Honduras

Day 28: Sunday, Dec 5th (Caye Caulker, Belize)


After a good days snorkeling we decided to hang around for one more day of R&R before we headed onward south. The bad news for us was the weather suddenly turned grey and the Caribbean paradise as we knew it quickly turned into a small limiting island. With Lisa feeling a little under the weather, we thought a little rest would help her bounce back. 


-Jason

* we didn't have any new pictures so I thought I'd put up some snorkeling

Bad news, many of our under water pictures were on a red setting

Day 29: Monday, Dec 6th (Caye Caulker - Placencia, Belize)



We woke up early, said our good byes and headed out on the ferry back to Belize City. I think we lucked out weather wise for our snorkeling trip because it was raining once again and we heard locals grumbling that it would be miserable for the rest of the week. The water was rough which didn't make things easy on Lisa. To make matters worse, we went directly from a choppy boat ride to our taxi driver cutting off the bus so we could board in a hurry for a 5 hour 'non-direct' chicken bus ride. He even got out hopes up and said we could catch a boat which runs daily from Placencia - Honduras and avoid paying the exit tax leaving Belize ($20 US). Turns out the jokes on us, the ferry runs 1 way Monday and the other way friday. After this disappointment we decided to call it a day and spend the night in one of the weirdest little towns yet. It's considered a 'Caye' but it's the only one connected to the main land with a newly constructed road (2007). There is no main street because of this... it's a main walkway, a tiny cement path way. Everyone lives on the coast as well and now they are developing the local area into a tourist destination and are halfway though building condo's with canals between them. The locals aren't taking to kindly to the tourists, there were anti tourism posters everywhere :s  


-Jason

Main Street

Day 30: Tuesday, Dec 7th (Placencia - Puerto Barrios, Guatemala)


The whole, newly developed road in came into play again. We had to take a water taxi to the next town to catch a chicken bus inland then down to the next town which took about 4 hours in total to go not very far. We are quickly finding out that along the southern coast, roads that appear like they would be there aren't always. We finally arrived at Punta Gorda, Belize in time for the last ferry across the Bay of Honduras... and unfortunately have to pay the exit tax and the ferry ride is expensive. We were thankful to be leaving Belize because all of our travel expenses were adding up. To make matters worse, Lisa was feeling sicker then ever, even after the TLC from the local ladies at immigration, we had to board our tiny jet boat and go mach speed across the choppy bay. 


We ended up meeting a couple that lives in Utila (the closest of the Bay Islands) which helped us get a hotel and showed us where to catch the bus the the border. They were nice enough to give Lisa some medicine to help her deal with her illness. Turns out they are dive masters and left us with a brochure in case we headed that way... Unfortunately, the water has a tendency to randomly shut off in smaller towns in Central America and this was the case which did not make matters easier. 


-Jason

The ferry

The pesky bay of Honduras

Day 31: Wednesday, Dec 8th (Puerto Barrios, Guatemala - La Ceiba, Honduras)

We were awakened nice and early by a local guy we met briefly getting off the boat. He had arranged a shuttle for us to the border which for about $5 we gladly excepted. We quickly and easily made it over the border (which on foot can sometimes take a good couple of hours) at 7am. We ended up running into the a the same diving couple again who fueled our curiosity about Utila which was now our new destination. We hoped on a chicken bus which took us to the next main center (2 hours), then jumped on a direct shuttle (2 hours) to the biggest bus station I've ever been to. They had huge coach buses going every where in Honduras very regularly. We climbed on a direct bus to La Ceiba (5 hours) where we would have to spend the night and take the ferry to Utila in the morning.  


The saying in Honduras is... Tegucigalpo does the thinking, San Pedro Sur does the working and La Ceiba does the partying. We had no intention on partying but were pleasantly surprised when the hostel that sounded most appealing was almost 100% unoccupied. A sound nights sleep for everyone. 


-Jason

Crossing the border on foot carrying the wounded soldiers bag, my only condition was that she took a photo of it.

