We took the easy option from El Salvador to Honduras with the minibus picking us up outside our crab infested domicile at 0630, complete with pidgin English speaking guide to help us through the border. Several other people had made the same choice and crammed into our Toyota were 6 young Aussies, a Chinese Canadian and a mute and portly Spanish speaking lady of indeterminate origins.
It was so much better than our journey from Guatemala into El Salvador, what with the direct service, the chance to chat with people and the breeze through customs that I'm sure we'll take advantage of similar services if they're available to us as we progress.
Due to the road network between El Salvador and Honduras being a little rudimentary we actually crossed back into Guatemala before reaching our destination of Copan Ruinas, a little town in the very north of the country and one of the southernmost points of the Maya. This meant we had to negotiate two separate border crossings making us even more glad we'd come the easy way.
On arrival in Copan we soon found a room, a right result at just £12 per night, then went out to buy a few cosmetics to keep our Limey bodies as close to hygiene as perennial sweating will allow. There is a dearth of shower gel on offer in Central America, it's tiny little bars of soap all the way, no good for the fair and sensitive skin of 'er who used to be indoors. Nevertheless, after visiting several farmacias we finally found one selling some, though at the mighty price of about £5 for the bottle. We baulked at this and asked the assistant if she had any more, cheaper bottles.
"No", was her stern reply so we umm-ed and ah-ed about the pros and cons of parting with a Lady Godiva and of Kerry's skin seizing up to resemble a suit of armour. With one vote apiece and no sign of an end to the stalemate the assistant then interjected with "What about this one?", pointing to a bottle approximately the size of a yard of ale for half the price of the first.
Needless to say, we bought it and that it now forms part of my luggage on account of all the other creams that Kerry has stashed in every compartment of her (fully functioning) case.
I had to get some deodorant, my 5th since we left Blighty giving some indication of the way the humidity is affecting me and we also bought some more "Off", mosquito repellent, without which the occasional bite we are suffering would see us covered from head to toe in itchy welts. We've seen a few travellers who are absolutely gnawed and quite how they contend with the irritation I don't know.
It's a curious thing but only gringos seem to get bitten. The locals get the odd bite but nothing compared to tourists.
After a lazy morning recuperating from yesterday's travels, punctuated only by visiting every single shop in town to look for flip flops for Kerry to replace ones that gave up the ghost in El Salvador, we walked the 1km along the road to the reason why we and a million other tourists were here.
Copan was the most southerly of the great Mayan cities and was home to around 25000 people in its heyday. It was founded around 1200BC and flourished until about 800 when it and all the other Mayan cities were abandoned. Why this was is still unclear to archaeologists but the latest theory is that a significant drought and subsequent crop fail could be to blame.
Copan was home to the greatest sculptors in the Americas and artisans created quite stunning pieces of work on grand scales. Whilst our ancestors were wallowing in pigswill and fighting over mouldy potatoes, stonemasons here were carving intricate monuments and creating a hall of records of their culture out of stone. Only the great plaza has been excavated but it's still awe-inspiring stuff. The carvings steal the show but there's a couple of pyramids to clamber up and an area where royalty used to reside. Inside one of these pyramids is a magnificent tomb, discovered in 1989. The tomb was a massive edifice in its own right and painted bright red and green before being built over by a later generation and hidden beneath the pyramid.
We were pleased it wasn't too busy at the ruins, nothing detracts from your experience more than thousands of camera toting tourists shouting "oh gee!" and swatting mozzies on their necks in unison. We were deep in the jungle though, it wasn't long after midday so we were hot. There's just no getting used to this heat. As northern Europeans we're simply not cut out for it and our bodies don't know what to do to try to combat it. Kerry has the occasional light - headed moment whereas I simply ooze out of pores I didn't even know previously existed.
The only relief from this is when we're in water.
As we left the ruins the heavens opened so we took a tuk-tuk back to town, crossing a little stream en route to the bus station to buy tickets for tomorrow's departure to La Cieba on the north (Caribbean) coast. We couldn't buy them without our passports so we carried on home to sit out the rain and then come back later to complete the transaction.
It rained pretty hard for a couple of hours but finally eased off so we walked back to the bus station and parted with our Lempiras for the 1030 departure tomorrow. We could have chanced our arm and bought them on the day but at least this way we knew we were on that bus. As we approached the bus station we saw a commotion and investigated to see that the little ford we'd driven over 2 hours earlier in our tuk-tuk was now a raging, thigh-deep torrent of muddy water. It was impassable surely but then the first of a line of lorries revved its engine and inched towards the crossing before successfully reaching the other side, kink in the middle of the crossing and 6ft high drop one side and all. A great cheer went up from the assembled masses and then the next lorry fired up, a big brown articulated vehicle which looked for all the world like it was going to disappear over the side at one point, though made it safely across.
We watched half a dozen or more such crossings before leaving the locals to their afternoon's free entertainment and went and bought our bus tickets.
With Saturday came the chance to see some of the countryside of Honduras by virtue of the 9 hour bus journey to La Cieba. We had decided whilst in Copan that what we needed was a break, it had been a full-on month since we were at the Isla Mujeres and we had identified the island of Roatan as being likely to give us what we needed. It was impossible to make it in a day so we'd stop over in La Cieba and continue on Sunday.
