Vagabond and Beyond: The Christmas Rush - The race is on to Roatan

With our Caribbean boat trip now over the race was on to get to Roatan, for Christmas Eve. After the boat dropped us off at the dock in Placencia we scouted out a place to stay for a couple of nights and were lucky to find the lovely Serenade Guest House along the main hostel strip. The majority of our time in Placencia was spent figuring out how to get to Guatemala and on to Honduras, what was fairly obvious from the outset was that this was not an easy task and there would be plenty of boat/bus changes over the coming days. After a couple of nights of eating more delicious cheap seafood and enjoying the tranquillity of Placencia we started off early one morning with a 7.30am water taxi to Mango Creek (Placencia is a peninsula and it’s a long way to the mainland by road) which only took about 10 minutes. Unfortunately we then had to wait until 9.30am for the bus to the port of Punta Gorda, our exit point for Belize. Punta Gorda was a lot smaller and nicer than we expected, definitely the nicest port town we have seen. Normally only a border town is equal to a port town in its unpleasant vibe, massive crime rates and overall unattractiveness. Booking our ferry and getting through customs was a lot easier than expected. In the end there was a direct boat to the town of Livingston, Guatemala, our final destination for the day. Ade and Aisling who were still with us at this stage continued on to Omoa in Honduras the same day as they had to be in Roatan a couple of days earlier than us. The hassle free Belizean customs (there would want to be no hassle for their $20 exit tax) and the quick boat on a beautiful day was a great way to leave a country and the best we’ve had to date on this trip.

Arriving in Livingston we got the feeling that this was not the same Guatemala we left less than two weeks ago, a Guatemala full of friendly indigenous locals. Livingston has a weird mix of Belizean, Guatemalan and Garifunan locals. A lot of them can speak English and most of them look different to the stereotypical Guatemalan. At the dock there were a lot of hustlers trying to book you on a trip down the Rio Dulce or other tours. We had heard that a lot of people pay for the trip on the street and then nobody shows up to pick them up for said tour. Anyway this was not an issue for us as we had booked in to Casa Rosada, a nice place in a great location for the morning sunrise. That day we went for a walk through the town and met a random local Garifuna man who insisted on giving us a walkabout around the Garifuna area of Livingston to understand their culture. So we decided to trust him and follow this stranger into his local neighbourhood through the back lanes of houses and maze that was the Garifuna area of Livingston. The Garifuna are of Carib and African descent and only make up a small percentage of Guatemala’s population. He brought us for about an hour’s walk around the schools, houses and football pitches and told us about how the Garifuna are discriminated against by the native locals and how they don’t receive support from the government. The Garifuna really only work and socialise within their own community and don’t appear to mix with the other Guatemalan people. Although after ten minutes we were completely lost in a very rundown neighbourhood and with a stranger all the locals seemed very friendly so I relaxed about risk of getting robbed (nothing could be done to prevent it now anyway!). It was all very interesting to hear about but I could sense the inevitable discussion of a donation to the local community arising at the end and arise it did. It did seem like a good cause but we were only in the country for a couple of days and had taken out all the Quetzals we planned on using, plus we did just meet some random guy who was asking us to hand over cash. He said he was head of a food program but how were we to know that! People do look for money a lot which is fine as a lot of them are good causes but they always assume everyone is an American and a millionaire who will give away money if they are asked. This local insisted that he wanted nothing from giving us the tour, only that he could spread the knowledge of who the Garifuna people are and what they do. We gave him the benefit of the doubt but unfortunately in the end he was ultimately looking for something. Anyway rant over, we gave him nothing and avoided him for the rest of our time there, let’s hope he wasn’t legitimate and karma doesn’t come back to bite us on the ass.

The next day we got picked up out our hostels dock for a boat trip to ‘the seven altars’ a waterfall formation near Livingston. It was a nice place but not that impressive after the incredible Semuc Champey. We hiked up to the top through the river and by the muddy banks, made all the harder by the strict 40 minutes that the captain of the boat gave us to do it in. Following this we got the boat to the private beach of Playa Blanca. It was a nice beach and only one of a few on the Guatemalan east coast that is clean enough to enjoy. We spent a few hours at the beach lounging and headed back to our hostel to plan the next day’s journey to the Honduran border.

