Copan The arrival at Copan town, on the 4th of January 2005, was messy. I had jumped into a small shuttle bus along with a few other backpackers from Antigua (Guatemala) in order to cross the border early in the morning. Well, we sort of got confused at the border control booth and forgot to get our passports stamped, and thus we walked unaware into Honduras illegally, from a technical point of view at least. I had never been an illegal immigrant before so that's one more thing ticked off the list. Of course, when we realized half a hour later and well into Honduran territory, we had to bribe the bus driver (who was a perfect cretin) to drive back to the border crossing to sort the mess out. Eventually I arrived at Copan proper, barely 1km away from the Mayan ruins. By then, and after having thoroughly explored Palenque, Tikal and Chichen Itza, I was done with the Mayan Trail but being so nearby and stuff I figured I might as well spend the day at the ruins. Well, I could have perfectly skipped them really because they pale in comparison with any of the three before mentioned. Plus the US$10 entrance fee didn't help either. Indeed, I was soon to learn that Honduras has some crazy prices for some specific things hardly justifiable. The Mayans at Copan had encountered a similar fate than those in other contemporaneous cities: overgrowth forced them to abandon the site as local agriculture was unable to keep up with the up-rising demand and population, triggering an age of famine, disease and decadence, turning yet one more formerly glorious settlement into a ghost town.
Anyway, like I said before Copan is no rival to other splendorous Mayan cities despite being Honduras' most representative archeological ruins. What can I say guys, some of them are worth the visit and some others ain't. So the morning after I woke up yet again at 4 am to get an early morning bus (I cannot count how many following days I have been waking up earlier than God himself) on my way to the warmer, sexier and altogether more appealing Caribbean coasts. One funny side-note: the coach bus was the utterly most luxurious bus I have ever ridden on. Much more luxurious than those in Europe... here in bloody Honduras!!! But before that, please do let me show you some random pics of Copan ruins. Picture on the right: Big and colorful parrots freely hang out at Copan ruins. You wouldn't believe how noisy they are, they hooligans!     The Hieroglyphic Stairway: Mesoamerica's most complex glyph text. The history of Copan (king coronations, battles, etc) for centuries is detailed in this stairway	Close up. See the glyphs carved on the stone? Many of them are lost forever, and with them key-dates of Copan's history
Copan's ballcourt. As opposed to Chichen Itza's, this one has sloppy outbound walls and its size is much smaller
Copan is famous for these totems, which I didn't see in other Mayan ruins	Local guy taking a rest
Roatan The Bay Islands are three small islands piercing the Caribbean sea about 50 km offshore the Honduran coast line. In order to get there, you got to hop on a ferry at the uninspiring town of La Ceiba. By the way, and along the lines of crazy Honduran prices I was on about before: that 2 hours one-way ferry ride costs an outrageous US$15! What the f@#k! 15 bucks is a lot of money here in Honduras, for Christ's sake. The Bay Islands, and particularly Roatan island, are renowned for being the world's cheapest spot to scuba dive and to get PADI certified. Not only the reef here (a continuation of the Belizean reef) is the second largest on Earth after the Australian Great Barrier Reef, but also it's stunningly beautiful, more so than that in Australia in my opinion. Those few facts combined attract thousands of scuba divers all year around. Having dived at the Red Sea, South East Asia and Australia, only the Caribbean reef was missing on my CV... Guess what? not anymore haha! I hear there's some neat diving in the south eastern coast of Africa, but since there's exactly where I'm going for my next trip... but anyway, that's another story to be told at someother time... For all of you who are into scuba diving or want to have a go at it, there is no better place than Roatan: getting a PADI certification here costs a mere US$180 (almost half of what costs in Australia) and a single 45 mins fun-dive sets you back only 20 to 25 dollars (less than half of what costs in Australia). And I reiterate: the coral reef is just as amazing, if not more! Only the Red Sea appears more pristine to me. I enjoyed enormously watching giant turtles (a full meter wide beasts) eating off the coral and manta rays slidding about. The following pictures were taken by Dan (UK), who had one of those hermetically-sealed underwater cameras and kindly passed them out to me. Cheers Dan!
Colorful coral!	Eel swimming about
Bank of fish	Giggle!
About 5 meters deep	Bit further down
Here in Roatan I met a group of cool people at the guesthouse: Pepe (from Holland) with whom I played some diabolic chess games; Michel, a frenchman teacher expatriated in Uruguay; and Mark, and American big bloke who spends his summers working in his hometown in Minnesota and travels abroad during the cold winters. I spent four blessing days at this chilled out alas somewhat expensive (it's a heavy tourist destination after all) island, sun bathing at the very tropical West Bay beach, scuba diving at the reef or simply hanging out in the evenings with those guys. Most of the budget-conscious backpackers choose Roatan's sister island, Utila, due to its lower lodging and eating prices, but I ultimately decided to come to Roatan because it's got superior beaches and coral formations. Needless to say, Caribbean or not Caribbean, these beaches are to the Aitutaki lagoon in the South Pacific what a street graffiti is to a Monet, but they make a terribly sweet place for a swim non-the-less. On the historical side, Christopher Columbus anchored here at the Bay Islands in 1502 during his forth and final voyage to the New World. But as it came to happen in Belize, the Spanish crown didn't pay much attention to the archipelago because they lack of gold (how shortsighted my fellow countrymen were) and it consequently became a no-one's land fervent with pirates and buccaneers. Therefore, the islands' first language today is english and the locals are of black roots instead of latin. I have learnt heaps about the XVI and XVII New World colonization process during my travels here in Central America and I ought to declare that I cannot sympathize with the course of actions undertaken by the Spanish conquerors. Not because they were cruel and murderous towards the indigenous people (conquests are always a bath of blood), but because they really should have pulled their heads outta their collective asses. Their only focus was to raze the gold and silver mines empty and to convert aborigines into Christianity; the almighty Felipe II himself, whose empire was the largest the world's history has ever seen only after that of Genghis Khan, was a nerd who thought of himself a religious crusader with the holy duty of expanding the influence boundaries of Christ's dogma. No wonder the entire business collapsed barely two centuries later. That's what happens when you send ex-convict thugs to colonize and administrate newly discovered territories. They could have established the largest commercial network of inter-linked colonies in history (like the Englishmen did upon Spain's downfall - Commonwealth), but instead their vision was blurred by the shimmering glitter of gold and bibles. And, ladies and gentlemen, this is positively the reason as of why today, five centuries later, Spain is yet to win its first soccer world cup, I conclude!
