HONDURAS

KUNG FU

One night short of the Guatemala - Honduran border, we checked in to a hotel and checked our email.  A Dutch lady volunteering at a Honduran project for children who had seen one of our kung fu classes in Alotenango was inviting us to teach their kids in the town of Copan - home of Copan Ruinas.  The coincidence that we were scheduled to arrive the next day, combined with overwhelming honour of an international invite to teach kung fu had us on the road at sunrise.  click here to download a great little video of us teaching, courtesty of Ron and Lise at Arte Accion.

 

.

 

COPAN RUINS

we stayed for a couple of days, visited the famous ruins, an amazing bird sanctuary and made some repairs to our roof tent...

.

UTILA, BAY ISLANDS

ARRIVAL

Having parked our car in a hotel La Ceiba, the port town to the bay islands, we boarded the 4pm ferry.  We had been warned against the islands because of the mosquitos (not far from the Mosquito Coast) and sandflies and the daily rains of October were to have made the situation much worse.  We watched a beautiful sunset during the 1.5 hour crossing, and given our warnings, dowsed ourselves in citronella repellent from head to toe.  The ferry moored up at peak biting hour and it was genocide on the pier.  In the 3-4 minutes we had to wait for our bags to be unloaded from the boat, we were bitten nearly 30 times each.  It was so ugly.  Swarms hovering over our heads, constant buzzing in our ears and continual slaps to any exposed skin.  Bags received, we charged through the pier, barging past the locals pushing for our custom at their hotels.

We checked in to Utila hotel, showered then bathed in after bite.  Our whole bodies were throbbing with sting.  We threw away our natural herbal citronella repellent and bought some Deet.  Nonetheless for the rest of our stay between 5.30pm and 6.30pm we did our best to be in the hotel room under the covers or in the shower.

We left on thursday 13oct05.  On the monday no boats were leaving and and by the tuesday the islands were isolated without electricity for 3 days as hurricane wilma took its toll.  Despite not having seen the sun for more than 5 hours on the trot for many weeks, we're thinking we may be blessed, keeping 3 or 4 days ahead of each hurricane.

DIVING

The morning after our arrival E-J was signed up to a 3 day intensive PADI open water course and MG on a 1 day refresher course.  We chose the Bay Island College of Diving as they had a reputation for being especially good with nervous first time divers which eE-J gladly defined herself as.  It was a good choice, as her instructor was excellent and in the moments of panic 12m under the surface with rapid heavy breathing and the fear of god in her eyes he held her down with his knees and instructed her until she calmed down.

.

The diving was excellent, and although neither of us saw any really big fishies (the area is teeming with whale sharks from March to June) we did see lots and lots of little fishies and coral and turtles and eels and rays, and look forward to the opportunity to dive again in the Galapagos.