Our first mode of transport for the day was a lancha (small boat) at 7.30am to Puerto Barrios, Guatemala, and it was to be Sarah’s last lancha for the day but the first of three for myself! We arrived after about 30 minutes to the absolute hole that is Puerto Barrios (typical shitty port town) and we walked the 5 or so blocks to the market to catch the frequent colectivos to the border. If you ever need a bus in Central America just head straight for the local market as this is transport hub of any town and it’s here you will see the many colectivos crawling through the market stalls until the van is at least twice its capacity (only twice the capacity as they need to stick another 10 or so people on along the route!).In no time we caught one of these vans going at a snail’s pace heading to the frontera (border). We crammed ourselves into the van and threw our rucksacks onto the roof for a cosy hour’s journey to the border town of Corinto with the locals. Just as the van pulled up to the Guatemalan immigration the conductor asked for our passports so he can get our exit stamps. Being well accustomed to border crossings by now I routinely reached into the document wallet that my passport is always in and a sudden shock hits me as I can’t see passport!! Now, I’m not the type of person to just keep items like passports in a random pocket I’m annoyingly organised (drives Sarah crazy) when it comes to things like this so straight away I knew I didn’t have my passport anymore. I went through the motions and checked furiously through my backpack and nothing. So we got out and had our rucksacks taken down and I checked frantically through it, all the time the realisation settling in that I had either left the passport back in the room in Livingston or it was gone and we (I’m assuming Sarah wouldn’t have abandoned me) would be stuck in Guatemala for Christmas. Everyone on the van especially the conductor had a good old laugh at my expense and continued on to Honduras. The immigration officials were of no help and suddenly couldn’t speak either English or Spanish and soon vanished into their offices. There were plenty of helpful travellers about though that suggested I check my bag or pockets as that’s where they had found their passports when they couldn’t’ find them before!! They were serious!! Anyway, ignoring these ridiculously stupid obvious suggestions (I’m well aware of the fact that I was equally stupid in the first place for having misplaced my passport) we decided to catch a passing van heading back to Puerto Barrios. On the journey back I started thinking maybe we should have given money to the Garifunan man and that karma was back with a vengeance! I relaxed a little more on the trip back assured that there was no way that my passport could be anywhere but in the room back in Livingston. The previous night I had double checked that we had our passports ready for the border crossing so I knew that there was a good chance that I dropped it then. On the van back we decided it was best that Sarah stay in Puerto Barrios with the bags and hope I make it back with my passport. After waiting for an hour on a full boat it finally left and once I got off the boat I sprinted back to Casa Rosada and explained my problem to an employee. I checked under the bed and there it was on the ground where it had fallen from the bed, it was my passage out of Guatemala and also avoidance of what would have been a painful Christmas sorting an absolute mess out.

I just missed the boat back to Puerto Barrios so I sat at the dock downing a litre of water and catching my breath for about an hour and finally paid a little over the going rate for a boat to leave earlier than scheduled. Back in Puerto Barrios Sarah was waiting at the dock while being fed by a local woman. Sarah said the woman offered her food and a drink after hearing the story. Now I was only gone for about 2 hours but you’d think I left Sarah for about a week in the freezing cold with this story! She said she had no watch so lost complete track of time : ) Maybe with the broken Spanish the story was exaggerated and the friendly woman thought Sarah said, no dinero (money), no comida (food), no bebidas (drinks) y no novio (boyfriend). Either way we thanked her for her help and started our journey to the frontera again. This time no issues at the border, except Sarah now had two exit stamps for Guatemala (which hasn’t caused any issues so far). We got dropped off in no man’s land and walked to Honduran immigration and after a $3 entry fee we continued on past the police and just caught a chicken bus heading to Puerto Cortes. We were pulled on to the back just as it was moving away and Sarah stood on some guy trying to climb over a bike (as if we didn’t attract enough attention as it was). On the bus there was a 80s and 90s mega mix blasting out over the outrageously massive speakers with the power ballads being a favourite of the drivers. I think ‘Lady in Red’ was a personal favourite of his. We got off at the town of Omoa and caught a tuk-tuk to our beds for the night at Suenos del Mar (Dreams of the Sea).

