Hola! So, after a 3 hour chicken bus north from San Salvador, we were about to be in Honduras. The border was again pretty loose - basically you need to walk around this big carpark aimlessly until you find someone in a uniform, then ask them to look at your passport and stamp it. I'm pretty confident I could smuggle some people or drugs through there.... We then bused to San Pedro Sula. It was supposed to take 3 and a half hours, and it was all planned out so we would get to San Pedro before sun down. Did we mention it's best not to really plan so much as hope??? We had read in the "bible" (lonely planet) that kidnappings and armed robberies are quite common in San Pedro, particularly after dark. Back to the bus. We saw a truck that had overturned on a hill. The driver + his three conductors/mates jumped off the bus in a hurry. I thought they might have been going to help or something..... Instead they stand around outside smoking for half an hour chatting away to other nosey people that have stopped to point and stare. Anyway, 7 hours later, feeling pretty gassed from fumes coming through the holes in the floor we get to San Pedro. Anxious to avoid a kidnapping, we got in a taxi who proceeded to get lost in some backstreets.... Just like Auckland really.
The next day we headed for Roatan, one of the three "Bay Islands" off the caribbean coast of Honduras. We had some time up our sleeve at the port, so indulged in some pizza hut before our ferry ride. Bad move..... The ferry was quite a show. When deck hands are handing out sick bags as you're leaving the dock, it's usually not a good sign. We were over the sand bar off the port and everyone was cheering as we hit the first of the waves. After about 5 more waves, not so much cheering.... About one in every three made use of the sick bags. It was feral, and we were glad to be off the boat an hour and a half later.
Roatan is awesome. The beaches are beautiful and it's just really relaxing. Where we are staying is mostly made up of dive shops and cafes, only a 5 minute water taxi to west bay - beach highlight so far (read. no litter, no rabid dogs but white sand and warm clear water). We've also had a food highlight here. Not only the best guacamole and chips, but these killer quesadillas. Oh so good....
We've both done our open water dive courses here. I did mine when we first arrived. We were supposed to leave after 10 days but Kathryn is a fomo, so we stayed on and she did the course also. We had our first fun dives together today. Diving here has probably spoilt us a little, as it'll be hard to go somewhere with anything less than perfect visibility, warm water and awesome sea life. We have no photos to prove it, so i'm thinking about putting the camera in a plastic bag and taking it down tomorrow just to show how good it is.....
Anyway, two weeks after the spew fest and we're still here. One more day we keep saying to each other.....
