Utila & Lago de Yojoa, Honduras

"Keep out or you will be shot". While Hondurans are certainly welcoming people, there is an echo of truth in this ominous warning. From the delights of El Salvador we are heading north for Honduras. Our next destination are the Bay Islands, located off the north coast, but getting here means a 2-day journey with a stopover in Santa Rosa de Copan.

Welcome to Honduras

Santa Rosa may well be a nice little town. Unfortunately, our short stay here was overshadowed by some truly horrific accommodation. An infestation of giant cockroaches, bedsheets that were last washed in the 1970's and rats scratching at the room door during the night weren't even the worst of it. That honour was reserved for the bathroom. Truly reminiscent from common depictions of South American prisons, this was fascinating in its awfulness. What may well have been intended as a shower was instead a pipe sticking out of the wall, and the toilets bore a troubling similarity to the infamous scene from Trainspotting. If only we had had the release of heroin we might have actually slept during the night. Or at least blacked out enough to forget this nightmare. Instead, the light remained on and our eyes alert to fend off the onslaught of insects and rodents. We've never been so happy to have a 6am departure just to get out of this hellhole.

Pier at the bottom of our garden

Thankful for the 6 hour bus journey, we finally took the chance to get some sleep as we headed north to the coast. After a somewhat choppy ferry ride, we made it to Utila, one of the Bay Islands set in the Caribbean sea. Utila is famous as a dive spot and there are plenty of tours and guides offering guaranteed swimming with whale sharks . Unfortunately, there's little else to do on Utila outside of diving. We made several failed attempts to visit one of the small uninhabited islands off-shore, but we couldn't overcome the typical Central American mentality of, "the Captain might show up with his boat. Or he might not". We also made the trek across Utila to visit what was billed as the best beach, but, typically, it was locked. At this stage, we were beginning to suspect that Honduras had it in for us. In the end, most of our time here was spent snorkelling and swimming of the pier just a few yards from our room. We also enjoyed some great seafood, including barracuda steak and fresh grilled snapper.

Looking for sharks

A few days on Utila was enough for us to experience all it has to offer outside of diving, so we made our way back south to a lake about 3 hours from the capital. Lago de Yojoa is in a beautiful setting, surrounded by mist-wreathed hills and quaint villages. Our accommodation, D&D Brewery, was located on the outskirts of Los Naranjos and, as the name suggests, it specialises in brewing its own beer. It's a lovely little place with great food, very welcoming staff and hammocks arranged around a fire-pit for the cooler evenings. More than one evening was spent chilling out and sampling their amber ale and porter.

Watching the sunrise while waiting for the Captain

From Los Naranjos, we made the short journey to Pulhapanzak Falls, a series of waterfalls culminating in a 42m drop. While on our visit, we hired a local guide to show us a path leading behind the waterfall. However, we didn't fully realise what this would entail: jumping into the cascading pools and fighting against the tide to reach the other side, and lurching blind through the ferocious curtain of water falling from above. At more than one point we doubted whether we'd make it back alive, but the final view of the sunlit trees from behind the waterfall made it all worthwhile. Unfortunately, this particular time of our trip was one of 'lost and found'. While Babs left her hat on a bus and we miraculously boarded precisely the same bus 2 days later and found the hat on the same parcel shelf, our small camera didn't fare so well. It was last seen heading for the Honduran capital, but is now likely in the hands of some dirty thieving gypsy. It did leave a slightly sour taste in the mouth after enduring so much in the waterfall trek and having no pictures to show for it. So here´s one from Google for you:

We went behind it.

Overall, Honduras was an interesting place. We met some really friendly people and stayed in probably the best and worst accommodation so far. There were plenty of sights and some great food. But it just didn't have the same feel as El Salvador. Perhaps it's down to the larger number of tourists that Honduras receives each year, but it just didn't have the same vibrancy to make us want to stay longer. We're looking forward to Nicaragua next to see if it can claim the title of 'best country'.