Omoa is an odd place, you definitely get a sense that it’s living in a shadow of what it used to be like in a recent past when cruise liners used to pull in and enjoy the beaches. When we were there a lot of restaurants and bars were either closed or very quiet. This once beautiful town that was famous for its beaches and still is for its old fort has suffered greatly from the corruption you see among many places in Central America. For some reason (undoubtedly bribes) a gas company was allowed to come in to Omoa and build massive storage tanks for liquefied petroleum gas right on the beach, see photo below of how much of an eye sore they truly are. Further than this they were allowed to build sea walls that destroyed the natural currents of the bay and resulted in their beach being destroyed and a new beach being created further down the coast. The result being that cruise ships no longer stop here, say what you want about how annoying a massive cruise ship pulling into to somewhere is but it can support a town’s economy. The Canadian owner of Suenos del Mar explained a lot of it to us and she was exactly what we wanted after such a hectic day, very friendly and a bit of banter. Her husband works on oil rigs off the coast of Canada for half the year and was currently away on one such stint, crazy! The rooms were some of the best we had on our travels and the common area was all decked out for Christmas and we were the only guests to enjoy it (from our walk around town we were the only guests in Omoa!). It had been a very long day, longest since we started, so we had a well-deserved beer and went to bed for yet another early rise.

We caught a Tuk-tuk first thing in the morning to catch a bus towards Puerto Cortes and then switched to a shuttle bus for San Pedro Sula. The conductor wanted to charge us double for putting our bags on seats or the ground so stubbornly we sat them on our laps for the two and a half hour journey. In the end the bus did get so packed he could almost justify any air space as being a potential customer but I have still to see someone being refused a spot on a bus in Central America because it is full, there is always space, always! When we arrived at the terminal in San Pedro Sula we switched for a bus to La Ceiba. The journey took four hours and the driver was mental on the road, all the more worrying when it started to lash rain and we realised that the bus didn’t have any windscreen wipers! We later heard a story from friends of ours that their bus in Honduras had no headlights and they were driving for an hour at night! Finally we arrived in La Ceiba, the port town that is the gateway to the Bay Islands. Our ferry was in the morning so we booked a night in Olas del Mar (‘waves of the sea’ this time), the best of a bad bunch. In the end the room was fine but La Ceiba itself is one of the worst places we have been, and from what we heard one of the most dangerous at night.

We decided to treat ourselves and head out to a fancy new mall to watch the new Mission Impossible film in the cinema there, very good by the way. On the taxi back that night there was a passenger in the front (very common to share a taxi with strangers) and she was talking to the driver in Spanish but we couldn’t translate (a little harder to pick up than Guatemalan Spanish). A few mintues later we pulled up to one of the dodgy neighbourhoods and she turned around to us and handed us an envelope, said nothing, and then got out. Sarah and I looked at the hand written envelope that said "it is very important that you read this", then each other, and cautiously opened the envelope. Now after watching the Mission Impossible film this was hardly going to be "your mission Mark & Sarah, should you decide to accept it"….and envelope self-destruct moment, but who knows this is Honduras! Inside was a hand written note! Ok what the hell I thought?! I had visions that the note said “you are about to be kidnapped, get out now!!!” Just like in the film 'Taken' with Liam Neeson. But oh no it was just an evangelical thing about it not being too late to see the light etc., so imaginary crisis over : ) Always good to be prepared for the worst eh? Later that night we met Andrea and Michelle at our hotel, a couple of friends that would make up the twelve of us that would celebrate Christmas together on Roatan.

The journey from Placencia, Belize to La Ceiba, Honduras was a crazy, very eventful few days where somehow we managed to avert potential crisis after potential crisis. Now with passport firmly in hand (I’d tattoo it to my forehead if I could) we set sail for a relaxing, travel free couple of weeks.