Itinerant Fling

We left La Ceiba-Honduras going to La Antigua-Guatemala and that was quite a trip. 3 buses and many hours later with no issues at the border, we arrived in La Antigua. You can see the map here. The name of the city is actually La Antigua Guatemala (The old Guatemala). This is because the city was destroyed by an earthquake in 1773 and the government decided to move the capital to where Guatemala City (the new) is currently located.

One of the many ruins

Before the Spaniards “discovered” America, the Mayans inhabited the area, but their civilization was already in decline for several centuries. La Antigua was once the capital of the entire Central America during the XVI and XVII century. The city was abandoned by most people after the earthquake, but the church did not want to leave because of the amount of buildings they had built – “too much money went into those buildings for us to just leave.”
The city is now rebuilt, but you can still see some ruins and have a good feel of the earthquake’s impact. La Antigua is one of those places that you will never forget and that you always would like to go back. The colonial buildings with multiple colors, the massive wooden doors, beautiful windows and tiles on the window balconies are all impressive. But when you get in the houses you can appreciate even more the architecture of that time. Most of the houses have been remodeled, but kept the structure intact. The large gardens, fountains and staircases inside their houses are decorated in a Guatemalan way and you need to come and see.

Colonial buildings

Antigua is packed with restaurants, bakeries, spa/salons, bars, bed and breakfasts and little stores. It’s a tourist paradise. For the first time we saw older people touring as well as the usual backpacking crowd. Many of the tourists were attending Spanish language schools that are also quite numerous throughout the small town.
Another big attraction is the market which is open everyday, but it’s larger on Sundays, Mondays and Thursdays. You can buy handcrafts, souvenirs, fruits, vegetables, meat and fish. All done by the indigenous population dressed up in their typical clothes.

Restaurant in Antigua

The rain messed up our plans to travel around the country. Nothing compared to the disaster that happened in the region. 23 people died because of mudslides and the roads were too dangerous to travel. Unfortunately, we had to spend the whole week in Antigua (which was not a bad thing).

More pics here

We decided to go white water rafting after our scuba adventure. It was quite fun but not nearly long enough. The Rio Cangrejal is a river that flows into the Caribbean sea. It is fed by three other rivers and when it rains a lot, the river can be quite dangerous to raft on. Luckily, we only had a little rain the night before and most of the river was fun to raft. We rafted rapids that were categorized as Class I up to Class IV.

Click here for more pictures.

Our impressions of Honduras:

• This country has a beautiful landscape: Lots of mountains, valleys, and rivers.
• Armed men everywhere: there were police stops along the main highways in the country. Additionally, armed security guards at a bread company, at the ATM, at the pharmacy. You don’t know whether to feel safe or scared.
• The infrastructure in small towns is quite impressive: great main roads, lots of shopping centers and restaurants. The bus station in San Pedro Sula (second largest city) is gigantic with lots of shops and buses ready to take you anywhere in Central America.
• There are also some very wealthy people in the country. La Ceiba and Utila along with the coast line had some very large houses and sometimes large estates.
• The currency here is called Lempiras and one US dollar is worth approximately 18.9 Honduran Lempiras. Things in this country were relatively cheap for us, one beer, Salva Vida (insert laughter here), in a bar cost 20 to 30 Lempira or $1.05 to $1.60
• Since we spent the majority of our time in Honduras on an island in the Caribbean sea, we heard a lot of English, Pacuare (i would describe English Creole, i could understand about every 10th word) and Spanish. Sometimes some people would mix all three in one sentence.

