Honduras and Nicaragua: Gemma's Thoughts

Our first stop in Honduras was Copan Ruinas, a small, scruffy town that is just over the border from Guatemala, and our last stop on our Mayan tour. Although we felt a little on edge, the town seemed quiet and sleepy, and there was very little hassle which made a nice change. After crossing the border in the dark we arrived at our hostel and settled into a large, comfy room. We took a short stroll but opted to eat at the restaurant opposite the hostel. I always feel a little uncomfortable arriving somewhere after sunset and much prefer to get my bearings in the daylight hours.

 

I was surprised how similar Honduras is to Guatemala, maybe this is because we are only just over the border or maybe it is because much of Latin America feels quite similar, and we are still in Mayan territory. After a whistle-stop tour of Copan and the ruins, which were the most ornate so far, we set off for our overnight stop in the city and planned to leave Honduras the next day.

Honduras has been my least favourite country, but perhaps I'm being a little unfair. Both of us are homesick, which doesn't help but it is also a slightly smaller, less interesting version of where we have spent the last six weeks - maybe if we had come hear first then I would speak more highly of it.

With Christmas coming we tried to make plans but timings worked against us. Buses were already full and skirting through the country quickly soon became impossible. We got stuck in San Pedro Sula, the second largest city in Honduras, for three nights instead of one. It is fairly dangerous there, and we had little to no chance of venturing out. The hostel was fairly decent though, and as everyone else used it for a one night stop over we had a constant flow of people to share stories with.

We left on Christmas Eve via a 14 hour bus journey to Managua, the capital of Nicaragua, which is another dangerous, dirty city, an hour away from Granada - where we wanted to be. Still, being Christmas, we had made the most of it and ourselves booked into the Lonely Planet's "top pick" hotel complete with air con and pool.

But it didn't work out that way. We woke up on Christmas morning in an absolute dive, Darren close to depression and me constantly in floods of tears.Without even unpacking, we put our bags on our backs, I flagged the nearest taxi and we began making our way to the bus station. On enquiring, the taxi driver said he would take us all the way to Granada for $40. After a quick discussion that consisted of "sod it, it's Christmas!" we were bombing up the duel carriage way, windows down, sun shining, music playing and smiles on our faces.

Granada is a great place and we got lucky with the hostel - small pool, loads of space and only $20 a night! We arrived by lunchtime, so there was plenty of time for a wander. We were both starving so some nice food was a priority. We stumbled across a posh hotel just off the central park and browsed the menu. Normally the prices would have scared us away, but after another short "sod it, it's Christmas" conversation, we were sitting at a table with more than one set of cutlery each and a leather bound menu trying to decide between whiskey or blue cheese sauce for our expensive steaks! The food was fantastic! Now we had smiles on our faces and full bellies. It was a happy Christmas after all!

Wandering back through the square the heavens opened and we ran for cover where we bumped into a couple we had met in Honduras. We arranged to go out for dinner with them the following day.

Nicaragua was turning out to be fun, a lovely place with lots of people to talk to and nice places to stay. It was unfortunate that we missed a lot of it. I wanted to see Leon, another colonial town, but the man selling the bus tickets told us it didn't go there (it did, and lots of people got off) and I also wanted to go to Ometepe, a volcanic island in a huge lake with beautiful waterfalls and rock pools to swim in, but the buses were mostly full so we had to miss it out in order to be in Costa Rica in time for the start of our tour (four days early!)

We did spend a couple of days at a crater lake called Apoyo which was beautiful. Stunning scenery, clear water and a little beach. The hostel there had a large balcony which over looked the lake with palm trees framing the view perfectly. It was like something from the movies! We spent our time relaxing by the water swinging in hammocks and I ventured out in a kayak for a better view. There were a few expensive looking villas with sailing boats moored outside that were only visible from the lake which wouldn't have been out of place in a James Bond film, but apart from that, we were on our own! Truly a piece of untouched paradise.