We arrived early for the bus, our hour long wait enough for the muscle memory in our backsides to start griping. The ticket clerk told us that it was a good job we'd bought our tickets yesterday as they'd had a large group since who had bought all the remaining seats so that was definitely a victory for organisation. With around 15 minutes to go before departure a fleet of taxis pulled up and deposited a party of the hugest Germans I have ever seen in my life, along with approximately 15 tons of their gear.
Their apparent leader was a guy in his late 30s who was built like the proverbial Shisenhausen. He must have been 6'9" or 6'10" and he was accompanied by five or six other fellas ranging from 6'2" to 6'6" and two perfect female incarnations of Adolf Hitler's pure aryan vision with their athletic frames and white blonde hair.
The one exception to this Teutonic display of physical magnificence was a guy who was a mere weed at only about 5'10" and whose sweat glands could even put mine to shame. One of his friends really ought to have pointed out though that given his arse seemingly emits gallons of perspiration it may not be the wisest sartorial decision to sport light grey shorts.
On-board the rather splendid Headman Alas coach a couple of Dutch women, one of whom had been stowing her money belt in her very fetching grey knickers in the waiting room with her skirts up about her neck, were settling themselves and their two children for the journey ahead. The TV screen was protruding from the roof just above her and the poor woman managed to turn straight into it and crack her face on it with such a thud. Noticing the German leviathan across the aisle was either practising yoga or that the confines of his seat were resulting in his knees being up by his ears there followed an exchange between them that was straight out of 'Allo 'Allo.
The Dutch children were in the front seats near the steps and as such had masses of legroom.
Dutch lady - Vood you like to swap wiz zem? Zey have much room.
Humungous German - Jah. Zat is very kind. Sank you.
All that was missing was a picture of the fallen Madonna concealed in a sausage and Vikki Michelle saying "oooh Rene".
Aside from jocularly xenophobic observations the journey was simply one of air-conditioned comfort through a green and hilly paradise. This really is one of the most beautiful parts of the world and the profusion of palm trees gives it that lush, tropical bent.
We had to change buses roughly half-way, at a place called San Pedro Sula, waiting in transit with a few others from our bus including the German group.
It was here that I found time to investigate the irritating tackiness that I had noticed on my feet these past couple of days. The black residue on my feet at the end of the day was, I assumed, some tar or something off the pavement that had worked its way into my foot and into the sole of my flip flop. Close inspection showed though that it was in fact that my flip flops appear to be being slowly digested by my feet, the covering layer melting away to reveal a black glue.
Shoes have been the absolute bane of this trip as far as I'm concerned.
I brought 3 pairs but have hardly worn my trainers or my shoes because it's been so hot. The flip flops I brought were on their last legs so I bought some for a dollar in Memphis to back them up but only wore them twice before their cheap manufacture contrived to trip me up and almost put me under a passing car.
Seeing some Reefs in Acapulco for only £12 I bit the bullet and bought them, binning my original Reefs, and these are what are rotting on my feet as I type. Add to this litany a very fetching pair of sandals bought in Tijuana, never worn and given to a homeless guy in Belize, that we both had to buy some water shoes as we left these out of our check-list and that on the odd occasions I have worn the shoes I did bring they rub me to the point of blisters then you begin to see what I mean.
I should have listened to Stuart at work who, before we came, said I should only pack flip flops and walking boots.
With our connection being an hour late it was a dark and therefore stressful arrival into La Cieba on Saturday evening. The poor Dutch woman in front smacked her face into the TV again as we pulled up with such force that there was a collective "oooooohh" from all of us that witnessed it and she must currently be sporting a face worthy of the president of the Club for Battered Wives (grey knicker wearing branch).
We hopped in a taxi and made for the 'Banana Republic Guest House', a youth hostel recommended by the Lonely Planet but not so by our taxi driver who told us it was rat infested.
We've met a few ignorant and insouciant gits since we set off but I think the guy at Banana Republic took the biscuit.
It was apparent that our arrival was a supreme irritation to him but his flawless demonstration of disinterested disdain was a marvel to behold. We were shown to our stinking hovel of a room, a fetid, airless pit with less charm than a Belsen gas chamber and when we came to use the loo across the hall to freshen up a bit we found it to have no water.
I went downstairs to report this but I needn't have bothered - he already knew. Kerry ended up having to walk through the men's dorm, stepping over a prostrate and semi-clad individual who was out sparko in order to ablute in the gents, the only working toilet in the place. The door didn't lock so a kind soul offered to hold it shut for her while she peed. Nice!
Sourcing food in a strange town at night which has a bad reputation is never easy and the fact that it started to pour as we began our search made it even less enjoyable. However, we stumbled across a great little find, a place rustling up tasty meats for around £2.50 per meal with as much fried banana thrown in as you can eat (Which as it turns out is quite a lot. Not sure why I didn't go to the lav for 3 days afterwards but there you go).
Back at the Guest House we tiptoed past indifference personified so as not to disturb his web surfing and retired to our room. Remembering our taxi drivers words, and now believing he was talking literally rather than trying to persuade us to patronise an hotel where he would receive payment for taking us, we slung the trusty mozzie net up and prayed for morning and escape.
