The morning after our visit to Semuc Champey we hiked out from the hostel leaving at 6.30am to catch our shuttle to Rio Dulce. There was about 8 of us all leaving that morning, and again it was one slippery walk. Phil being the clever chook that she is thought it might be best if she wears her sandals to save her shoes from getting all muddy again. It provided us with some early morning laughs, exactly what we needed to start a long day of travel.
After 30mins of walking we popped out onto the road where we all crammed into the back of a ute. A 40min drive and we were back in the little village of Lan Quin, in time to catch our shuttle. The roads to Rio Dulce were something else, it felt like we were driving down a really long windy gravel driveway with a ridiculous amount of potholes, and it took 5 hours. It was one of those days that I wish I had worn a bra. We also had to stop multiple times to pay what I thought might have been a road toll. It consisted of a few guys on the side of the road with two big long branches that they would put across the road to stop traffic going through. Once we had paid, they would then remove the branches and let us through. It was very unusual and did not seem legit at all.
Our arrival into Rio Dulce was timed very well with one of the local street parades. It was very colourful, vibrant and pretty funny to watch; but after a long shuttle ride we were eager to get to our hostel, so we weaved our way through the stilt walkers to our hostel called ‘The Shack’, and it was literally a shack sitting over the lake. The hostel consisted of one room and a few beds that sat above a bar. After the long shuttle we were craving a cold drink so we went down to the bar, and I swear we just found where all the redneck American’s from Alberkey, New Mexico go to retire. The bar was packed full of old white men with their strong American accent. They were telling us that they all live along the lake and that they boat around to the shack on Tuesdays and Thursdays for happy hour. They were absolute characters, dressed in their tropical shirts for tropical Tuesday. There was one American lady who had been on the lake for several years now and was complaining about how expensive the place is becoming. Sounds like they all go to the lake to retire early, and live what they see as being the good life, hey good on them.
Our original plan for staying in Rio Dulce was to use it as a stop over point before attempting to travel to Utila all in one day. The shuttle buses from Rio Dulce to La Ceiba were charging $90NZD which promised to get you to the ferry terminal in time for the afternoon ferry. There was no way we were willing to pay that ridiculous price, so instead we took the advice from a guy on trip advisor that said you could get from Livingston to Utila all in one day via the public transport system, and it was going to be quarter of the price of the shuttle. Now that’s winning.
So the following day we decided to head to Livingston on the 9am boat. It was a 2 hour boat ride across the lake until we reached the Caribbean coast where the small village is located. Unfortunately a storm passed through on our journey, so when we arrived we looked like downrats. The rain clouds can come and go very quickly, and when they open up it’s a torrential downpour, the kind of rain where you will be wet right through to your knickers within a few minutes. So as we arrived we took shelter for 15mins until the rain eased. In that time we got to observe the African culture of the Carribean town and we also saw a full on dog scrap, now that easy scary; especially coming from a country where dogs are seen as domesticated animals and are rarely vicious. Here you will often see a bunch of male dogs following around a female dog on heat, and then on the odd occasion there will be a fight when one of the male dogs challenges another for the female. I guess in New Zealand we fix our dogs so there is none of that carry on.
Our time in Livingston was brief, and because the weather wasn’t pleasant, we didn’t see much. Instead we spent the time prepping for our big day of travel, which mainly consisted of heading to the bank to try exchange some of our Guatemalan quetzals over into Honduran lempira. So there I was standing in front of the bank teller with my Spanish guide in one hand and a bunch of quetzals in the other. Thankfully one of the young bank tellers down the line heard me trying to speak broken Spanish and came to the rescue. With his aid we quickly realised that they didn’t have any of the Honduran currency and our best bet was to exchange our quetzals for US dollars. After overcoming that issue we then realised that they didn’t have any notes smaller than $50 US and no way was a border crossing going to have that much US change. That’s when the situation got interesting. Next thing we know the young bank teller was telling us he had some smaller US notes at home and that he could meet us after work to exchange them for the bigger notes. Blown away by his generosity we were a little bit hesitant at first until we realised that it was really our only option. After agreeing we realised that our new friend from the bank, Mauro, lived right next door to our hostel so it was easy for him to pop over after work to do the exchange.
On our walk home from the bank, we were blown away again by the generosity of strangers. Phil managed to get talking to some travellers who gave us the last of their Honduran Lempiras. On a high after our luck, it was time for dinner, and after we grabbed a tuktuk back to our hostel to skip the rain and get back in time for our meeting with the bank teller.
