Vagabond and Beyond

A honduran saying, it says "life is short, ENJOY!"

La Vida es corta DISFRUTALA! (Life is short, ENJOY!) is displayed in this poster we saw a few times in Honduras, it's a motto we found a little harder to follow in a country thats not all too enjoyable outside of a couple of nice towns (a harsh statement but regrettably it's true that Honduras was our least favourite country so far). Things are tough in Honduras with a recent coup leading to political instability and a rise in crime. The country also has the not so great titles of AIDs and murder capital of Central America but we tried to look past them and explore a bit more of mainland Honduras after not enjoying the unsafe city of La Ceiba and the ghost town of Omoa too much. We decided to take a bit of a detour off the beaten path and head to D&D Brewery in central Honduras to sample a few microbrews while visiting some waterfalls and exploring some marshlands around Lake Yojoa. We met a Dutch couple travelling after university (Joao and Paulina) on the bus from San Pedro Sula out to a brewery in the middle of nowhere and they had the bad luck of attracting the attention of a very odd character. He was a loud American who was flying to Colombia from Miami but was now on a chicken bus in central Honduras. How did this come to be…..apparently the flight he was on had been grounded due to terrorism and security wouldn’t give him his bags back, so for some insane reason he decided to visit distant relations in a town called Las Vegas that he had never met before with nothing except a plastic bag with clothes. He later borrowed a mirror off a local girl and proceeded to shave on the bus and throwing the razor out the window when he was finished. He scared us all by flirting with the idea of getting off at the brewery with us but the Dutch couple cleverly persuaded him that this would have been a bad idea. I checked later about the grounded flight etc. and predictably it was all bullshit. He was too dumb to be a con artist and it still baffles me of what the hell he was actually doing there.

All ya need at D&D Brewery. Staying at a brewery = good idea!

In our hostel/brewery (great combination) we sampled a few of the beers such as blueberry and amber ale. We visited a local archaeological/ecological park nearby and got away without paying the $6 fee as we went in using the side entrance and luckily we did as there wasn’t much to see or do there; just a few birds, giant rodents and one nice view of the lake from a raised boardwalk. We met a guy working for the Peace Corp who was doing a little bit of travelling before he had to leave as the U.S. government had decided to pull all Peace Corps volunteers out of Honduras after a couple of serious incidents against volunteers. He told us that no one wanted to leave but that a couple of headline grabbing stories meant it was inevitable.

Free(illegal) entrance to Ecological Park and Lake!

The next day we got a bus out to the Pulhapanazak waterfalls which were better than expected. At the entrance there were two monkeys and a racoon that had obviously gone crazy being locked away in a small cage for who knows how long? It was a sad scene and I can’t see any travellers wanting to see a clearly disturbed racoon constantly running from one end of a cage to the other in an effort to get out. I think Honduran tourism need to reassess what are actual attractions and what is just cruel.

Pulhapanzak Waterfalls

Poor little monkey at entrance to Pulhapanzak Waterfalls

On the way back we hitchhiked by getting 3 pickups, all of whom refused any money for bringing us part of the way, so that was a bit of an experience and shows how genuinely friendly the people are off the tourist path. The last driver also recommended a great little local eatery with local cheap and great food. Sarah also got chatting in Spanish to a local guy who was working in Texas and had travelled home for Christmas and was working his way back to Texas overland to save some money on flights.

Hitchhiking back from Pulhapanzak Waterfalls

After the effort of getting to the brewery we decided to skip the other nearby towns as they were also a bit nightmare to get to so we went back to San Pedro Sula for a third time (apparently the most dangerous city in Central America according to the UN) and got a connecting bus to the famous Copan Ruins, what I would consider as being the only true tourist site in Honduras excluding the Bay Islands.

It’s always great to get off the main trail and see a few places that not too many people visit but it’s also great being somewhere where the shops and restaurants stay open past 6pm and there is more than one option for staying the night. Copan Ruinas town (reminded us a bit of Guatemala and is close to the border) was a nice change from D&D Brewery, beautiful place with good places to eat and the ruins themselves (an easy 15 min stroll from town) were great to walk around, especially on such a cracking day that we got. At the entrance we got about 10 macaw birds all to ourselves and took a good few photos. As you can see from the picture just below Sarah wore her macaw camouflage to fit in with the local bird population so I think that helped us get up close and personal!!

Two colourful birds!

Among the ruins there was an impressive ball court and a stairway covered in inscriptions and there was also massive tree roots sprouting from the top of the largest temples. There were no sellers either which made for yet another relaxing day.

Copan Ruins

We finished up our time in Honduras with a trip to Santa Rosa de Copan, unfortunately the only thing to do in town was a visit to the local cigar making factory. This would have been ok except for the fact that the guy who gave the tour was off for the week and they didn’t have any replacement! So I would only recommend staying in Santa Rosa De Copan as a pit stop on the way to El Salvador. So that was pretty much mainland Honduras for us as we wanted to make tracks and explore a good bit of El Salvador. The only other part of Honduras we would visit but skipped out on is the Mosquito Coast on the Caribbean side that was meant to be beautiful but is also very difficult and expensive to travel as the main infrastructure is by river. Also I’m not too sure we want to visit a place named after the mosquito.