Within minutes of waking we were up, out and in a taxi to the docks to catch the boat to Roatan.
English speaking, golden sands, warm waters and an opportunity to reinflate our airbeds were all good reasons to make for this island paradise and we both thought it was a lovely and smooth 90 minute crossing though several people were bowking into polythene bags. Our friends the Germans were aboard, as was another couple we'd seen on our bus yesterday. There's a definite tourist trail and we are firmly on it.
Once on the island it's every man for himself as you seek to procure a taxi to one of the two main places and then, in turn, a room. We were lagging behind somewhat off the boat but ultimately played a blinder in beating our driver down from $20 US to $10 and then taking his recommendation to stay with friends of his in West Bay. He also made for an interesting half hour in his own right as we talked about such diverse subjects as the Kennedy assassination, the rise of Evangelism in the Americas and whether Prince 'Carlos' will ever be king of England.
Though pricey we figured we would be doing nothing except eating and laying on the beach so could justify the outlay on our beach front cabin. After the squalor of the night before it was a joy to have air-con, fridge, flushing
toilet and we emptied our packs in readiness for a few days here and promptly hit the beach.
It was Sunday so there were quite a few locals around making for a cosmopolitan patronage on our mile or so stretch of sand. West Bay is apparently the best beach in central America and its hard to argue. It's your classic picture postcard vista of crystalline water, palms, golden sand and clear blue sky. A real Bobby Dazzler after 4 weeks of pretty hard travelling.
Though technically belonging to Honduras, Roatan is far removed from the mainland. It's history is a turbulent one, mainly piratical with the territory being used as a bargaining tool between Spaniards, the English and the Americans of yore, as well as being a favoured bolt hole for romanticised cutthroats such as Calico Jack, Henry Morgan and John Coxen, the latter having the islands principal town, Coxen Hole, named after him. The name of the other sizeable settlement, Port Royal, was used in the recent Pirates of the Caribbean films.
The Yankee dollar is very much the currency on Roatan, as it is in much of the Americas. Establishments will accept Honduran Lempiras but the likelihood is that your change will be given in US currency. It's as we'll that you get 20 Lempiras to 1 dollar and not 137.2 or something equally difficult to work out.
It was heaven to stretch out on our airbeds and bob up and down on the gentle waves lapping at the shore. That's all we did that first afternoon and then as the sun set we dined on red snapper in a beach front restaurant which was to become our second home for the 4 days we were here.
Outside the restaurant, on the beach, we met Lindy, a friendly local (hello friends and welcome to my island, paradise on earth) whose life evolves around a particular few square metres of sand on the beach and Manhattan where his children live. Whenever we walked past he'd be there with a cheery greeting and an offer to buy some of the jewellery he peddles.
Inside were some rather tedious Americans who'd been on the sauce all day and were talking rather loudly. A strapping, nay Amazonian, blonde was the main protagonist talking in that horrible way: "I'm not being funny but she needs to seriously fix her teeth and I mean that in a nice way".
Personally I think uttering "I'm not being funny but" should be made illegal. It always precedes something derogatory, negative or catty and implies that he using it somehow has some higher moral or social ground from which to verbalise what is in actual fact often their own inadequacies.
Well, that's my opinion anyway. If you don't like that I'm not being funny but you can go and read another blog.
In accordance with the gospel according to Andy and Kerry rest & relaxation should somehow encompass extreme activity of one description or another. Aching muscles are desired, near exhaustion mandatory and a failure to kick the arse out of any given day is heresy. On the first day proper of our rest on the island of Roatan then we eschewed the $3 water taxi fare to West End, 3 miles away, opting to walk along the beach instead.
It was a very hot day and by the time we reached the village we were both pooped, Kerry so much so that we had to stop and refuel with pineapple juice at a cafe on the outskirts. Whilst sitting here we both eyed the pool and considered jumping in until we saw about a dozen huge crabs scuttling along the bottom.
West End was nothing to write home about. In fact it was a bit of a dump and we were very glad we weren't staying here. After a quick look round and after buying some provisions to keep in our fridge we made our way back to the sanctity of our end of the island, via water taxi this time.
On the boat we saw the couple from our bus the other day so talked to them learning that he was a German teaching Law at the university of Guatemala and she his sister making her annual visit from Munich to see him. He was another who could have entered the world perspiration championships and his cotton shirt was pretty wet and clinging to his body. As we gathered speed I reacted quickly enough to save my baseball cap from blowing into the sea but rather histrionically flung the last inch of my pineapple juice all over my new friend in the process.
As a rule I love Germans, they're some of the nicest people you could wish to meet and this fellow lived up to that estimation by apologising to me for wearing my drink.
Later that afternoon we walked the mile down to the reef at the end of our beach and snorkelled for a couple of hours. I was having a bit of bother maintaining a seal what with my Brian Blessed-esque facial fungus but 15 gallons of salt water up my nose aside it was great.
Kerry dived on Tuesday morning in what turned out to be refresher and then 1:1 dive with the instructor, a young Italian lady who came out here for a season, fell in love with it and a local guy and now is here for the foreseeable. After 18 months or so without a dive she was a tad nervous but soon got back into the swing of it and now plans to dive again as soon as the opportunity is there. It sounds like it was a great dive, fantastic visibility, warm water and enough different fish and things to see to keep anyone happy. She loves it under the water does our Kerry.
