Guatemala to Honduras



Antigua



From El Salvador we went on to Antigua, a colonial town in Guatemala, where we stayed for a couple of nights.  We have bypassed most of the capital cities in Central America because they are less impressive citiees than other places in the world, and from what we have seen are generally dirty, dangerous and seedy.  Antigua was none of these things and we had a lot of fun just wandering around the cobbled streets eating ice-cream.

More of Antigua

After Antigua we took a detour over to Lago de Atitlan which is a beautiful lake surrounded by volcanoes.  It was a lot cooler as the town is at about 2000m above sea level which was a relief after all the sweaty buses.  Tim went paragliding over the lake which he loved, he was up there with birds flying around him and a great view below and said it was really peaceful.  I opted out as when we did our skydive the parachute part made me feel really ill plus I had spent my paragliding money on souveniers like lovely leather handbags! 

Timmy paragliding over the lake.

Up with the birds!

From Antigua we had our most random journey yet making our way to Copan Ruinas.  We got up at 6am to catch the early bus to Guatemala City and were promised it would arrive at 7am then 7.30am, 8am, 9am and finally 11am as if people don't know the answer when you ask a question they lie to save face as apposed to admitting they don't know! Very frustrating! So at 9am we caught a nondirect bus which was the first of 9 buses that day.  We ended up at the Hondurian border at 8pm having missed all the buses to Copan Ruinas and having to hitch hike the last 11kms (with some help from the security guards at customs) and finally arrived at 9pm.  It had taken us 15hours to travel 200kms!  

Copan ruinas the main tomb

The ruins were pretty spectacular though and really interesting as there were lots of beautiful sculptures too.  There were wild macaws in the surrounding trees which were really noisy but lovely looking.  I happily guzzled my free water from our hotel as we walked around only to find out later it was tap water which has left me feeling ill since then. Nothing is ever completely free it seems! 

Some of the sculptures at Copan Ruinas

Noisy macaws

From Copan we had another long day on the buses then a vomit inducing ferry ride over to Utila one of the Bay Islands which have been worth every moment of the journey.  The islands are beautiful as you would expect from any islands in the caribbean sea, and we have been diving for 3 days.  The first day the captain spotted a school of dolphins and raced the boat over to them so we could snorkel with them. The best thing for me was that you could hear them squeaking and clicking away to each other which was amazing.  The coral reef here is truely beautiful too. 

Another hard day at the office! Our hotel in the Cays.

We've been staying in a hotel belonging to the dive company which is on one of the Cays away from the main island which we have loved as it has been super relaxing and quiet.  We will be sad to leave.   

Diving in the bay islands

Panama to Nicaragua and El Salvador

The panama canal

We spent a couple of nights in Panama, which is a bit of a strange city.  One end is really built up with skyscrapers and new buildings and the other end is crumbling down.  It's a working progress, and standing on a bridge in between the two areas you can see where they're up to.  Bizarre.


The Panama Canal was awesome, the sheer size of it all is phenomenal and the fact that it was dug 100 years ago almost by hand is incomprehensible.

Watching the canal in action!

We didn't stick around in Panama long, only a couple of night then caught the bus to Costa Rica, where we stayed for just one night, then headed up to Isla del Ometepe in Nicaragua. 

Panama City

The island was lovely, it consisted of two volcanoes and the people there are really chilled and friendly.  We slowed right down and just relaxed for a couple of nights there.  We decided to hire bikes to explore the island which seemed like a great idea but the bikes were awful.  Mine had a flat tyre within a couple of kilometres and Tim's brake was constantly on! Hard going especially with the volcanic hills and 35 degree heat, not to mention the humidity!  We managed to get to a freshwater pool which was lovely the spent the rest of the day getting more and more hot and bothered (and grumpy) trying to get around the island, whilst being passed at high speed by others on mopeds and quad bikes.  We did eventually get back to the hostel and had a beer so all was right in the world again. 

Sunset at Isla de Ometepe 

Relaxing on the island!

We headed from the island to Granada (past a dog with it's innards hanging out of it's backside in the bus station, poor, disgusting thing- makes you realise why we have euthanasia in England).  Granada was a lovely town, really pretty and full of little cobbled streets which has proved to be the running theme of towns in central America so far, where we spent a couple of days looking around.  We went down by the lake edge where there were loads of mango trees and ripe mangoes falling off them- we had a lovely time collecting and eating fresh mangoes.  I also bought a beautiful new leather handbag, which I love.     

Sunset from the church tower in Granada

The view over Granada

From Granada we moved on to Leon which was much the same as Granada except and little more rough and ready.  We stayed there for a few days - mainly because there was a hammock outside our room which Tim spent all of his time in.    

Relaxing in Leon- Tim spent most of his time here!

From Leon we then went to El Salvador where we were planning to stay for a while and have a look round a few towns. This plan quickly changed as it was the strangest place, they obviously don't get a lot of tourist so everywhere we went everybody would stare at us. We spent the bus journeys with the whole bus turned around to look at us which is funny to start with then becomes a little unnerving then just gets downright annoying. There were also armed guards everywhere, guarding clothes shops, fast food restaurants, basically every shop has armed guards.

Beautiful buildings in Leon

  All the buses are ridicously slow too, so it took us 2 days of being packed on sweaty buses to get out of the country.  At one point one of the buses was full and we were sat on the back row with 5 other people.  There was blantantly no more room but a lady with a HUGE bottom came over and tried to wedge her enormous behind into a gap which was never going to accomodate it.  The result was a had to spent the next ten minutes with her sat on me until someone informed her that there was no room- my spanish didn't stretch to explaining the situation and I don't think she could hear me from underneath her derriere anyway!

We spent one night in Santa Ana which was an unremarkable place and then headed for Guatemala. 

Colombia to Panama via San Blas

The walled city at Cartagena

 We spent a couple of days in Bogota which is a great city - the white chocolate crepes are fantastic! From there we caught a bus up to Cartagena which was a monster journey of 26 hours the air con was set to about -5 too, which meant we couldn't sleep - until some nice guy gave me his blanket as he got off the bus, typical Colombian- really friendly.   

Cartagena from the boat

We spent a couple of days in Cartagena which is apparently where they filmed romancing the stone. It has an old walled city which is really beautiful.  From there we organised a 5 day boat ride to Panama via the San Blas Islands.   




The boat was a catamaran and the first day and night we spent on the open sea so it was pretty rough.  We had to do an hour of night watch, which I was rubbish at because I was being sick! Luckily Tim was with me so he took over. 

Dolphins!

During the day on the second day there were dolphins playing by the boat for about 20 mins.  It was lovely, there was a whole pod there.   

San Blas - the first evening

The next evening we finally got to the San Blas islands which are a collection of islands in the Caribbean sea and are beautiful, like a mini paradise.  We spent the next couple of days snorkelling and exploring some of the islands and feeling hungry! The boat had 8 other people on it, all German speaking and there was never enough food- the food was Austrian/German too, with no meat.  We had pancakes for dinner 2 of the 4 nights - me and Tim were not impressed!  Apart from that it was a great trip.  It is especially good to be in the warm weather again.  We had a lot of fun using the underwater camera too!

Snorkelling Timmy

Snorkelling San Blas

On the beach on one of the islands

Fishes!

A little bit of paradise

Starfish!

  






   

One of the San Blas islands