The Keepers of the Seven Cayos

They call the small Caribbean islands and islets Cayos - or "Keys" to the norteamericanos - and we certainly did visit our good share of them. On the last day on Isla Utila we stopped did the first dive of the morning at the nearby Diamond Caye and spent the surface interval snacking and sunning at a café on the Pigeon Caye where they had rescued a few baby turtles - that get flushed on to the shores occasionally - and a tiny nurse shark and were keeping them in confined seawater until they'd get bigger and stronger to be released. Great last day of diving all in all, encountered two seahorses and other small stuff in the sand between the corals.

After 9 splendid days on the island doing little else but diving, we felt like doing something else for a few days before leaving the region. And after several people at Alton's had recommended a jungle lodge near La Ceiba to us, we booked a cabin there. A bit pricey, the Omega Tours Eco Lodge was a very pleasant hideout in the valley by the river, covered by jungle and surrounded by mountains. Many people on Utila told us to definitely do a local waterfall hike there, and while not quite living up to the hype, the 3-4 hours trip up and down the mountain to swim and shower under the waterfalls (taller one had a 60m vertical drop section and indeed was quite a sight) was refreshing and provided the long overdue physical exercise. While not steeper than the previous hikes on the trip, this one required a bit more technical skill (even used ropes at one point) due to the huge rocks as slippery as wet ice. Riikka had some trouble with the tallest bits with her short reach, so I ended up tossing the dwarf a few times, but nobody told the elf.

We haven't really been listening to (our) music in something like a month. So on this morning's bus ride from La Ceiba to San Pedro Sula I fired up the laptop (which doubles as our only music player) and listened through Iron Maiden's genius album Somewhere In Time while working on the last set of Honduran photos. Good stuff! Really hit the spot after three weeks of almost pure reggae diet. While the weather at the moment inland is gray and rainy, when I'll think of Honduras in the future, the images in my mind will certainly be those of the lush jungles and the gorgeous turquoise waters of the Bay Islands. With careful calculation the night before, we ended up at the La Ceiba airport with 5$ worth of Lempiras in our pocket, which we used to buy baleados - the tasty local burrito with excess bean paste - and one last Salva Vida beer! 

Central America recap

The travel possibilities in the Central American region have been even better than I was hoping for. The transportation - i.e. the bus - is inexpensive and while not exactly fast, the small size of the region makes travel times doable. We've liked all the countries - Nicaragua and Honduras perhaps the most, at least we ended up spending the most time in those two. Belize was amazingly beautiful but rather expensive and offers little what Honduras - which is about 50% cheaper - does not. It's a shame we didn't make it to El Salvador, as that would probably have been the most exciting one of all with the lack of tourism infrastructure compared to it's neighbors. It's such a travel cliché to say "the local people are so nice there" but a few days ago we saw a police cruiser stop by a homeless beggar, an officer get out of the car and hand the man a few notes before driving off. Draw your own conclusions. 

Rough costs of usual things:

• entering a country through onland crossing: 0-12$
• onland departure tax: 0-3$ (Belize 4-37$ depending on the crossing point)
• airport departure tax: 37$ (Honduras, others probably similar amounts)
• night in a hostel double room 15-25$. Most often with shared bath/toilet and without hot water. Dorm prices per person were almost the same.
• dinner 3-5$ (5-10$ in Costa Rica & Belize)
• a whole large lobster on the Caribbean coast 15-20$
• 0.33 bottle of beer 1$ (1.5-2.5$ in Costa Rica and Belize and parts of Guatemala)
• an hour (anything from 20km to 80km depending on terrain, the bus and the driver) on a bus 0.75-1$
• half-day hiking/etc trip 20-30$
•  full-day trip such as rafting 50$, includes lunch usually
• getting a weeks worth of laundry for 2 people done 3-5$ (Belize 6-10$)
• 2 tank diving trip 50-55$ (Panama & Honduras, includes snacks and possibly accommodation in Honduras) to 100$ (Belize, includes nothing)
•  meeting tons of fun people: free!

So this is the end of the first and longest single leg of the trip. Next on the menu is the Andean highlands and coasts of South America. We have only done rudimentary planning on what the route will be, but with the ~20 hours of travel still ahead of us today there should be plenty of time to start looking into it in more detail and I'm sure we can hit most of the goodies of the area has to offer in the 4-5 weeks we have scheduled for the second leg. In other words it's time to open up the good old Lonely Planet South America (this is the book's 4th trip down here). But first: some nethack.



See all the Honduran photos here!



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