I was so tired after yesterday's exertions that I fell back to sleep when she went out that morning and only woke up at 1100, 14 hours after falling asleep last night!
After hours and hours of floating around on the sea, a dozen new mozzie bites and an hour on a sea bound set of apparatus akin to the 'Wipeout' TV show we felt it was time to move on again so we got up early on Thursday and caught the 0700 ferry back to La Cieba with the aim of going white water rafting on the Rio Cangrejal.
There are three companies offering this service and being the safety conscious and mature pair that we are we opted to go with the most expensive and best reviewed, figuring that if it's German run and by an ex International kayaker at that it ought to be well managed.
First we had to get there though and could choose from $10 taxi fare or 60p bus fare. Of course, we took the clapped out local bus from the market, quite enjoying the chaotic visit to the gas station with 20 cars and buses all at different angles visiting 6 pumps. The second half of the 16km journey, on a dreadfully bumpy unpaved track was less fun though the fact that we couldn't travel faster than 10 mph from then on did conceal that our buses gear box was knackered and would not change up from 2nd. We had crawled out of town with scores of horns tooting at us. That poor driver must have that every day of his working life.
We were greeted at Omega Tours by Sylvia, partner of Mr Kayak and shown around. As we were going rafting that afternoon, fortunate as we had only turned up on spec, we could choose from a free dorm, a free private hut straddling a river or pay $40 and have a 2-storey self-contained tree house deep in the jungle. Once we'd seen the tree house there was no contest. It was so beautifully appointed, no expense spared and everything linking into nature to make you feel like you wanted to don a leathery loin cloth and practise your 'aaaaaaaaeeeeerrrrrrrggggggghhhsss'.
The coat hooks were varnished sticks, windows were simply mozzie netting so that you were at one with the jungle, the shower curtain ran along a stick, the shower cubicle was stone and gave the impression you were in a rock pool, everywhere you looked was beautiful wood and there was even a free bees nest, thankfully on the outside of the mozzie netting.
We barely had time to digest these fabulous surroundings before we were off to lunch and to meet our guides for the afternoon, Christy, a 22 year old who was originally from Suffolk but whose family moved to New Zealand when he was 6 and Alan, a 30 ish white water nut from Northern Ireland who'd been working at Omega for 3 years.
I hadn't considered the dangers of what we were about to undertake before we got to the water and Christy began to go through our 20 minutes prep.
We were taught how to paddle forwards and backwards, how to use our weight to lean the raft to one side, how to assume safe positions in which to travel down rapids or over drops and what to do when the boat capsizes.
Despite all this I found the most alarming thing to be his little patter about the river itself.
"Do you know what the river is called?" he asked.
"Yes, the Rio Cangrejal"
"And do you know why it's called that?"
"No, do tell"
"Well, Cangrejal means 'crab' and when the water is very low you can see millions of crabs in here"
After my experience in El Zonte that wasn't really what I wanted to hear.
But of course, once we were on the way and being flung around on grade 3 water we didn't have much time to consider the fauna below us. It was fantastically exhilarating stuff with healthy doses of abject terror thrown in to keep you on your toes.
We did a spot of leaping off 20 ft high boulders and some river swimming too where you leave the raft and get hurtled downstream by the raging torrent. Wonderful stuff, enhanced by the presence of Christy and Alan, the former undoubtedly going places in this world and surely to realise his dream one day of being a guide on the Colorado through the Grand Canyon.
With adrenaline still coursing through our veins and German beefsteak lining out stomachs we turned in for the night in the pitch blackness of our jungle home. It felt weird to be lying there listening to the racket of the jungle and we found we couldn't relax for fear of something hideous penetrating the netting and getting in to our room. Having seen a long legged spider by the side of the river today my mind was on arachnids whereas Kerry had the slightly less rational notion that a horde of baboons was about to tear down the netting and attack us. We put the mozzie net up to deter any non-Simian perpetrators and drifted off to an uneasy sleep. I mainly dreamt of spiders and when I awoke for my nighttime pee I cursed the fact that I hadn't brought a bottle in to bed with me - far better that than get out in the pitch black and probably end up with a tarantula on me.
We made it through the night unscathed and, having bade our farewells to the lovely people at Omega, made for La Cieba and the 1000 bus to Tegucigalpa, capital of Honduras and our last stop before moving into Nicaragua.
By a strange twist the waiting room was awash with gargantuan Germans, the party from before heading back to Guatemala City and their flight back to the Fatherland. We bought our tickets and sat and waited. And waited. Eventually someone came out to explain that the bus was caught up in some demonstrations in the town and couldn't move. Typical! Just when you don't want a mass demonstration by the disaffected people of a banana republic you get one! They had no idea how long it would take so we all just sat there, the Germans much more agitated than anyone else given that they had to cross a border and make that plane home.
By 1300 and with no sign of anything happening we had our tickets changed to travel the following day, a luxury that such a flexible itinerary affords.
This gave us the afternoon to explore La Cieba, a more grimy and down-at-heel place you would struggle to find. Our hotel was the one saving grace with its pool and wi-fi and I made use of the unexpected free time by shaving off my beard, much to Kerry's delight.
