Coming Home!

Well here we are, finally come to the last blog about travels. It was definitely sad coming home after such an amazing 6 weeks, but we were both ready to come home I think. The last week of our travels had been a lot ‘so where do you wanna go next?’, ‘What would you like to do today?’ e.t.c It had got a little bit tiring, especially since we knew we were coming home soon, and that we were soon going to run out of money.

Apart from that though, our holiday traveling around Guatemala and Honduras was absolutely fantastic. If anyone ever has to opportunity to travel just a little bit, honestly please do. You get to meet so many people, see so many things that you wouldn’t normally find on a normal holiday. Yes there is a lot of time spent on busses, but those in themselves are great as you wind through the countryside, you get to see all of those fascinating little villages full of the local people, going about their daily business, like bringing the wood down from the mountain upon their heads, or making thousands of tortillas to sell to the rest of the village later in the day.

I loved Guatemala, really loved it. If I can, I do plan on going back for a few days, but it is just such an amazing country, it has some incredible natural volcanoes, rivers and lakes. It has the really high touristy locations, but it also has the local communities dotted around the place. Sadly we didn’t get to explore the whole of Guatemala, such as up in the north (Flores, Tikal and Livingston), due to our time limit, but we have heard amazing things from our friends who went their on their holiday.

One thing about traveling which I found popped up quite often was that you meet people who have had bad experiences, and this is all they really focus on when they talk about one place, so quite often they were putting people off that place. When traveling you do have to be aware, very aware, of the people around you (I caught Ally putting his hand in my pocket a few times .... well .... ummm .....not really!). You do have to look after your belongings and honestly you will be fine, Ally and I didn’t have any problems at all, the only thing we lost was when Ally left a book at one of the lodges we stayed in. We were just sensible about knowing where each other was, knowing where out luggage was on busses and locking things up when we had the chance. It definitely does help that we could both speak spanish, as we were able to barter down prices of rooms and bus journeys, ask for directions and and ask about safety and things. But we met a lot of people who couldn’t speak any spanish and were doing just fine without it, it is inevitable that you will pick up a few phrases even in just a few short weeks that will help you out.

Anyway, this entry was just a few thoughts about traveling and coming home, which was very weird as we were driven through our village, seeing all of the changes that had been made, even then going around and saying hello to everyone was a little strange after such a long time, but we soon fell into a great routine once more, going to Mary Lou’s for lunch and dinner, going to the beach, learning about the ridiculous school hour times! (Literally, we didn’t teach since mid november, and didn’t start until 6th february, but now we don’t really get any more time off until we fly home).

Anyway, hope you liked this entry, and if anyone reading this ever gets the chance to travel ... DO IT!!

Till next time,

Ciao!

Getting kicked out of a country, and exploring the capital!

I know it has been like a seriously long time since coming home, and I am only now getting round to writing the penultimate one, but it does get hard, and I am sure you know that I am not much of a big writer so .... here we go ...

Our next stop after La Union was going to be El Salvador for a couple of days, but unfortunately, they wouldn’t let us past the border, even though we had all the right stamps and everything, for some reason, they would only let us pass if we payed $114 for 4 days worth of El Salvadorian goodness ... ummmm .... HELL TO THE NO!! So we got our stuff back off of the bus and headed back into Honduras, however, this time of day it was already quite late and Ally and I had done a lot of travelling already so we decided to stay in the very quiet and dirty town of Nuevo Ocatepeque, pretty much just a local stop off for the border. This town didn’t have much to it so we spent most of the afternoon in out hotel room watching MTV and laughing at the stupid programmes. 

The next morning we got on the bus at about 4 in the morning, and got prepared for the 10 hour journey to Tegucicalpa, the capital city of Honduras. When we arrived, we did a little bit of exploring but took it quite easy for that afternoon. The next few days we spent walking around ‘Teguc’, seeing the sights and even visiting a local national park, which was very nice, having a great stroll through some gorgeous landscapes. In Teguc we also found this amazing licuado shop, basically any compination of fruit you can think of, blended up with milk or water and put in a bag for about a pound! Bargain in my eyes, we also got to see some really amazing churches and other such buildings, including the biggest Mall I have ever seen, and the most glamourous, the cleanest e.t.c ... here we even managed to watch the new Sherlock Holmes film, and grab some fast food (Subway and Burger King, which we had both been craving!) Tegucicalpa was very nice, but like any other big city, parts are dirty and you really have to watch yourself as it can be dangerous, especially for ‘Gringos’.

So after a few days spent in the capital, we caught a bus back to the familiar La Ceiba where we were planning on staying at a great river lodge and doing some rafting e.t.c, however we did have to spend a night in La Ceiba first, so we just went out for a nice meal at ‘La Super Baleada’ this place that serves Baleadas bigger than me ... if I were about the size of a very large plate, which I am not so .... I ... Errr .....

Anyway, the next morning we headed of to Jungle River Lodge and got there quite early so we organised to rafting right away and were greeted by a very friendly guide who got us our equipment and away we were, heading further up river where we were going to do some river scrambling and jumping (including one where we had to have a running start, but as I was shuffling along to launch point on my bum, I slipped and nearly dragged the guide and myself down into danger region, luckily I managed to stop, but then had to get over my fear of running down a very slippery slope in slippery shoes, before pushing off into unknown depths below ... I did it ... eventually ... after a couple of hours .... I joke (a little bit!).

The next part of the trip was floating down all of the rapids we had climbed over and getting the raft so we could go over some class 3 and 4 rapids. This was fantastic, Ally, he guide and I working as a team and going over some truly fun rapids while the guide shouted directions to us, like ‘faster, faster’, ‘Turn, turn’ or even ‘Shit, not that way, quickly paddle!!’ :O  Anyway, as we were coming up to the end, he says ‘did you wanna tip the boat?’ so we agreed ... after some persuasion on Ally’s part and we headed to the more dangerous part of the rapids, which I thought were like Class 3. We went over this one bump and boat just flicked and the others managed to stay in whilst I went flying and landed in the rapids, so I was whisked along trying to grap on but couldn’t manage to get a hold on any of the rocks, so I started to panic as I was hurtling towards this monster of a rock, just managing to get my legs up in time before I was crushed, and then only just rescued by my crew as Ally was too preoccupied to save my life. Luckily I managed to back in the boat, but by this time we had drifted a little past the banking point, so we had to find a new one and walk a little back to the car that was taking us back!

The next day, we soon headed back to the centre of La Ceiba before we caught the ferry and headed back to Roatan, finally after 6 long, but amazing weeks ...

Till Next Time,

Ciao!