We sped through El Salvador so that we could spend Christmas in the Bay Islands on Utila. Having both had a rough go of scuba diving in Croatia and we were excited to give it another go in Honduras. The second biggest coral reef in the world extends down from Belize and into the Bay islands. It also happens to be one of the cheapest places in the world to dive. We cruised up from El Salvador to a little American owned brewery in the middle of the jungle, D&D Brewery. It was a perfect place to spend a couple of days hiking in the cloud forest, exploring the local fincas (coffee plantations), meeting some really great people and drinking delicious homebrew. We actually parked at a finca next door to the brewery and got our own private pool and a beautiful river coursing right next to our rig. We met some really cool Canadians, Brittany and Greg, camping their way through Central America who were headed up to Utila as well, so we took on our first hitchhikers!
Utila was a little slice of heaven. It’s a tiny island that’s untouched from all the cruise boats in the Caribbean and keeps its little town charm. And it’s still super cheap. We parked our rig in the secured lot at the ferry port and caught the ferry to Utila. AJ and I got to ride on the back of the boat outside with Alex which turned out to be one of the best seats in the house! We splurged and got a nice hotel room on a hill overlooking the ocean that welcomed Alex. Utila has one main street wide enough for a tuk tuk on either side, is full of dive centers, restaurants, mini-supers, little shops, and bars. We met tons of super cool people at our hotel, our favorites were a group of Swedes that offered to share the boat they rented out to Water Caye for a day of snorkeling and swimming in crystal blue waters. We ended up diving throughout the week and loving it! We had a tiny Australian dive instructor who was very patient and let us go at our own pace. In the end we both dove 8 times each for the bargain price of $15/dive! Utila definitely found a special place in our heart, the people, the food, the water. The only thing we could have done without is the constant sand fleas, but even they couldn’t stop us from going back.
With NYE rapidly approaching we decided to go to back to D&D brewery and meet up with our other Canadian friends, Dan and Heather, whom we met in Guatemala. This time we parked right in the brewery’s lot next to our friends. NYE ended up being a crazy party, the owner of the brewery, brought out a big box of fireworks and everyone just started setting them off in the street. Alex has had a hard time with the bombas but apparently he is starting to get used to them because the camper was still in one piece at the end of the night. Our original plan was to start making our way to Nicaragua, but as we’ve found out its best to just go with the flow.
At this point in our trip we had planned on already crossing from Panama to Columbia, but as you can tell we are way behind our “schedule”. But we also hadn’t planned on loving Central America as much as we have. It’s beautiful, cheap, always some adventure whether it’s hiking volcanoes or climbing around in cloud forests. The people are so kind as well. We have never felt threatened, only witnessed people going out of their way to make us feel more welcome in their country. So needless to say we have stayed longer and loved every second. When we heard that our good friends from home would be on Roatan, another of the Bay Islands, we decided that we had to make it happen.
We killed a couple of days at the brewery, then back tracked to the Copan Ruins with our Canadian friends Dan and Heather who decided to go to Roatan with us. The Copan Ruins were very well preserved and quite the sight to see. We proceeded into the jungle north of Copan to the Luna Juagar Hot Springs. After an hour of rough switch backs we arrived at our destination, to find a luke warm pool and a flat spot to park. It wasn’t the best Hot Springs of the trip, but it was nice to soak after a few days of driving.
The next day we drove to La Ceiba, to catch the ferry to Roatan. We left our truck in the secured lot at the port and hopped on the fancier ferry to the biggest of the bay Islands, Roatan. The four of us rented a little jungle cabin that came with its own tree house! We spent the week hanging out on the beach, snorkeling, playing cards, reading, and just enjoying being out of the car. And the highlight for us was our friends from Colorado who came to visit, but I’ll let them tell you in their own words…
We travelled the West on Caribbean coast of Honduras to Trujillo, the oldest spanish settlement in Honduras. We drove south from Trujillo to La Tigra National Park, which involved an intense mud filled 4×4 drive but we had our good friends driving with us. La Tigra, was gorgeous we entered the park from El Rosario, which is an old mining town. The Drive to the trailhead switchbacked above the town for 2000 feet, it was similar to ouray, but with a jungle surrounding it. We hiked through a lush cloud forest and passed many beautiful waterfalls, before heading to the Pacific Coast to enter into Nicaragua at Somotillo.
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