We are now in Guatemala, but leaving tomorrow for a long journey in Mexico

Depois de uma semana numa ilha no Caribe, metade do corpo cheio de patacas das muriçocas com uma coceira sem fim nas pernas e com o certificado de mergulho nas maos. Nos resolvemos voltar pra terra firme e fazer rafting. Que significa descer um rio de corredeiras e pedras numa balsa de plastico. O cenario era o canyon do Rio Cangrejal em La Ceiba-Honduras. Belissimo o lugar, com cataratas, pontes suspensas e pedras gigantes no leito do rio. Pra quem nao sabe (inclusive eu antes de fazer essa doideira),  num rafting as corredeiras sao classificadas entre 1 e 5 baseado em sua altura e comprimento, sendo 1 a mais simples e 5 a mais perigosa. Nos fizemos rafting em corredeiras de 1 a 4. Eh mais ou menos como ir numa montanha russa com agua e sem trilhos, onde a balsa roda bastante e nos remamos pra ir pro caminho certo e nao bater muito nas pedras. Achamos que o rafting deveria ser mais longo e ficamos com gostinho de quero mais. Fica pra proxima.

Minha mae, com certeza, ta com o coraçao na mao de saber disso. Mas um pouco de adrenalina nao faz mal a ninguem. Talvez deixa a gente ate um pouco mais vivo. 
Pra ver algumas das nossas fotos do rafting deem uma olhada aqui.
Nossas impressoes de Honduras:

• Nos rodamos de onibus por boa parte do pais, que eh recortado de montanhas, vales, rios e cataratas. Muito bonito
• Muito segurança armado em padaria, caixa eletronico, lojas e farmacias, todos com AK-47s (armas grandes). Alem de policiais parando carros no meio da estrada a todo instante. Voce nao sabe se sente mais seguro ou com mais medo
• A infraestrutura das cidades, mesmo as pequenas, era bem desenvolvida. As rodovias principais eram muito boas, muitos shopping centers e restaurantes no meio da estrada. San Pedro Sula, a segunda maior cidade de Honduras, tem a maior estaçao de onibus da America Central
• Parece que tem gente que tem grana nesse pais. La Ceiba, San Pedro e Utila tem umas casas bem grandes e muito bacanas em certas partes da cidade.
• A moeda daqui eh chamada Lempira em homenagem ao cacique Lempira que resistiu contra invasao dos espanhois no seculo XVI. Um dolar vale cerca de 18,90 Lempiras. Comida, bebida e alojamento eram bem baratos. No quesito cerveja, uma Salva-Vida (a ideia do nome dessa cerveja eh invejavel) long neck num bar custava entre US$1,05 a 1,60.
• Como nos passamos a maior parte do tempo em Honduras numa ilha, nos quase nao falamos espanhol. Varias partes do Caribe na America Central foram colonizadas por ingleses que trouxeram escravos da Africa pra trabalhar na agricultura na epoca. Entao, a lingua local eh Pacuare, um ingles misturado com espanhol, muito interessante de se ouvir. Mas todos tambem falam ingles.

Estamos agora na Guatemala e nesse fim de semana vamos rumo ao Mexico passar um bom tempo por la.

Bombom que o policial me deu

E a vida de andarilho continua. Nos saimos de Granada-Nicaragua rumo a uma ilha no Caribe chamada Utila-Honduras. Depois de 20 horas em 1 taxi e 2 onibus chegamos ao nosso destino, La Ceiba. Na fronteira, nosso primeiro aperreio da viagem. A imigraçao da Nicaragua ou moça do onibus perdeu meu cartao de vacinas que eh necessario pra entrada em alguns paises. Depois de muita conversa com o policial da fronteira de Honduras, ele pediu 500 dolares, paguei 20 e ainda ganhei um bombom do filho d’uma egua, por que durante o processo de negociaçao, acho que ele sentiu pena de mim. Pra piorar, fiquei sabendo depois que em Honduras nao ha necessidade de mostrar a vacina pra febre amarela. Mas a vida continua e nos dormimos a noite e de manha cedo partimos de ferry em direcao a ilha. As aguas nao sao das mais calmas nessa viagem de 1 hora de ferry e por isso o barco eh mais conhecido como “O cometa do vomito”. Ao comprar o bilhete eles ate oferecem Dramin.
Clique aqui. pra ver nosso itinerario

De manha cedo, visto do nosso albergue

Utila eh conhecida como um dos melhores lugares do mundo pra tirar um certificado de mergulho. Existem cerca de 20 lojinhas de mergulho que oferecem cursos com os preços  mais baratos do mundo. Nos pagamos cada um US$260 pro curso de mergulho, 6 noites de estadia e 2 mergulhos extra ao fim do curso. Nos Estados Unidos seria cerca de US$800 so pelo curso. Mas isso tinha um custo. A ilha eh cheia de mosquitos, perigo de malaria e um calor medonho. Nosso quarto era uma verdadeira SAUNA. Sobrevivemos! Detalhe eh que a mae da dona do lugar onde ficamos eh de Crateus.

