Nicaragua to Honduras

We left Granada at 3 am and eventually arrived in La Ceiba, Honduras at 9.30pm, an uneventful journey really, lots of movies on our lovely Tica bus which passsed the time. La Ceiba is on the Carribean coast of Honduras and is where you get the boat to the Bay Islands. The town itself is very americanised, like most of the larger towns in Central America, lots of McDonalds and the like. We stayed in the Dingiest hotel but was cheap and what else do ya expect really!!! The following morning, we went the Utila, the cheapest Bay Island to stay on. To do your open water PADI it costs $160, nothing compared to other places around the world. Utila is very like Caye Caulker in Belize, the locals speak some strange version of English and its a little tropical Island in the Carribean. Ourselves and the other Irish couple got a little apartment on the water for ourselves, which was actually really good value. We had a little kitchen and wait for it... cable tv!!! We got to watch the news which was good with all the stuff thats going on at the minute.

We thought about diving but i´m not the biggest water fan ever but i was really thinking about it because it was so cheap, but having bad signose problems (i could never breath through one side of my news!!) i´m not able to dive anyway, and emma has had a cold for the last 4 weeks so counted her out. It sounds like something small, but if you have a cold you really cant dive, it can be really painful and dangerous at worst. The other Irish couple did their PADI and had some mad stories. With it being so cheap, there is a huge number of dive schools there is a huge turnover of divers on the island and there´s not that many dive spots, so the water is very busy. One guy got hit by a boat when he was coming up and Paul, The irish guy we were with ran out of air after 20 mins (a faulty tank) had to do an emergency ascent but the boat was gone when they went back up. It was all a bit sketchy, their boat had actually gone to another dive spot to leave more divers off, so the boat doesnt stay where your diving which is pretty scary if you had an accident or something!! Maybe it is better to go somewhere quieter and pay a little more....

Apart from diving, there isn´t that much to do on Utila as it doesnt have many great beaches. The snorkling was ok, Belize was alot better. I had to laugh (And Ryan and Paul would like this) that Neddies (Vincent Lee-Vice principle at our school) son was a dive instructor on Utila, Thank God i didnt have the priviledge of meeting him but heard from another Irish person that he was there!!

In total we spent 5 days on Utila then went straight to Copan, which is on the border with Guatemala. ITs got the "second best Mayan Ruins" in Central america. WE arrived in copan late on sunday and had to leave monday afternoon but the place was amazing. It´s set up in the mountains and has all little cobbled streets and it really feels that tourism hasn´t changed it (Even though it has the ruins). We went to the ruins early the next morning which were pretty impressive. They were alot smaller than Tikal which was totally amazing but Copan ruins are still a must see. They dont take long to get around as they are quite small but they had loads of macaws there which makes it extra cool.

That afternoon we made it back to Antigua, Guatemala which took around 6 hours. Its nice to be back here as its a really nice town, tomorrow we are going to the volcano that is erupting at the minute so you can see the lava flowing past you (it is safe, we have a guide and stuff). So Sin Sin... home in two and a half weeks and still got a lot of ground to cover....eek!