Before we left Lake Atitlan, we had to make a decison about the rest of the trip. 5 weeks seems like a long time, but when traveling through foreign counties, especially a bunch of them, 5 weeks is nothing. (It still amazes me that almost every person we meet from Europe is on a 3 month, 6 month, or year trip. They definitely seem to value traveling abroad more than most Americans.) We ended up spending more time in Guatemala than we thought we would, and really we could have spent another week or two there seeing that we missed some really cool stuff. But now we had to decide if we´re going to try and go to the Bay Islands in Honduras, which are all the way on the otherside of Central America back on the Caribbean side. Or our other option would be to skip Honduras all together and go to El Salvador and Nicaragua sooner. After further contemplation we decided to head for Utila, Honduras which is one of the Bay Islands and well known for their dive shops so we could get our PADI open water scuba diving certification. To get there would be somewhat of a trick. It would require us to stop for a night in each: Antigua, Copan (Honduras), and then spend the night on the coastal town of La Cieba, before finally getting a ferry to Utila. We finally pull back into Antigua around 7pm. Since we´ve already spent about a week here we feel pretty good and know how to get around. We find a room about a block away from where we stayed before and hit the streets. We start walking down a street we didn´t go down last time and end up finding a place called Reily´s. It´s some kind of Irish pub or something. It is Friday so we both get the fish and chips which happens to be amazing. After a few beers the place is packed, it looks like this is the place to be. As luck would have it one of the only people we know in Antigua, a girl named Angela, happens to walk in the bar a little while later. She had been staying at the house we were at before for the summer and was now hanging out with some of the new people that had been there taking Spanish lessons that week. She introduces us to Steph and Duncan, two Brits who just happend to be doing pretty much the exact same trip as us too. I have a feeling we´ll be seeing them again soon. After partying it up a little we call it a night. Mostly because we don´t want to spend anymore money since we´re trying to make it to Honduras without having to take out more money. Why? Because at the borders you have to exchange your money and usually you lose out due to the exchange rate. The next day we grab breakfast and take in the last sights and sounds of Antigua. The central parque is buzzing and some local musicians are jamming away on their wooden flutes. At 2pm we take off in another mini van to Copan. Its suppose to be about 5 or 6 hours, but we spend an hour driving around Antigua picking people up before we get going. (Antigua is pretty to look at with its cobble stone streets, but it´s hell in the back of a mini van.) After 6 long hours, we finally pull into Copan at night. The thing that kind of sucks about coming into a city at night is it´s hard to get your bearings. The Lonely Planet gives some good info, but often its hard to use it when its late and to walk around an unknown city at dark. Luckily on the bus we met a girl name Carolyn who works on Utila and is heading there too. She recommends a place for us to stay at and we grab a room for about $18. Which is about normal for the places we´re staying at. Copan is small and even though many tourists/back packers go through here it´s still has a more local flavor to it than Antigua does. People are out on the street selling food and the hanging in the small central park area of town. Cramer and I go to a place called Via Via, which is a bar/restaurant and grab some dinner and a few drinks. The plan is to get up early then next day, check out the Mayan ruins right next to town and then hop on a bus to La Cieba. The next day we venture out of town on foot about a mile or so to the large Mayan ruins. The Copan site is one of the largest in Central America. On the way in we see a bunch of large colorful macaws sitting in the trees as we enter the site. We check out the ruins and walk around for a couple of hours. It is very impressive, but after seeing Tikal, it doesn´t blow us away. It would have been better if we could have seen Copan first then Tikal. At this point in the trip we´ve reached our ruin tolerace level. As awesome as they are, they´re only so many old stone buildings you can see. We pick up our laundry from the Lavandaria and make our way to the bus station. It will be another 7 hours to La Cieba, but we splurge for the Hedman Alas bus which is a super nice coach bus. With my poor Spanish skills I can´t really understand the lady when I´m trying to buy a ticket. At first I think she´s telling me we´re going to have to wait until tomorrow, then that its going to cost more, and finally that there´s only one seat left. I just stand there for about 5 minutes trying to figure out what to do, when suddenly she takes our money and everything is fine. I really need to get better at Spanish. We board the bus, not before giving our passports to them about 5 times and getting patted down repeatedly. I guess they are really protective, because they´ve had problems with bandits getting on the bus in the past and robbing people. The bus ride is smooth and there are no problems. I end up finishing the book The Sex Lives of Cannibals (which was good) on the bus and start reading The Mosquito Coast, since I´m heading into Honduras. We arrive in La Cieba at night as well. During the bus ride, we had to stop at a place called San Pedro Sula, which is a large city and a main bus transit stop. There Cramer and I meet a Dutch guy name Joram (pronounced Your-am) Whose headed to Utila as well to get his scuba diving certification. The girl we met before Carolyn gives us another recommendation for a place to stay, called Hotel La Cieba. All three of us hop in a cab. At this point everyone on the bus has been picked up by cabs and driven away. Our cab driver is a big black dude and he´s trying to start his cab and nothings happening. He´s just cranking on the starter, nothing. Finally after thinking we´re going to either have to push or walk, the thing starts. The cabbie says, "My car she´s tired." As long as she´s not too tired to get us to the hotel. The hotel is pretty decent and we get a room with 3 beds and split the cost about $8 each. Being hungry and "thirsty" we venture out into La Cieba at night. La Cieba is a pretty big city coastal city and kind of run down. There isn´t really anyone out on the streets except of few shady looking characters asking us for money. One guy offers us some booze to swill down, but we politely decline. Not finding any food we instead end up in a bar a few blocks down. Its a dark corner bar and there are a bunch of local girls in there with a few guys hanging around. We´re not quite sure if these are working girls or what, but we just order some beers and hang out. Imperial, Port Royal, Salva Vida are the main beers in Honduras and we try them all. The weirdest part about the bar was they´re cranking some super twangy ass country music. I thought they did it because we were in there and they thought Americans like country, but when I asked that they change the music they gave me dirty looks and just started singing along. Turns out our new buddy, Joram, is from the Netherlands and has been doing a internship in Guatemala City for the last few months. He has one week of vacation to go to Utila, then is going back home to the Netherlands. It´s cool to have another person to put into the mix. Joram is a good guy with a good sense of humor and it helps to have a European with us to give us a different perspective. We call it a night and head back to get some sleep as we need to be at the dock early to catch the ferry to Utila, which is a few miles off the coast. The next morning were up and ready to go. We catch a taxi to the dock and board the ferry around 8am. The ride over to Utila is far from smooth. I stand up the whole time looking forward to the horizon as the boat is beat and battered with waves. A few people run to the bathroom getting sea sick, but we finally make it about an hour later. After 3 days of traveling we´re finally in Utila, where we´ll be for the next 5 days getting our scuba license.
(Sorry no pictures right now, computers down here kind of suck)
No comments:
Post a Comment