It was so much better than our journey from Guatemala into El Salvador, what with the direct service, the chance to chat with people and the breeze through customs that I'm sure we'll take advantage of similar services if they're available to us as we progress.
Due to the road network between El Salvador and Honduras being a little rudimentary we actually crossed back into Guatemala before reaching our destination of Copan Ruinas, a little town in the very north of the country and one of the southernmost points of the Maya. This meant we had to negotiate two separate border crossings making us even more glad we'd come the easy way.
On arrival in Copan we soon found a room, a right result at just £12 per night, then went out to buy a few cosmetics to keep our Limey bodies as close to hygiene as perennial sweating will allow. There is a dearth of shower gel on offer in Central America, it's tiny little bars of soap all the way, no good for the fair and sensitive skin of 'er who used to be indoors. Nevertheless, after visiting several farmacias we finally found one selling some, though at the mighty price of about £5 for the bottle. We baulked at this and asked the assistant if she had any more, cheaper bottles.
"No", was her stern reply so we umm-ed and ah-ed about the pros and cons of parting with a Lady Godiva and of Kerry's skin seizing up to resemble a suit of armour. With one vote apiece and no sign of an end to the stalemate the assistant then interjected with "What about this one?", pointing to a bottle approximately the size of a yard of ale for half the price of the first.
Needless to say, we bought it and that it now forms part of my luggage on account of all the other creams that Kerry has stashed in every compartment of her (fully functioning) case.
I had to get some deodorant, my 5th since we left Blighty giving some indication of the way the humidity is affecting me and we also bought some more "Off", mosquito repellent, without which the occasional bite we are suffering would see us covered from head to toe in itchy welts. We've seen a few travellers who are absolutely gnawed and quite how they contend with the irritation I don't know.
It's a curious thing but only gringos seem to get bitten. The locals get the odd bite but nothing compared to tourists.
After a lazy morning recuperating from yesterday's travels, punctuated only by visiting every single shop in town to look for flip flops for Kerry to replace ones that gave up the ghost in El Salvador, we walked the 1km along the road to the reason why we and a million other tourists were here.
Copan was the most southerly of the great Mayan cities and was home to around 25000 people in its heyday. It was founded around 1200BC and flourished until about 800 when it and all the other Mayan cities were abandoned. Why this was is still unclear to archaeologists but the latest theory is that a significant drought and subsequent crop fail could be to blame.
Copan was home to the greatest sculptors in the Americas and artisans created quite stunning pieces of work on grand scales. Whilst our ancestors were wallowing in pigswill and fighting over mouldy potatoes, stonemasons here were carving intricate monuments and creating a hall of records of their culture out of stone. Only the great plaza has been excavated but it's still awe-inspiring stuff. The carvings steal the show but there's a couple of pyramids to clamber up and an area where royalty used to reside. Inside one of these pyramids is a magnificent tomb, discovered in 1989. The tomb was a massive edifice in its own right and painted bright red and green before being built over by a later generation and hidden beneath the pyramid.
We were pleased it wasn't too busy at the ruins, nothing detracts from your experience more than thousands of camera toting tourists shouting "oh gee!" and swatting mozzies on their necks in unison. We were deep in the jungle though, it wasn't long after midday so we were hot. There's just no getting used to this heat. As northern Europeans we're simply not cut out for it and our bodies don't know what to do to try to combat it. Kerry has the occasional light - headed moment whereas I simply ooze out of pores I didn't even know previously existed.
The only relief from this is when we're in water.
As we left the ruins the heavens opened so we took a tuk-tuk back to town, crossing a little stream en route to the bus station to buy tickets for tomorrow's departure to La Cieba on the north (Caribbean) coast. We couldn't buy them without our passports so we carried on home to sit out the rain and then come back later to complete the transaction.
It rained pretty hard for a couple of hours but finally eased off so we walked back to the bus station and parted with our Lempiras for the 1030 departure tomorrow. We could have chanced our arm and bought them on the day but at least this way we knew we were on that bus. As we approached the bus station we saw a commotion and investigated to see that the little ford we'd driven over 2 hours earlier in our tuk-tuk was now a raging, thigh-deep torrent of muddy water. It was impassable surely but then the first of a line of lorries revved its engine and inched towards the crossing before successfully reaching the other side, kink in the middle of the crossing and 6ft high drop one side and all. A great cheer went up from the assembled masses and then the next lorry fired up, a big brown articulated vehicle which looked for all the world like it was going to disappear over the side at one point, though made it safely across.
We watched half a dozen or more such crossings before leaving the locals to their afternoon's free entertainment and went and bought our bus tickets.
With Saturday came the chance to see some of the countryside of Honduras by virtue of the 9 hour bus journey to La Cieba. We had decided whilst in Copan that what we needed was a break, it had been a full-on month since we were at the Isla Mujeres and we had identified the island of Roatan as being likely to give us what we needed. It was impossible to make it in a day so we'd stop over in La Cieba and continue on Sunday.
