Hotel Portal del Angel Tegucigalpa

... of a non-islander in years; the last person to die was from free diving in caves – complete and utter madness!

Diving

The main reason to visit Utila is to dive. As mentioned in my previous blog there are tons of different dive schools, all offering different vibes, accommodation, deals etc. The courses are all pretty standard, open water, advanced, search and rescue, dive masters and instructor. Because you spend the majority of your time ...

... andele, un dollar," and a dollar was the magic word I latched onto. So, I grabbed a pack and handed the girl a dollar. She took the pack right out of my hand and shook her head and said something else I didn't really understand. All I heard was "no," and next thing I knew I had 4 of these double packs amounting to 8 single use things of Head and Shoulders in a tiny black plastic bag. I was pleasantly surprised to ...

... that fills the air and my senses, one element is missing...heat with humidity. This city is several thousand feet above sea level and sits in a valley. Actually the airport with its very short runway is in this valley, too and the approach is full of sharp turns with mountains higher than the wings on either side.

Just a quick wander around downtown wakes up the senses in every way. I actually do not believe the people here have any sense of ...

... becca was desperate so we went and watched a kids film for a dollar, but still understood nothing) and a pizza hut because we didnīt want to wander too far. I donīt think we left a 4 block radius of the hotel for the 2 days we were there. Then it was another cab to the next bus station to make the border with niguragua. Which was a long day but pretty uneventfull as border crossing go.

... way and only paid 5 lempiras (.25). We found an extremely nice hotel in the center right away for $5 per person. That considered, and the fact that we were surrounded by reasonably priced American fast food, we decided to stay two nights. Itīs not often you find a room with cable, air conditioning and a clean bathroom for that price. Took in some local cuisine (McDonaldīs) and then made our way across town to check out a soccer game we had heard about when we were ...

... but a smaller version, the picture speaks for itself) and numerous colonial churches. I also spent a night in Santa Rosa de Copan, a cool mountain town with cobblestone streets and a large coffee factory (of course) but also a cigar factory. The processing plant of the coffee was interesting but the best was the Flor de Copan cigar factory. I could not take any pictures inside, which is a shame because it was very impressive. Over a thousand people ...

Set off after lunch to move towards the capital, stopped at a truck park just outside of town. 25th -We left this morning to go back to the capital, arrived about 8.30 and went to the immigration office. We understood this opened at 7 am, wrong again; it did not open till 9. That said we just waited in the vehicle and went in later, we managed to get the passports back by 9.30 with no trouble at all. It was then off ...

... one learns from an early age - but unfortunately it seems that the rare appearance of a cloud-free sun roused in me an excitement that overcame my common sense. I must point out that I did put sun cream on (almost) every inch of exposed skin, but it would appear that the back of my upper thighs havenīt seen rays of this strength, or perhaps even any form of daylight, in their lifetime, and so have turned the most pink shade of pink imaginable. Nah, just kidding; I'm not that ...

... appearances of such. The shanty towns around Tegucigalpa even had a better appearance (poverty is certainly there, but with more dignity!). The only thing that seems to be equal in both countries is friendliness, although Nicaraguas have a friendlier face up to now! Anyway, it was in any case a long travelling day which involved 4 buses even though it was only 200 kms from our base at Ocotal (Nicaragua) to Valle de Angeles (Honduras). We took ...

... and even during the day you should watch your pockets" We ventured out, i wanted to find a cheap camera which i did. I just hoped it wouldnt get stolen on the way home before i had a chance to use it. After the obligatory stop at Burger King which came complete with 2 guards armed with pump action shotguns ( oh it reminded me of Guatemala) and watching the newsabout a plane crash in the capital that morning we headed across the Rio Choluteca to ...