From Santa Rosa de Copan we got a direct bus to San Salvador (only realising at the border that we didn’t need to change buses at all). The El Salvadorian border guards are by far the most security conscious of all the border police we have encountered so far asking when we entered and left countries etc. while the majority of other borders only concern is that you pay the entrance tax. Still no issues and we continued on to San Salvador, la capital, where we caught a connection to Santa Ana. There we stayed in Casa Verde, the best hostel of our trip and also our base for another volcano (also called Santa Ana) hike and a trip to a local football match where we got to see the riot police in action. Anyway that’s all for our next blog, whenever I get around to updating that one, a little behind I know!! : )

We liked Honduras but neither of us loved it. The surrounding countries all appear to be friendlier and more beautiful, to us anyway. The main cities all give you a fear factor and we can see why it is a ranked as the most dangerous Central American country. Also talking to fellow travellers this feeling is shared amongst most of them. Maybe when they sort out their political issues things will get better but for now give us Guatemala, El Salvador or Nicaragua any day.

Boardwalk to lake view and marsh below at the Ecological Park

Lake Yojoa

Pulhapanzak Waterfalls

Odd looking spider at Pulhapanzak Waterfalls

Locals at Copan Ruinas

Tractors! It's in the blood!

Sarah messing and drinking Salva Vida Beer - which means saves lives in English

Macaws at Copan Ruins

Copan Ruins

Copan Ruins - Hieroglyphic Stairway

Repair work at Copan Ruins

Ball Court

Copan Ruins

Cool looking tree near Copan Ruins

It was Christmas Eve and we were finally on the Galaxy Wave, a slick looking catamaran ferry for an hours trip to Roatan Island. We had met 6 of the 10 people we were meeting at the port and it was fairly busy with it being Christmas and all. There were a lot of sick bags being handed out as a pre-emptive measure for the large number of expected people to get sick due to the boats design. According to the ferry's website it is designed to roll and this can lead to a higher amount of people getting sick. Who designs a passenger ferry that hat increases the number of people getting sick?! Sarah and I popped a couple of sea sickness pills and put on some music and slept through the journey thankfully. After some confusion at the reception desk in our new accomadation (Coconut Tree Cabins didn't realise we had booked ages ago) we soon settled into our comfy cabin for the next 10 days. That night all 12 of us met up for some dinner and Christmas Eve drinks to prepare ourselves for the celebrations the following day.

For the first time for both of us we got up and headed down to the beach for a Christmas morning swim. A few of us did a bit of diving off the pier and it truly felt like this was not going to be a typical Christmas. The rest of the day was about as traditional as we could get though as we got a water taxi to a nearby beach and headed to Bananarama, a restaurant that was serving a Christmas Buffet. Food was great with all the usual turkey, mash, ham, veg and the likes. After dinner there was some crab racing which Ade happened to win despite the long odds. He even kidnapped him later on from his tank to take a few photos with his champion crab. After some fire dancers on the beach we booked a van back to our beach. The drinks were now taking effect as there were plenty of songs sang on the van back, the Irish numbers being heavily featured thanks to Sarah, Aisling and Andrea. We got a few buckets of beer at a bar on a dock and topped the night off with a free one for the road in the coconut tree cabins restaurant. Although not the traditional cold Christmas with family and friends it was some craic which was down to the great crowd we had gotten together to celebrate it with. The next day was like any other Stephen’s Day, watched a lot of football and then we just ate until we were stuffed.

Over the next couple of days we took it very easy, meeting up with a few people for drinks and food and a bit of the beach. One of the girls, Michelle from San Diego, started her diving course which I also wanted to do but was unable to as I had a head cold and unfortunately you can’t equalise your ears underwater with a cold so the diving would have to wait. We organised a snorkelling trip just off the island and saw loads of fish and a very nice reef. Later on we got a boat to the Reef Glider, a floating bar about 200 metres off the beach. It was bit of a novelty thing but it was pretty cool to be drinking on a floating bar with a crazy captain and watching stupid drunk people diving/falling off. Just before New Year’s we hit the shops and got a couple of bottles of champagne for the pre-dinner drinks at our place. The cold finally improved and I booked my open water dive course staring the day after New Year’s Day so it was going to be a busier start to the New Year than usual. As we are staying longer than planned so I can do the course we changed hotel to Casa Del Sol for an extra three nights.

We started off New Year’s Eve very classy by having the others over for some champagne, cheese and crackers before heading to the Blue Marlin restaurant where we had booked a surf and turf dinner (amazing steak and lobster) with 5 more bottles of champagne included. With party hats, horns, beads etc. on the table we were well on the way! After dinner we took it in turns to slip back to the cabin for a couple of crafty drinks to avoid the expensive drinks at the restaurant. After dinner the DJ started and with the requests for the likes of LMFAO and Example being played for us we were soon tearing up the dance floor before oddly the DJ counted up from 1 for the New Year’s countdown instead of down from 10 so everyone was confused and wondering if he was counting up to 10 or a randomly assigned number?! It was 10 in the end! To round off the night there was a fireworks display off one of the piers. New Year’s Day was spent reading the dive book before my course started the next day while Sarah enjoyed the easy life.