Day 32: Thursday, Dec 9th (La Ceiba - Utila, Bay Islands, Honduras)


A final ferry and we were had finally arrived at Utila! Utila is the cheapest place to scuba dive on the planet... and trust me, this little island is crazy about scubba diving. The deal is, if you are diving, then you can stay at the dive shop... which seemed hoaky. But every dive shop owns a hostel and they let you stay the first night for free to make up your mind. Sounds like a fancy business idea.


We ended up at the parrot which was the shop that the couple we met worked at. Luckily we had run into what appears to by reputation to be the best place on the island (we also checked out the shop right next to it). After getting a run down of how the open water certification works Lisa and myself decided to take the option because we are pressed for time and she still wasn't feeling 100%. The only bad/good thing about the hostel is that literally 10 feet away from our room was the bar and it was loud until very late every night. To add to the problems, the water shut on and off through our whole stay and the windows had no well windows... so it was loud.

-Jason

This might make our journey make a little bit more sense. We started at at the island at the top of the page across from
Belize city, then Placencia (Big Creek) down to Purto Gorda, across to Port Barrios, over land to La Cieba and then
finally by ferry to Utila, the smallest closest island. 

Day 33: Friday, Dec 10th (Utila)


Unfortunately the weather was fairly dismal and we were pretty worn out/sick from traveling hard for a couple of days so we just had a low key relaxed day. There are very few things to do on the island other then scubba diving.. literally every tourist is scubba diving. We walked around and checked out the town. Turns out because it's an island, there are limited roads and therefore people are ripping around on ATV's, dirt bikes, golf carts, bikes and the occasional truck. The road is slightly bigger then one lane which all of the traffic, including pedestrians occupy. At night, Taylor and myself headed out to check out the world famous tree fort bar. It's literally a tree fort... which when we showed up around 10 o'clock was jam packed with about 150 people and bordering it's structural limits. I think we're getting worn down from our journey because we were back at the hostel fast asleep by midnight. 


-Jason

Compliments of the internet

Day 34: Saturday, Dec 11th (Utila)


Finally Lisa was starting to feel better so the plan was to head back to the mainland so we could have some time to do a few things we missed on the way up. It was getting pretty close to the time when we had to catch the ferry when I was feeling deathly sick. I hadn't been feeling to hot all day but didn't want to say much because Lisa had been traveling like a champ when she was sick. Also, I thought it could be the irish flu even though I only had a drink or two. At literally the exact time we had to go for the ferry I became violently ill and we got stuck in Utila for another day. Taylor's open water diving course finally started, they tend to start whenever they get enough people (6) and because accommodation is free, nobody seems to complain. 


-Jason


Day 35: Sunday, Dec 12th (Utila - Tegucigalpa) 


Well apparently we were staying t the party central of hotels, because there was a bar right next door that was blasting their music till 4 am. So after another night of not sleeping, it was time for Jason and me to say our goodbyes to the Island and more importantly Taylor. After our 6 am wake up call with Tay Tay I think we were all still a little too groggy to feel the sting of what was actually happening. We barely had enough time to catch our ferry and then it was an hour long bob on the ocean to get back to La Ceiba. We caught a cab that took us to the bus station and that was how the day went. About two hours outside of Tegucigalpa we got to take a pit stop, so Jason told me to go out and get some food while he stayed and watched our bags. I came back after buying us some lunch, when I noticed that the door was locked. I tapped on the window to a confused looking Jason and got him to come up to the front of the bus for me. He couldn't open the door, because the driver had locked it, so I slid him his lunch and went and sat and enjoyed some fresh air while he cooked in the steaming hot Honduras bus. 15 minutes later we were reunited when I realized that he had been sitting on the bus by himself the whole time. Crazy gringo. We made it to the cap city and then went straight to the hotel. Can you say luxury. TV, HOT water, air con, just living the high life. We went for dinner at the chinese restaurant next door because we weren't adventurous enough to leave our comfort zone and Jason choose his customary random dish and I tried to order vegetarian chow mein. What ended up coming out for us was a noodle plate with veggies and hot dogs for Jason, and the biggest plate of veggies, mostly broccoli for me. You win some you lose some I guess. But tomorrows another day of what we like to call extreme traveling, so nightie night. 


-Lisa

She's eating!