Honduras

It was an ambitious target to set, but I reckoned if all went well we could just about make it from Granada in Nicaragua to the caribbean coast of Honduras in one long day. Everything started well with an early bus from Granada to the Nicaraguan capital, Managua and then an easy connection to Ocotal near the border, and another connection on a local bus to the border itself.

Immigration was grand as there was only a tiny queue (luckily enough, as each person took ages to be processed, with more exit and entrance fees being charged ($2US and $3US respectively), and handwritten receipts being issued). But it all fell apart once we started travelling through Honduras!

Luckily enough we found a really helpful immigration official who spoke great English, and he explained that the only direct bus from the border that travelled any large distance wasn't due until 2pm that afternoon. Instead we'd have to get a series of 3 local buses to make it to the Honduran capital, from where we could get connections to the north coast.

We had to wait about 45 minutes for the first bus to depart the border (only travelling 12 kms), then we got an immediate connection on another bus the next 20 kms, before having to wait about an hour for the third connection to the capital (which gave us plenty of time for lunch). Once there though the trouble really began - fustratingly the various bus companys all have their own terminals, they tend to be scattered all over the place and they also appear to move location (as our guidebooks got their locations consistently wrong). It also means when you arrive at one company's terminal and want to get a connection with another company you have to get a taxi to the second terminal.

As always the taxi drivers are guaranteed to try and rip you off, and since the bus terminals had moved from the locations mentioned in our books, we had no idea how far the taxi ride would be and therefore no idea what a fair taxi price should be. Anyway, the first taxi brought us out to a connecting company´s terminal, but due to the earlier delays we had missed the onward bus by about 30 minutes. That would have meant another taxi to a different company to try a bus to a different place along our intended route, but they were all quoting crazy prices (probably knowing we had no idea where we were), but luckily Sarah managed to find out that a local bus would take us there more or less directly to where we wanted to go.

So getting the local bus (literally one-twentieth the cheapest price quoted by the taxi drivers!) we arranged to get a bus to San Pedro Sula, as close to the coast as we could get that night. It gave us time to order a Chinese for dinner, but we had to take it away as they took so long to prepare it. We only ordered one meal between us (portion sizes this whole trip have been huge, and so we now routinely just order one main course between us, except in the mad fancy places of course!), but this one turned out to be hugest one yet - it literally fed us that night, the next morning and we only finished it for lunch the next day.

Arriving in San Pedro Sula we discovered that the bus company terminal had moved miles outside the city. It was mad late now, and so we were forced to get yet another rip-off taxi. Luckily the hostel recommended in the guidebook turned out to be really nice and the guy there was very helpful the next morning negotiating with taxi drivers on our behalf to get us to yet another bus terminal. We had started very early again in the morning hoping to make it to the coast to catch a 9am ferry to the Bay Islands, our ultimate destination.

As it turned out, even locals and taxi drivers can get totally confused by the whole multiple-bus-company-terminal thing, as the terminal our taxi driver dropped us at was the wrong place. Luckily a guy was just leaving though to go to the correct location, and so he took us with him. Basically we had to walk about 10 minutes, catch a local minibus and get off in the middle of nowhere were in fact the correct bus was waiting for us (without that friendly local guy bringing us with him we would never have made that bus).

As it turned out we arrived in La Ceiba (which is close to the ferry point) a little before 9am but I needed to organise money and use internet banking, and the only ATM in the area didn't work. So resigned to missing the 9am ferry we just got a bus into the city centre (one less taxi thank god), and relaxed for most of the day waiting for the 4pm ferry instead (after being falsely informed by some local guy that there was an 11am ferry, and being told by the official tourist office that no ferries run on the weekend - they actually run every day!).

So we finally arrived on the Bay Island of Utila in the caribbean at 5pm, only half-a-day after our ambitious target. Even though travelling through Honduras was extremely fustrating, looking back even now just a couple of days later it wasn't so bad really.