Honduras to Belize

After leaving the Bay Islands, we headed East along the coast to the town of Trujillo. Famously, this is where Cristopher Columbus first set foot on the American mainland, on his final voyage to the Americas in 1502. The town was initially the capital of Spain's colonial province of Honduras, and was repeatedly attacked by pirates including the notorious British pirate Henry Morgan. For such a sleepy little town, it has played a very important role in Latin American history.



After this we headed West along the coast to Omoa, another colonial small town. Nowadays it's a popular weekend resort destination for the people of nearby San Pedro Sula, Honduras' second city. The principal tourist attraction though is a Spanish fort, built in the late 18th century and also repeatedly attacked by British pirates and privateers (similar to pirates but officially supported by governments in Europe).



Feeling it was time to leave Honduras we caught a boat to take us from Puerto Cortés across the Gulf of Honduras to Placencia, Belize. This is such a different place to the rest of Central America. In the 16th century, Belize was largely ignored by its Spanish conquerors. It became a popular base for English and Scottish pirates during the 17th century and Britain became more interested and took over more control, even while the country remained officially under Spanish rule. In 1862, Britain declared the territory of British Honduras, and people from all over the British Empire settled here, accounting for the rich ethnic diversity found in Belize today, along with the language - English. In 1981, British Honduras became the independent nation of Belize.

The boat journey itself was amongst the most 'exhilarating' experiences of the whole trip! It certainly helped Rachel to face her mild fear of boats head-on. No photos are available, as moving around or holding anything while the boat careered over the extremely rough sea was to take one's life in one's own hands. We survived though, and Rach is feeling a little better about boats too (a good job, considering we've taken about 10 boat trips in the last week alone!).



Here's the view from the veranda of our cabin in Placencia, right on the beach. Worth the hellish boat journey, we think.

Rob

Roatán, Bay Islands

We've spent a lovely week in the Bay Islands just off the coast of Honduras. Roatán is the largest island and, to me, looks exactly as a Caribbean island should; long white sand beaches, clear turquoise ocean and blue skies.



Here we are watching the sunset from the end of our hotel's jetty.




We've enjoyed spending time on the lovely beaches but it was the marine park that really attracted us. The reef is only just off-shore so provides fantastic snorkeling and diving conditions. It's also the cheapest place in the world to dive so how could we say no!? Unfortunately Rob had a cold for a couple of days (not swine flu, don't panic!) so was unable to dive for a while. I made the most of this time by snorkeling and swimming in the delightfully warm sea as much as possible.



One day I took out my trusty water-proof camera to capture some of the reef's life. It's so alive down there with wonderful creatures and corals of all sorts of colours. Watch the video of the shoal of fish if you can!




Snorkeling's great but I always feel so much more absorbed in the underwater world and see so much more when I'm diving so it was great news when Rob was fully recovered and back in the water.




Getting all the gear ready for the dive...



and relaxing in the sunshine afterwards. Sadly there are no photos from the deep (you need special training and equipment) but we saw some great stuff on our three dives, including several wonderful Hawksbill turtles gliding silently past us. We had a wonderful time and can't wait to dive again when we get up to Belize.

Rachel x

PS We dived with West End Divers and can really recommend them if you're heading to Roatán. Ask for Shona if you're doing any courses, she's great!

The Hotel Fund

When we left Reading, our former neighbours and close friends Regan, Paul, Nicky and Rich gave us a present. To help us out when we really needed it, they gave us some money to be spent on a nice place to stay; somewhere to treat ourselves to.

The money has been 'ring-fenced' the whole time, kept in reserve for the time when we thought it could make the biggest difference to us. Well, this week that time finally came.



We're on Roatán at the moment, in the Honduran Bay Islands. The diving here is cheap and fantastically beautiful, so we're thoroughly enjoying ourselves. Accommodation and eating on the islands comes a bit pricey though, especially for shoestring budget travelers like us. We did manage to find a great place to stay that wasn't too expensive, though: one half of a cabaña which shares a kitchen and bathroom with another room - which happened to be empty. This was great for a few days until some rather noisy (one might even say loutish) people moved into the other room and spoiled our peaceful bargain accommodation.



Deciding they really were too much, we asked about moving to another room with no sharing. Fortunately, a fantastic cabaña with a full kitchen, bathroom, living area, one bedroom and terrace was available - but slightly out of our normal budget. Aha, we thought: the Hotel Fund! This is what we've been waiting for!



So, thanks to our fantastic friends back in England, we have a really superb place to stay and enjoy the Caribbean life for a few days. Thanks guys!

