The Long Awaited Update

Well, many busy days have passed and I am glad to now have a chance to catch up on our adventures thus far and those to come . . .

We have picked up an extra member of our group - "Pete from Seattle" has become our honorary Canadian and welcome travel partner. He has rounded out our group of four nicely and we have all been having a great time together. I think Tim is probably quite happy having another male traveling companion - allowing him to avoid some of the inevitable conversation topics that have been arising between Amy, Brigitte, and me. Pete has been in Honduras for about 3 weeks before running across us in a pub in Antigua and has decided to spend his last couple of weeks along the same path as ours. And on Friday morning, after our day in Tikal we all got on a bus and started on our long journey to our Caribbean paradise.

Friday all in all was a pretty good day. A relatively painless 4 hour bus ride took us from Flores to Rio Dulce in Southeastern Guatemala. From there we hopped on a boat to head down river to the ocean. Our relative comfort ended quickly when they crammed 16 of us (along with 16 backpacks) onto a boat with four benches that seemed mildly crowded with 3 people per bench. Fortunately the incredible scenery allowed us to forgive the lack of space as we sped through the jungle on a massive river leading us out to Livingston. We consulted *the book* carefully and decided on a riverside hotel called Casa Rosada or Pink House. The boat dropped us off right at the pier of the hotel and we happily nestled into our little thatch huts, enjoyed a wonderful seafood dinner (Amy had pasta) and a couple of cervecas on the pier. We met a South African couple traveling with their 8 month old daughter who we plotted with to catch a boat to Puerto Barrios the next day.

Saturday morning found us enjoying a relaxed breakfast and then getting into another boat - this time a privately hired, and therefore spaciously comfortable - and zipping down the Atlantic shoreline of Guatemala to the port city of Puerto Barrios. We parted ways with the South Africans and hired a minivan to take us to the border. Now, we knew that we were going to have a long day of traveling ahead of us, but I think if everyone would have known how the day was going to end up I very well may have had no travel companions at all. The minivan ride across the Honduran border was uneventful and took about an hour. Once we arrived in the town of Corinta and got our passports stamped, we were herded rather quickly on what appeared to be a big yellow school bus. When I asked the minivan driver how long it would take us to get to San Pedro Sula he said two hours. Either he has never actually been there before, or he usually takes the trip by plane, because after three and a half hours we were bouncing our way into the city of Omoa, still an hour away from San Pedro. With our backsides sufficiently numbed, we loaded onto a minibus that took us into the downtown of the second biggest city in Honduras. With a boat, a minivan, a school bus and a minibus under our belts and 6.5 hours gone, we set out into the hectic city - and thankfully for all of us were only a couple of blocks from the next bus station. We found our next bus superficially less school bus looking, but basically the same idea, but with slightly softer seats, we were on what seemed to be the "luxury" bus. The luxury bus with 4 very grumpy, hot and tired Canadians, and one honorary Canadian in no better shape. Everyone's eyes got very big and there was much sighing and under-the-breath grumbling when I burst the bubble and told everyone it was a 3 hour bus ride instead of the one hour bus ride they were mistakenly thinking we were on. Four hours later we piled off the bus, even hotter, tireder, grumpier, and hungrier than we had previously been and took a taxi to the hotel Pete had highly recommended we all stay at. Everyone's eyes lit up when the Pizza Hut sign was noted next door, and our poolside dinner of pepperoni and cheese pizza allowed us all to happily unwind and finally be able to joke about our day. The consensus was that a pub night was in order, but I, after having spoken to arranged coordinated and argued with every bus, boat, minivan, minibus, and taxi driver along the way, decided if I talked to one more person I would probably not be able to maintain my sanity, went to bed.

Next time I travel in a group I refuse to be the only one who speaks the language . . . ;)

Sunday morning and we were off on the ferry to the island. A long day of searching around and we have landed ourselves a wonderful two storey wood cabin at a beach front resort complete with swimming pool for $150US a night. Between the 5 of us, not too bad at all. Last night we all sat on our screened porch and played cards (Pete went to bed the asshole and Brigitte is reigning President).

This morning we set up diving for Tim, Brigitte, and Pete this afternoon, while Amy and I are waiting to do a intro and refresher course tomorrow morning.

That is, unless we get hit by soon to be Hurricane Wilma . . .