We arrived early for the bus, our hour long wait enough for the muscle memory in our backsides to start griping. The ticket clerk told us that it was a good job we'd bought our tickets yesterday as they'd had a large group since who had bought all the remaining seats so that was definitely a victory for organisation. With around 15 minutes to go before departure a fleet of taxis pulled up and deposited a party of the hugest Germans I have ever seen in my life, along with approximately 15 tons of their gear.
Their apparent leader was a guy in his late 30s who was built like the proverbial Shisenhausen. He must have been 6'9" or 6'10" and he was accompanied by five or six other fellas ranging from 6'2" to 6'6" and two perfect female incarnations of Adolf Hitler's pure aryan vision with their athletic frames and white blonde hair.
The one exception to this Teutonic display of physical magnificence was a guy who was a mere weed at only about 5'10" and whose sweat glands could even put mine to shame. One of his friends really ought to have pointed out though that given his arse seemingly emits gallons of perspiration it may not be the wisest sartorial decision to sport light grey shorts.
On-board the rather splendid Headman Alas coach a couple of Dutch women, one of whom had been stowing her money belt in her very fetching grey knickers in the waiting room with her skirts up about her neck, were settling themselves and their two children for the journey ahead. The TV screen was protruding from the roof just above her and the poor woman managed to turn straight into it and crack her face on it with such a thud. Noticing the German leviathan across the aisle was either practising yoga or that the confines of his seat were resulting in his knees being up by his ears there followed an exchange between them that was straight out of 'Allo 'Allo.
The Dutch children were in the front seats near the steps and as such had masses of legroom.
Dutch lady - Vood you like to swap wiz zem? Zey have much room.
Humungous German - Jah. Zat is very kind. Sank you.
All that was missing was a picture of the fallen Madonna concealed in a sausage and Vikki Michelle saying "oooh Rene".
Aside from jocularly xenophobic observations the journey was simply one of air-conditioned comfort through a green and hilly paradise. This really is one of the most beautiful parts of the world and the profusion of palm trees gives it that lush, tropical bent.
We had to change buses roughly half-way, at a place called San Pedro Sula, waiting in transit with a few others from our bus including the German group.
It was here that I found time to investigate the irritating tackiness that I had noticed on my feet these past couple of days. The black residue on my feet at the end of the day was, I assumed, some tar or something off the pavement that had worked its way into my foot and into the sole of my flip flop. Close inspection showed though that it was in fact that my flip flops appear to be being slowly digested by my feet, the covering layer melting away to reveal a black glue.
Shoes have been the absolute bane of this trip as far as I'm concerned.
I brought 3 pairs but have hardly worn my trainers or my shoes because it's been so hot. The flip flops I brought were on their last legs so I bought some for a dollar in Memphis to back them up but only wore them twice before their cheap manufacture contrived to trip me up and almost put me under a passing car.
Seeing some Reefs in Acapulco for only £12 I bit the bullet and bought them, binning my original Reefs, and these are what are rotting on my feet as I type. Add to this litany a very fetching pair of sandals bought in Tijuana, never worn and given to a homeless guy in Belize, that we both had to buy some water shoes as we left these out of our check-list and that on the odd occasions I have worn the shoes I did bring they rub me to the point of blisters then you begin to see what I mean.
I should have listened to Stuart at work who, before we came, said I should only pack flip flops and walking boots.
With our connection being an hour late it was a dark and therefore stressful arrival into La Cieba on Saturday evening. The poor Dutch woman in front smacked her face into the TV again as we pulled up with such force that there was a collective "oooooohh" from all of us that witnessed it and she must currently be sporting a face worthy of the president of the Club for Battered Wives (grey knicker wearing branch).
We hopped in a taxi and made for the 'Banana Republic Guest House', a youth hostel recommended by the Lonely Planet but not so by our taxi driver who told us it was rat infested.
We've met a few ignorant and insouciant gits since we set off but I think the guy at Banana Republic took the biscuit.
It was apparent that our arrival was a supreme irritation to him but his flawless demonstration of disinterested disdain was a marvel to behold. We were shown to our stinking hovel of a room, a fetid, airless pit with less charm than a Belsen gas chamber and when we came to use the loo across the hall to freshen up a bit we found it to have no water.
I went downstairs to report this but I needn't have bothered - he already knew. Kerry ended up having to walk through the men's dorm, stepping over a prostrate and semi-clad individual who was out sparko in order to ablute in the gents, the only working toilet in the place. The door didn't lock so a kind soul offered to hold it shut for her while she peed. Nice!
Sourcing food in a strange town at night which has a bad reputation is never easy and the fact that it started to pour as we began our search made it even less enjoyable. However, we stumbled across a great little find, a place rustling up tasty meats for around £2.50 per meal with as much fried banana thrown in as you can eat (Which as it turns out is quite a lot. Not sure why I didn't go to the lav for 3 days afterwards but there you go).
Back at the Guest House we tiptoed past indifference personified so as not to disturb his web surfing and retired to our room. Remembering our taxi drivers words, and now believing he was talking literally rather than trying to persuade us to patronise an hotel where he would receive payment for taking us, we slung the trusty mozzie net up and prayed for morning and escape.
Within minutes of waking we were up, out and in a taxi to the docks to catch the boat to Roatan.
