Honduras...... Before I get started, let me say that the drivers in Honduras must rate highly as the biggest risk takers of all times. The road rules consist of only a few generic things to consider, these being; 1. Always overtake on blind curvey corners (this seems to be the norm...) 2. Never indicate (indicating is only for cars with working indicators...) 3. Always use your horn, irrespective if the road ahead is clear 4. Stop wherever you feel like (and applying rule no. 2...) 5. Talk constantly either on the phone or with the guy who collects the money for the route.... 6. Music should be up on no.9 for the whole trip.... Anyway, our time in Hounduras consisted of getting to the Bay Islands as quick as possible.....and as you´ve probably guessed it, to have more fun in the sun. We took the ferry from the mainland (La Ceiba) to an island called Roatan. Its a pretty big island that in some places resembles nothing at all like the rest of the country. Roatan is heavy dependant on tourism with direct flights to/from the states, so more people speak english than spanish...!"·$"·$% The island has some of the best diving in the world, with the 2nd largest barrier reef (a continuation of the Belizian reef) literally just a short swim from the island. We staying at a place called "West End" which is setup for travelers. This is the best place to stay on the island as the beaches are pristine, the waters clear and warm and the sunsets spectacular...soooooo, once again "life was a beach". We had 2 weeks on Roatan and loved it. I ended up doing my PADI Advanced diving which consisted of all these adventure dives (navigation, drifting under water and wreck diving). It was a ton of fun and thoughly enjoyable. The wrecks were spectacular and eeiry as they were in over 100ft of water, so you´re decending into the deep blue with no reference of the bottom and then out of the deep these blurry shapes start to take place and then get clearer and clearer...(in the back of you´re mind your thinking about giant octopus guarding hidden treasure.....but alas, no). There were huge groupers and parrot fish hanging around the wrecks along with the mandatory moray eel. Julz also overcame her "fear" of diving and ended clocking up about 8 dives here, and really enjoyed the aquatic life and underwater topography. We ended up seeing heaps of tropical fish, huge lobsters, octopus, turtles and massive ledge drop offs to over 3000ft. At the end of one of my dives we encountered over 20 dolphins, and it was an awesome rush to follow them in the boat as they ducked and weaved around the bow of the boat before disappearing into the blue. We did all our diving with an outfit called "Native Suns" which were brilliant and we really enjoyed diving with them (and socialising!!!!!!....) When we eventually took a break from diving (normally at 9am then again at 2pm) and hired a quad bike and cruised around the island. We went to a place called the "Iguana Farm" which had (they claim thousands) hundreds of Iguanas just chilling in the sun. The feeding time got pretty heated with Iguanas all over the place and all over each other (some were up to 2m long...). We also went to a dolphin training center and watched a dolphin preformance. Anyway by the end of the day my left foot (around my big toe area) was getting pretty blistered with all the gear changing needed (flipflops and changing bike gears do not mix...) so we were content to take the bike back and head out on a two-person kayak to watch another amazing sunset......ahhhh. While we´re on sunsets...these were spectacular. The West End (you might guess whats coming...) faces west, so every night the sky lights up with incredible colours. This coupled with a beach bar, a cold beer and good company really was good fun. We left Roatan after a couple of weeks and flew (Julz wasn´t to keen on the bumpy ferry back to the mainland....and i wanted to fly....) to a place called "San Pedro" where we jumped on a bus and headed south to a place called "Copan". Copan was considered in the Mayan times (real long time ago) as the artistic provence for the Mayans with ornate stone carvings and intricate patterns. Like the other Mayans, the civilisation dwindled through over forestation, over population, killing of animals and lack of further planting/regeneration of forests etc....so this lead the Mayans in search of other areas to populate, and hence the desertation of these amazing places. We had a couple of nights in Copan and explored the ruins and also the neat little village with its cobblestoned roads and stucco exterior buildings. So that was pretty much Honduras.....aside from taking a long bus trip to the capital (Tegucigalpa) for a night, and then another long bus trip to Nicaragua, Honduras was pretty much another beach holiday for us. Ciao chicos.... | 