Mauro showed just before 7pm. He was the most loveliest human, you could tell that he was excited to be able to help us. He had one cordless ear phone in one ear which I didn’t question at the time but later realised that he had someone on the phone helping him translate our English to Spanish and vice versa. The translator ended up being Mauro’s boyfriend who lives in New York City. After we did our money exchange we ended up talking to Mauro for at least an hour. We even passed the ear phone around so we all got to speak to Stephen. It was a very strange but lovely encounter, one that I can’t imagine would happen back home.
That night we packed up our bags, made sure everything was waterproof and locked up in preparation for a big day of travel.
In the morning we woke to our alarm at 4.45am. Our first boat was scheduled to leave at 5.30am from the main dock to Puerto Barrios. We quickly put on some clothes, chucked on our backpacks and walked 15mins in the dark to the dock. The boat to Puerto Barrios took 40mins. It was a very smooth ride and we even got to see the sun rise up behind the main port where the Dole (banana) export boats are located. From the dock in Puerto Barrios we wandered a few blocks up through what seemed like a ghost town until we managed to find our first collectivo that was to take us to the border. A collectivo is a shuttle bus except there will always be one guy hanging out the door yelling our destination at people down the street. We will then make multiple stops picking up and dropping off people as we go. It’s definitely not the fastest form of transport but it is the cheapest.
When we arrived to the border we went to one of the buildings where we lined up at the window to get our exit stamp and then lined up at the window next door to get our entrance stamp. It was one smooth border crossing.
We then walked 200 metres up the road in search for the next bus. As we got close a bus in the distance started reversing towards us and a guy popped open a door out the back of the bus and yelled at us in Spanish. We managed to catch our destination among the yelling so climbed in through the door and fell into a seat with our bags on and everything. We then had a full on conversation with him in Spanish about how much we owed him. It worked out that for two of us to Puerto Cortes, our next destination, it was going to cost 118L, 2L less than what the strangers in the street gave us yesterday. Lucky for us because there was no way they were going to accept our US dollars.
After an hour and a half on the bus we got dropped at our next stop to catch a collectivo to San Pedro Sula. We were ushered out the back of the bus and there waiting was another man, again yelling our destination at us. We crossed the road and hoped in his van and off we went to the next place. It all happened super fast, no need to wait at the bus stop in this part of the world. Seeing as we were out of Lempiras and they wouldn’t accept our US dollars, our driver showed us to an ATM when we arrived at the metropolitan bus terminal. Once we paid the driver he showed us where we could get our tickets for the next bus. Here we negotiated the price of our tickets, each of us laughing as we slowly came to an agreement. Unfortunately we just missed the 12pm bus and so we had to wait until the next one at 1pm. This was a good chance for us to grab some lunch before the next leg of the journey. The terminal was huge, busy, and there was only one other white person in sight. It was a little uncomfortable the amount of people staring at us, especially some of the men, they obviously didn’t get taught that its rude to stare.
Unfortunately our next bus was running an hour late so we didn’t end up departing the terminal until 2pm. This meant we were going to well and truly miss the afternoon ferry to Utila and so we would have to stay in La Ceiba. We were both a little bit guttered we weren’t going to get to Utila in one day, it felt like we were on the amazing race and we had just failed. However, we did get to experience the public transport and also saved a good chunk of cash. We even found out later that someone who had paid for the shuttle didn’t even get to the ferry on time and that it was all a big scam. That made us feel better.
The next bus was the most interesting one yet. About 5mins into the trip we picked up a bunch of locals off the street that were trying to sell food and “agua”. We even had two clowns hop onto the bus that were busking for money. Unfortunately I couldn’t understand anything they were saying but there was no dount about it, it was very bizarre. On top of that I witnessed an accident scene out the window, and then the bus started to leak when we hit a rainstorm. It had been a really big day, and I remember thinking how much I would love to be on an interlink or naked bus from back home right now.
The bus dropped us just outside of the centre city of La Ceiba so we grabbed a taxi to our hostel. Unsure about the safety of the city, we quickly walked a block to grab some street food and then headed straight back to the hostel. It was our first taste of the famous Baleada, a local speciality. Soon after dinner it was bed for us.
The next morning we jumped in a very run down taxi and headed straight to the ferry terminal. The ferry was a quick 1 hour ride to the island of Utila, we even managed to see some dolphins in that time. Utila was where my old flatmate Olivia lived for 4 months earlier this year and so it was from her recommendation that we had decided to head to the island to do some diving. It is also roughly quarter the price of what it costs to dive in Belize. As the island came into sight it just looked like paradise, beautiful blue skies, and turquoise water. It was hard not to get excited, especially after having had so much rain. It took a long time to get there but my god it was worth it. But more on Utila in the next post.
Pip's Journal 