Rob

Lago de Yojoa

The plan was to get as far into Honduras as possible in one day and we didn't do too badly. A 6am start from northern Nicaragua meant that, after 12 hours and 5 different buses (ranging from quite fancy mini-buses to good old chicken buses) we arrived in Comayagua.



It represented nothing more to us than a convenient place to get some rest before pressing on the next day, but Comayagua was actually a pleasant surprise. Most of the town is nothing too remarkable but the Parque Central was very pretty and a lovely spot to eat breakfast before getting on yet another bus to Lago de Yojoa.



The lake was so beautiful. We've visited some lovely lakes on this trip but what really made Yojoa stand out was its tranquility. There are no motor boats, just small canoes the locals use for fishing, and almost all of the shore line is forest or marsh land so it has very few settlements.



We went on a great tour of the lake with British bird-watching expert Malcolm, a Honduran called Rolando, who rowed the boat for us, and David, a really nice guy from Switzerland. We set off very early, while there was still mist over the water, and we saw loads of different birds.



Above is a Red-winged Blackbird.




Great Egret and one of the many types of Fly-catchers that live around the water.




Malcolm was a really good guide and it's always lovely to see wildlife but, for me, the best thing was just admiring the stunning landscape and taking in the peace and quiet out on the water. A truly beautiful place.



Rachel x

UPDATE: This beautiful Mot-mot was spotted in the garden where we were staying.

From Guate to Costa Rica

As soon as we'd dusted off the lava rock from Pacaya, we began an enormously long journey down to Costa Rica. Day 1 involved a relatively simple 6 hours to San Salvador, El Salvador, but it was the second leg that was the real killer. We started at 3am and, with just one short stop and three borders to cross, we arrived in San Jose, Costa Rica at 9pm, 18 hours later. Altogether a full 24 hours on a bus! Mind you, we can't really complain too much; the bus was really comfortable with big reclining seats, movies to watch (mostly pretty poor ones in Spanish but it passes the time!) and meals brought round at regular intervals. Better than most flights, we think! Here's Rob at the Nicaragua - Costa Rica border.

So, the reason for our speedy transit through 5 countries? We're excitedly expecting the arrival of Rob's parents tomorrow! They're flying in for a couple of weeks to explore Costa Rica. It's come at a great time. Although we've made some great friends along the way, we're definitely missing everyone from home, too. Let's hope they enjoy their time in Central America as much as we have!

Rachel x

Copán

On our way down from the Caribbean coast of Guatemala, we crossed just over the border into Honduras to visit another Mayan archaeological site at Copán. The site is famed for its immaculately-preserved stelae - Mayan stone carvings depicting rulers and significant calendar events such as solar eclipses. The site flourished during the Classic Mayan era, and most of the artifacts date from around 700 AD.



The stelae are often paired with ceremonial altars, used for animal and human sacrifice and ritual blood-letting.



The site itself is very well excavated and the most comprehensively studied site in the entire Mayan region.




The most well-known structure is the hieroglyphic steps. These present a history of the city in Mayan glyphs. The first fifteen steps were, apparently, discovered first and were reasonably well-ordered considering the damage caused to the site by earthquakes that occurred between the sites abandonment and rediscovery. A later (well-meaning) reconstruction of the steps badly jumbled the rest, with the result that they'll probably never be deciphered.



At the foot of the stairs is a lower jaw. Originally, an upper jaw completed a huge mouth at the top of the stairs. Many of the figures in the carvings are emerging from mouths; the Maya believed caves to be the mouth of the earth, from where creation came.




Another prized artifact is Altar Q, which depicts the succession of rulers of Copán. The carving around the side, showing the various kings as figures, and the glyphs on the top surface are amazingly well preserved. The rock they had available is volcanic and extremely hard. They often had to carve around or incorporate peices of volcanic glass that they encountered (credit to our friend Ricardo Ataide for that interesting fact!).




The most sacred of all animals for the Maya was the Jaguar. There are lots of depictions around the site; here I am looking like one.



Rob

Adventures of the spade #9

We made a flying visit 10km over the border to Honduras just in time to catch the Honduras V Trinidad and Tobago World Cup Qualifying match. The spade got into the spirit of things, joining all the locals in sporting the Honduran shirt. Although Honduras looked like the stronger team throughout and held a 1-0 lead until the last couple of minutes, Trinidad and Tobago scored a clumsy goal and Honduras only got one point. We'll keep our fingers crossed they make it to the finals but we won't expect too much!

Rachel x