Treetanic

Em Utila ha uma rua principal, onde tem quase todos os restaurantes, bares, albergues e lojas. Mocheileiros de tudo quanto eh lugar vem mergulhar aqui durante o dia e farrear a noite.

Surpreendetemente a ilha tem um dos mais incriveis bares que ja vi na vida. O Treetanic parece que foi construindo por Gaudi com a tematica de Alice no Pais das Maravilhas no fundo do mar regado a muito acido. Um bar enorme sobre uma pequena montanha com um jardim botanico e uma estrutura arquitetonica muito louca e cheia de cores e detalhes.

O bar tinha dezenas de aranhas

CRAZY architecture

No fundo do mar vi as mais bonitas estruturas de corais da vida. Mas confesso que estava esperando ver mais peixes e a agua poderia ser mais clara. Apesar disso nosso grupo era muito divertido e no penultimo mergulho o Jason pensou que era peixe e tentou respirar o oxigenio dissolvido na agua. Depois de tussir muito, 10 metros debaixo d’agua, ele relaxou, respirou profundo e seguiu o mergulho. Aprendeu as duas mais importantes liçoes de mergulho: continuar respirando e relaxar. Pra ver mais fotos clique aqui

Em um os bares de Utila

A Parting Gift

Travel Woes: We started our trip to the Caribbean island of Utila, Honduras from Granada, Nicaragua at 1am. We took one taxi and two buses to get to La Ceiba, Honduras (20 hours total) – spent the night there and then in the morning, took the ferry for one hour to Utila. Along the way Marcelo’s Immunization Card got misplaced by the bus company and a Honduran border agent asked for a $500 bribe to get into the country. Fun times but we made it and only paid $20 to the Border asshole Agent. As a parting gift the Border Agent gave Marcelo what’s in the picture above.

Onward…

A View of the Honduran Mainland from Utlia aka our front balcony

If you want to see how we got from Granada To Utila, click here.  For some reason google maps wont allow me, or I’m just ignorant of how to do it, to add Utila as a destination point on the map and still show the route we took, so Utila is the small and the closest of the three islands just off La Ceiba.

Utila is known as one of the best places to get a Scuba Certification. There are approximately 20 different dive shops vying for every tourist that comes to the island. Suffice to say, we saved mucho dinero getting our Open Water PADI Certification on the island as opposed to the USA.

Pre-Dive

We only paid $260 per person for the course, two fun dives and six days lodging. In the States, the course by itself could be upwards of $800 each. That said we did have to endure some vicious sand flies, mosquitoes, and HEAT with HUMIDITY. Totally worth it!!!

Utila has one main street that contains nearly all the businesses on the island. Backpackers from around the globe travel here to dive during the day and party at night.

Think of the children

Utila also has of the best bars we’ve ever experienced. Imagine that Gaudi decided to design a bar, this is Treetanic.

It’s a massive bar set on a hillside with a botanical garden and eclectic art throughout the entire place.

Also, the bar also contains a spider “sanctuary”.  I have never seen so many spiders in one area in my life.  They are in an area that is separate from the bar.  Even during the night, you aren’t going to walk into web or charlotte.

Not Charlotte but a close cousin

Seen on our snorkeling and scuba dives: lots of coral (hard and soft), sponges, numerous species of fish, quite a few barracuda, a moray eel, and large ray. I also decided that at 33 feet down I wanted to be a fish and tried to suck in as much water as possible. SCARY, but a learning to relax and rely on the equipment made me human again.

Life Lesson – RELAX
For more pictures click here

It's very faint in the pic, but it's a double rainbow (just above)

Jason