a bus to the border ... read more

Is travel a component of self education, or merely entertainment? Obviously, it can be both, but I think many of us delude ourselves into thinking what we usually do when we travel is any more than entertainment. For instance, when my husband and I first met (three and a half years ago) we went on a couple of cruises. We certainly did travel, and we saw many terrific islands in the Caribbean. But mostly? It was Diamonds International and other tourists traps. We saw little of how people lived in these places and we had few contacts with the locals that weren't more than a brief and shallow transaction. But, that wasn't true for my most intense memory from our first cruise. One of the stops was Roatán, Honduras, a terrific island in the western Caribbean ... read more

Travelling to Western El Salvador from Lake Yojoa in one day would be pretty close to impossible, so we broke our journey with a night in Tegucigalpa. When we arrived our taxi from the bus station had to take a diversion around a fair (it's a three day holiday in Honduras at the moment) so we went there to get some food after we checked in. So far we haven't spent any time in capital cities, and I wasn't expecting much from our afternoon there, but our hostel for the night (apparently the only one in the city!?) runs free city tours so we had a pretty cool afternoon looking round the central area, including some churches, a local market, the national theatre and one of the museums :) Honduras, and all of central America, has ... read more

I'd be lying if I said any travel agencies recommended our 'Get to Copan' in one day plan/request. All of them recommended an overnight in Antigua. But we've been there, and didn't want to waste a night. So off we trotted on the route sold as tourist van to Guatemala City, then double decker local bus to the border - in Honduras by half 6. Apart from not. We had to change van at Antigua, no biggie, and arrived in GC at about the right time, and got on our big bus (not a double decker) at 14.45, figuring we were good. Wrongggg... It started to go a little wrong when our bus was literally at a standstill for 2.5 hours not long after GC. Lots of emergency vehicles went passed but no emergency was apparent ... read more