English speaking, golden sands, warm waters and an opportunity to reinflate our airbeds were all good reasons to make for this island paradise and we both thought it was a lovely and smooth 90 minute crossing though several people were bowking into polythene bags. Our friends the Germans were aboard, as was another couple we'd seen on our bus yesterday. There's a definite tourist trail and we are firmly on it.
Once on the island it's every man for himself as you seek to procure a taxi to one of the two main places and then, in turn, a room. We were lagging behind somewhat off the boat but ultimately played a blinder in beating our driver down from $20 US to $10 and then taking his recommendation to stay with friends of his in West Bay. He also made for an interesting half hour in his own right as we talked about such diverse subjects as the Kennedy assassination, the rise of Evangelism in the Americas and whether Prince 'Carlos' will ever be king of England.
Though pricey we figured we would be doing nothing except eating and laying on the beach so could justify the outlay on our beach front cabin. After the squalor of the night before it was a joy to have air-con, fridge, flushing
toilet and we emptied our packs in readiness for a few days here and promptly hit the beach.
It was Sunday so there were quite a few locals around making for a cosmopolitan patronage on our mile or so stretch of sand. West Bay is apparently the best beach in central America and its hard to argue. It's your classic picture postcard vista of crystalline water, palms, golden sand and clear blue sky. A real Bobby Dazzler after 4 weeks of pretty hard travelling.
Though technically belonging to Honduras, Roatan is far removed from the mainland. It's history is a turbulent one, mainly piratical with the territory being used as a bargaining tool between Spaniards, the English and the Americans of yore, as well as being a favoured bolt hole for romanticised cutthroats such as Calico Jack, Henry Morgan and John Coxen, the latter having the islands principal town, Coxen Hole, named after him. The name of the other sizeable settlement, Port Royal, was used in the recent Pirates of the Caribbean films.
The Yankee dollar is very much the currency on Roatan, as it is in much of the Americas. Establishments will accept Honduran Lempiras but the likelihood is that your change will be given in US currency. It's as we'll that you get 20 Lempiras to 1 dollar and not 137.2 or something equally difficult to work out.
It was heaven to stretch out on our airbeds and bob up and down on the gentle waves lapping at the shore. That's all we did that first afternoon and then as the sun set we dined on red snapper in a beach front restaurant which was to become our second home for the 4 days we were here.
Outside the restaurant, on the beach, we met Lindy, a friendly local (hello friends and welcome to my island, paradise on earth) whose life evolves around a particular few square metres of sand on the beach and Manhattan where his children live. Whenever we walked past he'd be there with a cheery greeting and an offer to buy some of the jewellery he peddles.
Inside were some rather tedious Americans who'd been on the sauce all day and were talking rather loudly. A strapping, nay Amazonian, blonde was the main protagonist talking in that horrible way: "I'm not being funny but she needs to seriously fix her teeth and I mean that in a nice way".
Personally I think uttering "I'm not being funny but" should be made illegal. It always precedes something derogatory, negative or catty and implies that he using it somehow has some higher moral or social ground from which to verbalise what is in actual fact often their own inadequacies.
Well, that's my opinion anyway. If you don't like that I'm not being funny but you can go and read another blog.
In accordance with the gospel according to Andy and Kerry rest & relaxation should somehow encompass extreme activity of one description or another. Aching muscles are desired, near exhaustion mandatory and a failure to kick the arse out of any given day is heresy. On the first day proper of our rest on the island of Roatan then we eschewed the $3 water taxi fare to West End, 3 miles away, opting to walk along the beach instead.
It was a very hot day and by the time we reached the village we were both pooped, Kerry so much so that we had to stop and refuel with pineapple juice at a cafe on the outskirts. Whilst sitting here we both eyed the pool and considered jumping in until we saw about a dozen huge crabs scuttling along the bottom.
West End was nothing to write home about. In fact it was a bit of a dump and we were very glad we weren't staying here. After a quick look round and after buying some provisions to keep in our fridge we made our way back to the sanctity of our end of the island, via water taxi this time.
On the boat we saw the couple from our bus the other day so talked to them learning that he was a German teaching Law at the university of Guatemala and she his sister making her annual visit from Munich to see him. He was another who could have entered the world perspiration championships and his cotton shirt was pretty wet and clinging to his body. As we gathered speed I reacted quickly enough to save my baseball cap from blowing into the sea but rather histrionically flung the last inch of my pineapple juice all over my new friend in the process.
As a rule I love Germans, they're some of the nicest people you could wish to meet and this fellow lived up to that estimation by apologising to me for wearing my drink.
Later that afternoon we walked the mile down to the reef at the end of our beach and snorkelled for a couple of hours. I was having a bit of bother maintaining a seal what with my Brian Blessed-esque facial fungus but 15 gallons of salt water up my nose aside it was great.
Kerry dived on Tuesday morning in what turned out to be refresher and then 1:1 dive with the instructor, a young Italian lady who came out here for a season, fell in love with it and a local guy and now is here for the foreseeable. After 18 months or so without a dive she was a tad nervous but soon got back into the swing of it and now plans to dive again as soon as the opportunity is there. It sounds like it was a great dive, fantastic visibility, warm water and enough different fish and things to see to keep anyone happy. She loves it under the water does our Kerry.
