Hellish Honduras!

In an earlier post, Jess talked about our hellish trip to Honduras via the ferry, the city bus, and finally the luxury bus....this video clip was taken on the local city bus in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. We had just gotten off the ferry (and I am using the word ¨ferry¨very liberally as it looked more like a Cuban refugee boat- the only two options were to sit in the covered area and smell the puke of the other passengers or sit on the outside and get drenched as giant waves splashed over the sides- 4hours of pure hell for $50.00 per person), and were looking for a bus to La Ceiba. We thought we were in heaven when we found the bus. It was empty, had airconditoning (VERY rare in Central America), had window shades to block the sun, and cost about $.50. Well, our celebration was a bit premature. The bus would not leave until it was completely full. Once all the seats were filled up we figured we´d be on our way. Oh no...there were jumper seats that filled the aisles. Once almost every nook and craney of the bus was full (we were sitting on 1 backpack and the other backpack was in our lap) we began the trip. However, a minute later the bus was stopped by the cops. Yes, Jess and I thought...they are pulling the bus over because the 15 person capacity bus now has 41 people(yes, 41!) and they are going to remove some people. Nope...it was just a weapons search. Every man (only men) on the bus had to get off (with thier luggage) and get frisked by the police...check out the video and see if you can count all 41 of us!

Roatan, Honduras.....The Diving was Amazing

We were not planning on going to Honduras, but somethings you just don´t want to go back to Guatemala City just to take a bus through El Salvador. After our great Belize experience at Caye Caulker we decided to take a "ferry" from Placencia, Belize to Puerto Cortes, Honduras. The ferry was just a 41 foot boat packed with people... refugee style ... complete with pucking people and screaming babies. The boat even broke down a few times due to the debrie, but don´t worry a boathand would then take a broom to the motor to disloge the objects. There were some packed bus rides and a night in a bad hotel (Amsterdam 2001) along with another ferry ride to get to Roatan, an island off of Honduras.
The first day we stayed on the west end and took a beautiful 3 mile walk on the beach to West Bay Beach where all the expensive hotels were located. We enjoyed a beach chair and the cool caribbean waters. The next day I went out with a great dive company (Ocean Connection) and did 3 dives. The company was great and my dives had 3 to 4 divers with me and a divemaster and a divemaster in trainning. We went down to 70 feet and I saw lots of tropical fish, sea fans, a turtle, and a nurse shark. I did two great wall dives and got to go through shoots and small caves. The next day my dive buddy who lives in Honduras gave us a ride to the capital. This was a 7 hour trip with Chris and Jess...no easy feat...thanks Micheal!!!!!!