Honduras: 1st December - 11th December

The shuttle from Antigua picked me up from the hostel at the ungodly hour of 4 am, for the extremely cramped and uncomfortable seven hour trip to Copan Ruinas. I'm sure the chicken bus would have been less uncomfortable. Amazingly, four of the tourists in the shuttle were dropped off at the Mayan ruins and were going to be picked up three hours later, at 2 pm, for the seven hour trip back to Antigua that same day. A fourteen hour round trip for three measly hours at the ruins! Unbelievable... Anyway, my plan was different. After checking into a hostel in the nearby town of Copan Ruinas, I spent the afternoon checking out the town. Then next morning I made the short walk out to the ruins. The Mayan city of Copan is smaller and less spectacular than both Chichen Itza and Tikal, and in my opinion at least much less impressive than either. Although it could just be that I've seen too many lost Mayan cities now.

The stonemasons of Copan did have a great sense of humour, judging from the many comedy faces carved into the stonework.

Look, here's another one. Or maybe the Mayans of Copan actually looked like this?

Some of the carvings however display a very high level of artistic skill, and are much more impressive than anything that can be seen at most of the other Mayan sites.

There were several large and noisy parrots at the entrance to the site. I think they were wild; their wings weren't clipped anyway, although I guess they were well fed to keep them there.

Next stop was Roatan, one of the Bay Islands off of Honduras' Caribbean coast, for reputedly the cheapest diving in the world. Let's start off with a sunset though...

I paid $20 for each dive, although there was at least one place charging just $15. First dive was on a wreck called El Aguila, a good start, interesting wreck, mostly intact, and lots of tight places to swim through.

Here's a view out through a big rusted hole in the side of the ship, to the sand outside.

There were a few big groupers hanging around as well.

After the wreck though, things weren't quite so impressive. Sure, the reef was in very good condition with great hard and soft coral growth, lots of big sponges and reasonable visibility. But there just weren't many fish, and very little big life. Apart from that grouper from the last photo and his friends at the wreck, there was nothing large of note at all. And not even many small fish. Also the variety of fish in the Caribbean is very limited compared to the Indo-Pacific reefs of Australia, Thailand, Tanzania etc. Having said that, there is always something worth seeing on any dive, and there was still plenty to see on Roatan's reefs. For example, a mantis shrimp...

...and a little white-spotted moray.

And of course there is always the après-dive beers to be enjoyed. This is me with Gary from Norway.

After two hot, sunny days on Roatan, the weather took a decided turn for the worse. It started to rain... and didn't stop for more than about twenty minutes for the next 48 hours. The heaviest rain I think I've ever seen. Everything was damp, including my spirits, and a look at the weather satellite data in the dive shop showed things weren't going to be getting better in a hurry. The entire Western Caribbean from Mexico to Honduras to Cuba was covered in cloud. So after six dives (I had planned on doing ten or more) I decided to move on, and to head south until I reached some place where the sun was shining once more...

Heading out of Roatan's port at Coxen Hole, it was still stormy...

...so although I had planned to make a couple of stops before it, I decided to head all the way through to the capital, Tegucigalpa, in one big long journey. I figured it should be far enough away from the Caribbean that I might see some sun. And happily, it was. I spent two nights there, but found it one of the least attractive cities I've been to on my travels. At least it felt safe though... relatively speaking, compared to Belize City and Guatemala City.

Just some friendly geezers on the street in Tegucigalpa.

Just like in Europe, a lot of people spend sunday afternoon watching football. Those who can't afford Sky just hang around outside the local electrical store to catch the game. After two nights in Tegus (as the locals call it), I headed south, to Nicaragua.

Next page: Nicaragua
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