I was so tired after yesterday's exertions that I fell back to sleep when she went out that morning and only woke up at 1100, 14 hours after falling asleep last night!
After hours and hours of floating around on the sea, a dozen new mozzie bites and an hour on a sea bound set of apparatus akin to the 'Wipeout' TV show we felt it was time to move on again so we got up early on Thursday and caught the 0700 ferry back to La Cieba with the aim of going white water rafting on the Rio Cangrejal.
There are three companies offering this service and being the safety conscious and mature pair that we are we opted to go with the most expensive and best reviewed, figuring that if it's German run and by an ex International kayaker at that it ought to be well managed.
First we had to get there though and could choose from $10 taxi fare or 60p bus fare. Of course, we took the clapped out local bus from the market, quite enjoying the chaotic visit to the gas station with 20 cars and buses all at different angles visiting 6 pumps. The second half of the 16km journey, on a dreadfully bumpy unpaved track was less fun though the fact that we couldn't travel faster than 10 mph from then on did conceal that our buses gear box was knackered and would not change up from 2nd. We had crawled out of town with scores of horns tooting at us. That poor driver must have that every day of his working life.
We were greeted at Omega Tours by Sylvia, partner of Mr Kayak and shown around. As we were going rafting that afternoon, fortunate as we had only turned up on spec, we could choose from a free dorm, a free private hut straddling a river or pay $40 and have a 2-storey self-contained tree house deep in the jungle. Once we'd seen the tree house there was no contest. It was so beautifully appointed, no expense spared and everything linking into nature to make you feel like you wanted to don a leathery loin cloth and practise your 'aaaaaaaaeeeeerrrrrrrggggggghhhsss'.
The coat hooks were varnished sticks, windows were simply mozzie netting so that you were at one with the jungle, the shower curtain ran along a stick, the shower cubicle was stone and gave the impression you were in a rock pool, everywhere you looked was beautiful wood and there was even a free bees nest, thankfully on the outside of the mozzie netting.
We barely had time to digest these fabulous surroundings before we were off to lunch and to meet our guides for the afternoon, Christy, a 22 year old who was originally from Suffolk but whose family moved to New Zealand when he was 6 and Alan, a 30 ish white water nut from Northern Ireland who'd been working at Omega for 3 years.
I hadn't considered the dangers of what we were about to undertake before we got to the water and Christy began to go through our 20 minutes prep.
We were taught how to paddle forwards and backwards, how to use our weight to lean the raft to one side, how to assume safe positions in which to travel down rapids or over drops and what to do when the boat capsizes.
Despite all this I found the most alarming thing to be his little patter about the river itself.
"Do you know what the river is called?" he asked.
"Yes, the Rio Cangrejal"
"And do you know why it's called that?"
"No, do tell"
"Well, Cangrejal means 'crab' and when the water is very low you can see millions of crabs in here"
After my experience in El Zonte that wasn't really what I wanted to hear.
But of course, once we were on the way and being flung around on grade 3 water we didn't have much time to consider the fauna below us. It was fantastically exhilarating stuff with healthy doses of abject terror thrown in to keep you on your toes.
We did a spot of leaping off 20 ft high boulders and some river swimming too where you leave the raft and get hurtled downstream by the raging torrent. Wonderful stuff, enhanced by the presence of Christy and Alan, the former undoubtedly going places in this world and surely to realise his dream one day of being a guide on the Colorado through the Grand Canyon.
With adrenaline still coursing through our veins and German beefsteak lining out stomachs we turned in for the night in the pitch blackness of our jungle home. It felt weird to be lying there listening to the racket of the jungle and we found we couldn't relax for fear of something hideous penetrating the netting and getting in to our room. Having seen a long legged spider by the side of the river today my mind was on arachnids whereas Kerry had the slightly less rational notion that a horde of baboons was about to tear down the netting and attack us. We put the mozzie net up to deter any non-Simian perpetrators and drifted off to an uneasy sleep. I mainly dreamt of spiders and when I awoke for my nighttime pee I cursed the fact that I hadn't brought a bottle in to bed with me - far better that than get out in the pitch black and probably end up with a tarantula on me.
We made it through the night unscathed and, having bade our farewells to the lovely people at Omega, made for La Cieba and the 1000 bus to Tegucigalpa, capital of Honduras and our last stop before moving into Nicaragua.
By a strange twist the waiting room was awash with gargantuan Germans, the party from before heading back to Guatemala City and their flight back to the Fatherland. We bought our tickets and sat and waited. And waited. Eventually someone came out to explain that the bus was caught up in some demonstrations in the town and couldn't move. Typical! Just when you don't want a mass demonstration by the disaffected people of a banana republic you get one! They had no idea how long it would take so we all just sat there, the Germans much more agitated than anyone else given that they had to cross a border and make that plane home.
By 1300 and with no sign of anything happening we had our tickets changed to travel the following day, a luxury that such a flexible itinerary affords.
This gave us the afternoon to explore La Cieba, a more grimy and down-at-heel place you would struggle to find. Our hotel was the one saving grace with its pool and wi-fi and I made use of the unexpected free time by shaving off my beard, much to Kerry's delight.
Next day, 24 hours later than planned, we were finally on our way to Tegucigalpa, capital of Honduras.
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