I hated diving the first day but by the end of the three days I would come to love it. The first morning of the dive course was spent watching a lot of cheesy dive instructions videos, where such cheesy lines as “Rule number 1, have fun!” were included. After a quick quiz I went out to the Half Moon Bay with my instructor Ricardo from Mexico City to do a 300m swim and tread water for 10 minutes. I could tell Ricardo was a by the book kind of guy as he made me do every second of it! In the afternoon we went through all the equipment and soon we were suited up and ready to do some diving, it all felt shockingly quick at first. You start out in shallow water by practicing breathing the air and it takes a bit of time to get used to breathing through a respirator underwater. We did a few basic skills before moving quickly out to deeper water. It’s here you do the uncomfortable but necessary mask removal and replacement underwater which is hard to get use to at a time when everything else is new. First try on the sea bed and as Ricardo promised I went straight to the surface as the panic factor set in. For some reason I took my air out when I was trying to put my mask on! A few more skills and the day was thankfully over, it wasn’t a great start as a lot of the tasks were not enjoyable and the weather was terrible which didn’t help matters. After we met a couple of our friends in Sundowners for a drink before another day of diving. Sarah was hanging out with one of the girls Andrea all day so I hadn’t abandoned her completely by herself. When I met her she was enjoying the biggest day of American college football with one of the girls who was a dedicated Florida Gators fan. It was a good thing as the weather put a stop to any other plans.

The next day the weather was really bad and the first time I had seen waves in the bay since arriving on the island. It was serious bad luck but at least I would get to experience what bad diving conditions would be like, I only wish it just wasn’t on my first open water dive! We were delayed for ages as there was a storm over the island. Usually when one side is rough the other side is calm due to the winds but today was one of the rare days when both sides of the island were rough. When the call was made to go out on our side of the island many of the instructors looked doubtful. My first dive site was to be Turtle Crossing and the waves were crazy in the lashing rain. If the conditions got any worse the captain said he would rev the engine a couple of times for us to return to the boat so we could get back to land. With all the fun divers (it didn’t look very fun in these conditions) in it was now my turn and trying to hold the line of the boat down to the sea bed was near impossible with the waves. Ricardo my instructor later told me that he cut his hand badly trying to hold the line. It seemed like the worst possible time to do a first dive but down we went and the current underwater remained really strong the whole time underwater. Ricardo needed to hold on to jacket as I was doing some of my skill tasks on the sea bed as the current was throwing me five feet forward then five feet back as I was trying to take mask off etc. Crazy stuff but all skills done and some exploring to do, however, we saw very little due to the current and weather. On the boat back Ricardo said they were the worst conditions he has seen since he has been on the island, they are probably the norm for Ireland so I don’t think I’ll continue the diving there. For the second dive the weather was a little better on the other side of the island at Keyhole Reef so after a few skills the exploring was a little more rewarding with a lot more fishes and lobsters around. Back on the boat it was lashing rain again but overall it was a class day doing something completely different and new.

For my final day we headed out to the other side of the island and did the remaining confined and open water dives. The conditions were a lot better and we did all remaining skills such as swimming underwater with no mask, emergency ascent and removal of all equipment on the sea bed etc. At this stage the skills were a lot more enjoyable than they were the first day of the course. With the skills like underwater navigation quickly out of the way it left more time open to explore the reef walls where we saw king crabs, lobsters, cleaning shrimp, christmas tree worms (very cool) and a Giant Parrotfish. My only regret is that I don’t have any photos of all this stuff, some of the stuff looks surreal and you can see where James Cameron got a lot of his ideas for the Avatar world from. Back on dry land I filled out my logbook and celebrated with a beer with Ricardo and later on with a grouper fish for dinner and packed for our departure the next day. I could waffle on a lot more about the diving but I have already bored Sarah and a few others to death with it so I think I'll stop now...

So Christmas and New Years on the island was like any other Christmas in so far as we spent a lot of our time eating and a little time drinking! It was unlike any other as we celebrated Caribbean style by drinking rum on a floating bar, betting on crab races, watching fireworks and fire dancers and doing snorkelling trip and a dive course which were nearly all new experiences. It was an epic journey to get to Roatan and it was great to spend it with so many friends but the journey south continues. Up next we have the remainder of mainland Honduras to explore before moving on to El Salvador, la tierra de volcanes, and southwards.

As I am way behind on the blogs as usual and I am writing this in the future far far away I thought I'd mention an article I read after I left Honduras...... according to the United Nations, Honduras now has the world’s highest murder rate, and San Pedro Sula, its second city, is more dangerous than Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, a centre for drug cartel violence that has over half of Mexico’s murders. By the time we had finished with Honduras we had been in San Pedro Sula three times, thankfully after reading this article, never overnight…