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Antigua (the town in Guatemala, not the Caribbean island!) was a nice few days to finish off my time in Guatemala. I would have preferred to have seen it a little drier, the constant rain made it tricky to get out of town to do anything like hiking the nearby volcano, and instead we had to dive into the market and coffee shops in between downpours. And anyway, since when did rain deter a Mancunian?!
By the last day there our group was down to 2 (Suzie from Nottingham whom I met in Flores) and we were planning our next move out to the Bay Islands in Honduras. Unable to get there in a day we decided to stop off just inside the Honduras border at Copán close to some ruins.
The journey was fairly uneventful apart from arguing with the border officials about the unofficial charges they levy on tourists to get into/of of various countries. Pleased with ourselves for having saved ourselves 10 Quetzales (about 80p!) to get out of Guatemala, my pleaseure was short lived as the Honduran immigration official had my passport in his possession and threatened to refuse me entry unless we paid their fee. Not wanting to spend the night in no mans land between Guatemala and Honduras, so we begrudgingly paid it. Having caught a bus at 4.30am to arrive in Copán during the day, we'd managed to see the town after about 20mins walk. As I've previously admitted, I've seen enough ruins for now and decided to give them a miss.
We went to ask about our onward journey the following day and whilst deciding which departure bus to catch were told that if we got the 7am departure, we'd be in La Cieba, the port from which we were catching the boat over to Utila by 1pm, giving us a reasonable 3 hour window until the boat. Or so we thought. As we eventually pulled into La Ceiba at 4.15, we were already 15mins too late to catch the boat and resigned ourselves to a night in La Ceiba, apparently Honduras' party capital, cursing the lady who'd misinformed us about the journey times. I e mailed the Diving School to apologise that I wouldn't be in Utila that night. They replied to tell me that it was fine to arrive the following day, our apartment would still be available and that the boat that we were due to catch had broken down on the way and we'd therefore avoided floating in the very choppy Caribbean Sea awaiting repair. So perhaps everything does happen for a reason.....
Dive school starts on Sunday, I can't wait, it seems to have been a very long time coming, and I hope I enjoy it as much as I expect to.
- comments
Ged Sounds great Jane. Good luck with the diving. Sas would be very proud of you. :-)
Sarah B Yaay you've finally got around to diving - I bet you are loving it. Takes a bit of getting used to but it is SO, SO worth it. We'll book you in for the trip to Sharm next summer. Sounds like you're having a blast. We miss you loads. Take care, love 2 1/2 Burdens xxx