Guatemala to Nicaragua
Trip Start
Jun 09, 2005
1
5
6
Trip End
Aug 11, 2005
Grenada,
Nicaragua
Monday, July 11, 2005
All is well! We've travelled further south now to reach Nicaragua. We're staying at the colonial town of Grenada which is situated next to Lake Nicaragua. Since we reach here we've had a fantastic week, the highlight being the bay island of Roatan. I shall tell you more about this in a sec!
Thursday 30th June we arrive in Antigua where we dropped off the some of the group and pick up some more new guys, there have been the hard core few who have stayed on! In Antigua we took a day trip to the nearby Volcan Pacaya, which we climbed. As it was active we didn't hike right to the top, however we walked through the old lava flows which was pretty cool! The walk ended up being about 4 hours, the best bit of which was running down the side of the volcano in ankle deep scree! got some great photos of this!!
From Antigua, Guatemala, we crossed the border into Honduras, to stay at the town of Copan and visit the Copan ruins, the last Mayan ruins of the tour. The local guide made the tour of the site interesting but after quite a few Mayan sites now, I think I've had enough!! At Copan I also did horse riding with some others up to a hillside village. This was a good laugh although I did managed to get myself the oddest horse who I thought was gonna buck at any moment....quite a experience!
Survided the horse ride and we moved on to Tela on the Carribean coast. This town was the old hub of Honduras's previous banana export industry, a lively city in the day but we were warned not to venture out drinking as night as it was very dodge!! We thought it was a bit odd as we were walking back along the beach from a hotel where we had had lunch and there was a group of about 30, 10 year olds who were doing some school sports class. They were all standing on each others shoulders but fell down when Kinal, Arma and I walked by, they then all started crowding round us and heckling...didn't fell really threatened but it lead us to think what were their older brothers like... The sky movies in our rooms ended up being our nights entertainment!
The next day we left Tela and took a 2 hour ferry ride to the fantastic Honduran Carribean island of Roatan...it was absolutely beautiful, even better than Caye Caulker in Belize. Much bigger too, with mountains and some rainforest. The most important bit however, were beautiful coral white sandy beaches and great bars with even better cocktails! We were on Roatan for a total of 3 nights. We didn't really do that much apart from snorkeling and sunbathing but it was heaven. The only hellish bit was the bloody sand flies. Left the beach on the first day with 30 all over my back and legs. I couldn't actually feel them, not even the bite, so wasn't bothered until the next morning when I had the itchiest back eva! The beach was not so appealing that day but did it anyway and had the ingenious plan of hiring sun loungers and sleeping on them in the water....no more bites for me...just a great tan!
Roatan has been the best place so far for night life...we had such a wicked time in the evenings. It was really cool cos everyone staying at Westend, went to the same 3 bars each evening...starting off at the sunset bar, moving onto twisted toucan after that the black pearl. There were lots of men about as well who were always will to buy us drinks...even better!
We didn't want to leave Roatan as we've had to undertake some mammoth travelling days. First was a 7 hour journey to the capital of Honduras, Telgucigalpa. Didn't see much here apart from Pizza Hut! Then we had another 7 hour journey to the capital of Nicuagra, Managua. This city was a bit dodge too so we visited the mall, did some shopping and watched Mr and Mrs Smith at the cinema...loved it!
So 1 hours bus from Mangua and we're here in Grenada....so..thats all folk's!
Hope everyones safe and well.
