Honduras

Feels like a new beginning! We have, after all, left most of the original group and joined a new one, we have a new tour guide (Enrique, but we all call him Quique for short), and we’re all of a sudden continuing through a new, very different country; Honduras!

Okay, so just to keep you up-to-date, the new members of the group include 2 Norwegians (Kine & Heidi), 3 Canadians (Rachna, Krista & Phil), another American (Rachel), and a Dane (Rasmus). The people who continued on this leg of the journey from the original group are Ioana & Jon, Ash, Dan & Jess and of course Henry!

This was the morning we all hated the most I think, because we left Antigua by bus at 4:30am. 4:30am!!! WHO DOES THAT?!? We travelled to a town called Copan which only took us 4-5 hours. It was a miserable day – the weather was terrible, rainy and humid, we almost had a couple of accidents, and by the time we got there we were all so tired. Some managed to get up and go out and see the Copan ruins around the area, some rode horses, but Hen and I found a quiet little café, put our laundry in, made friends with the people there and basically just updated all of our photos and blogs and relaxed with a tasty plate of nachos & a couple of coffees. We figured it would be nice to have a look around; the town had cobblestone streets like Antigua but it was a lot smaller, and the buildings were slightly more modern; there was a lot to explore. But we’d done so much travelling the past few days we decided to kick back and relax in the one spot for once. We were only in Copan that day so we wouldn’t have seen much anyway.

We had our first group dinner that night which was nice, and it was ACTUALLY Dan’s birthday today so the lucky bugger got another cake! It was delicious though.

The next morning we all woke up bright and early and jumped back on a bus for one of the longest days of traveling (we will have had many of those by the end). We were headed back to the Caribbean to a little island known as Roatan Island. We first took an excruciatingly long 7 hour bus trip to the coast, where we saw 2 car accidents because the weather was so terrible; one of them a dog ran across the road and a motorcycle almost hit it but swerved and fell off his bike, then WE almost hit HIM! The other a guy in a ute lost control spun around a few times and just collided with the bank on the side of the road. These things seem to be a normal occurrence in Honduras because nobody stopped! He waved to say he was fine and we all just kept on moving. We stopped at a mall for lunch and I tried my first ever taste of Wendy’s. Was so feral, I felt disgusting afterwards! Hen loved it.

We arrived at our port to catch the 1.5 hour ferry to the island just before sunset, and once we had reached the island it was dark. Apparently the past few days had been pouring with rain here, so we weren’t expecting the best weather. Henry was set to do his diving course here so to him it didn’t matter much. We were staying in a bright pink guesthouse in an area of Roatan called West End. It was a relief to be by the beach again and smell the ocean! And seeing as it was the Caribbean we were again met by a strong presence of ganja, which we kindly declined The reggae culture is also very prevalent here, with images of Bob Marley and people with dreads around every corner.

The next morning after 2 horrible days of traveling I woke up to a beautiful sunny day! We were so lucky with the weather while we were here, we went to a place called West Bay where we just hired snorkelling gear and went out for a swim, a few beers (we brought an esky), and a snorkel. My opinion was that it was nowhere near as amazing as Caye Caulker, didn’t come close at all, but was still really amazing to see the underwater life in this area of the Caribbean. I think after all the tourist activity and with boats zooming past all the time the reef has been damaged a fair bit, plus with all the past days of rain the water was a bit murky. So I spent about an hour out there, then decided I’d had enough and went to shore to relax in the sun and chill with the local Iguanas warming up on the rocks. BIG MISTAKE. I fell asleep under the hot rays and ended up with a terrible 2nd degree burn across my stomach and on my back a bit too (sorry mum). Did I fail to mention my scorpion sting? This morning before the beach we were at a local family’s house to organise tonight’s dinner (which Hen & I skipped as it was $13), I dug my toes into the sand and instantly felt the stinger of something slice into my big toe. I asked Jon to take out the stinger and he thought it looked scorpion like. SO PAINFUL! So tonight while everyone was at dinner I wasn’t feeling great. Henry and I went back to a local baliada bar and ate a very cheap but delicious dinner. After I ate I felt really faint and had to sit on the floor. Hen kept his cool and got me some water, I think the mix of sunstroke and scorpion venom (I could feel it moving through my leg after the sting) made my body break down, and the day after was the day I became best friends with my bed and the toilet. During henry’s lunch break from diving he dragged me out of bed and I went to get something substantial to eat with him. Rasmus and Quique were at the same place which was cool, had a chat with them for a while. When Henry left I went back to bed and recuperated pretty rapidly! I was fine by dinner! Hen and I have been a bit unsocial, not by choice I spose, the group keeps choosing expensive places to eat, so we bail and eat street food for a quarter of the price, if that. SO MUCH YUMMIER!

Honduras is really beautiful by the way, it’s just covered in jungle and the locals seem really friendly. It’s certainly no Mexico or Belize, but it has its charms.

Henry was originally going to finish his entire diving course in Roatan (supposed to be among some of the best diving in the world) but to do that he would have finished half a day after the group had left and he would have paid around $350 or something for a flight to Granada, our next big destination after a hellish night in Tegucigalpa.. I’ll get back to that.

So Hen decided he could just finish his course in Costa Rica after the tour finishes, and save all that flight money. We had the option to catch the same ferry back to shore the next morning, or for the same price catch a 7 minute flight to the same spot. Half went by sea and half went by air. It was probably the funniest flight I have ever been on, it was so short! But it also had amazing views of Roatan and the reefs from the air! Good decision, and was free for us cause was part of the tour transportation costs. Score!

Okay, as I mentioned before we were tonight to sleep over in the most dirty, prostitute ridden, slum of a capital known as Tegucigalpa, and our bus ride to get there was the second longest on this trip; the next day’s was THE longest. It was nice driving into the city, the scenery was pretty amazing, but as soon as you hit the traffic and foul stenches seeping from every nook and cranny the city has to offer I immediately felt the need to get out. Our taxi driver to the hotel was some sort of self-declared gangster, together with blaring hiphop and a cute little pink pig hanging from his rear vision mirror. Lucky for us, there is a really nice, sophisticated, clean mall there, where some of us ventured out to via taxi for dinner. Have you heard of Subway? That’s what we ate. And for dessert? Yogen Fruz yum yum yum. It’s so dangerous here, we were told not to go more than 1 block from the hotel if we were to eat locally, so the mall was the way to go. It was air conditioned and clean, we felt dirty being there after traveling all day! Sweaty, smelly backpackers trying on crisp new clothes at United Colours of Benetton. Hahahaha!

We shared a cab with Jon & Ioana, and once we got back to the hotel, Jon stepped out of the taxi and yelled ‘HOLE!! Dom be careful there’s a HUGE hole right there, seriously, don’t step into the GIANT HOLE!’, so I got out the other side of the taxi and when it drove away he was right; we were shocked the taxi didn’t fall in itself!! It was massive! But I didn’t want to get my camera out and take a photo to show you cause I seriously thought I’d get mugged right then and there.. It’s that kind of a city.

I got bitten by bed bugs that night, the bites have lasted until even after the end of the trip! *shudder*

Next morning we were all ready for our longest travel day, a ridiculous 14 hour day or something, to get into Nicaragua to a beautiful city called Granada. Seeing as we’re entering a new country I’ll finish this post up and say farewell to Honduras. Apart from being (supposedly) one of the most dangerous countries in the world, it is also beautiful, and despite not having the greatest start I still really enjoyed my time here. Thank you Honduras! I’m sure we’ll at some point meet again.