The beach in front of my guesthouse at dusk
Very Caribbeanish, isn't it?
Yup, definitely very Caribbeanish
That's few people waiting for the taxi-boat to fill up. Those taxi-boats sail up and down the different beaches carrying people around   Local girl playing bongos	Glorious sunset over Roatan! Thanks Pepe for this extraordinary picture Fire juggler Damn right! Fuggin' hippies...
After those few days in Roatan, I ferried my way back to La Ceiba. The thing is that I wanted to visit La Mosquitia province, which is the eastern-most region of Honduras, right next to the Nicaraguan border. La Mosquitia is the wildest and most remote area in the entire Central America. Have you seen the film The Mosquito Coast with Harrison Ford and River Phoenix? well, that's where the film takes place. It is Honduras' replay to Brazil's Amazon: an impenetrably thick blast of jungle and crocodile-infested rivers, home of aborigines, jaguars, pitons, monkeys and Dr. Livingston, I suppose'es. In fact, it's so in the very bottom of the world that there's no land access into it and the only way to reach into the jungle flying in a light plane or by canoe up the river. There is this Rio Platano Biosphere Reserve (UNESCO World Heritage Site) that is, apparently, as freaking wild as it gets and I sure wanted to spend few days worming my way into it hoping to spot a jaguar in its natural habitat - from a safe distance of course, that's a 100kg predator for your info. So I started to investigate around to organize my jungle expedition as soon as possible, but I soon realized that I was gonna have to give it all up. The costs of a 5 days expedition into the region were outrageous: 100 bucks to secure a light plane seat; another 120 bucks to have a canoe paddle me up the Platano river into the jungle; another God-knows-how-much to hire a local guide to shepherd me around deep there for 5 days as going alone is downright suicidal; to say nothing of the food rations and water (no restaurants/supermarkets there, of course), etc. Overall, the expedition's expected budget rocketed to the US$500 mark for just a few days. My accountant -haha!- advised me against it, so I had to forget about the whole business and walked away with the tail between the legs. Bummer! it would have kicked mean ass to explore the dark heart of one of the planet's last untamed jungles. Can any of you guys spare a bit of money, let's say something around US$500?
Tegucigalpa So, since I was not to visit La Mosquitia and there wasn't any other province in Honduras I was particularly interested in, I promptly moved down to Tegucigalpa to arrange my following entrance into Nicaragua. I only spent two days in Tegucigalpa but it didn't really look very appealing: noisy, dirty, messy, traffic-pestered and the rest of diseases you could expect from a capital of a poor, developing country. Almost two million of people creaming into this town, where low-quality blocs cluster one onto each other all the way up the surrounding hills. Nah, seriously, nothing that could catch my inspiration here. One thing I noticed here in Tegucigalpa is that, as I would introduce myself to locals (taxi drivers, people waiting at the bus stop, etc) as a Spanish citizen, everyone would start shooting away questions regarding how easy is to find a job in Spain, how difficult to get the work permits, how much could they expect to earn, etc. So so so many of them are desperately craving to leave their mother nations of thus poverty behind to relocate in Spain seeking dreams of prosperity. Poor people, I do wish them good luck... Another fact that you cannot miss if traveling throught Central America is the endless devotion these people got for religion. Every second building proudly shows off a graffiti along the lines of "Jesus is the only redemption", "Embrance Christ and the Holy Bible" or "The Lord cares for you". Moreover, no matter how casual the subject you engage in conversation, locals retort once and again to religion and how this or that is the Lord's will and how extremely important is that we follow His postulates. Christianity is ever-present in these people's life, God knows why (pun intended). Anyway, I had heard that there's a beautiful national park nearby composed by pristine cloud forests, La Trigra National Park, so on my second day in Tegucigalpa I woke up early in the morning and bused up the mountains into the park. The entrance fee was, once again, overpriced at a not-so-humble US$10. A cloud forest is sort of a rain forest but at higher altitude, covered by misty morning fogs and cooler temperatures. For five full hours I trekked the cleared-out muddy paths in the woods and it was extremely rewarding, alas exhausting. Very good physical exercise with all the fresh air and stuff, and I even got to spot some of the natural wildlife, like for example a rabbit-size rodent or birds whose name I don't know.
An abandoned silver mine	Very dense foliage
	Moss plastering the tree trunks up
On my way back down, something quite funny happened. I had missed the last bus departuring from the National Park back to Tegucigalpa, so I had to trek down the hills another six kilometers to the closest town to grab another bus. Well, seems like I had missed that one too, and by then I was beginning to worry about not being able to reach Tegu for the night. So I hitchhiked and a Toyota truck picked me up. As it turned out, it was the campaign truck for one of the candidates running for the local elections coming up soon, and we drove to a myriad of small villages scattered all over the valley giving away posters of the candidate, slogan stickers, logo-printed flags and the rest of the merchandise haha! Two hours later, and with a big deal of Honduran popular propaganda under my belt, I arrived to my hostel in Tegucigalpa completely knackered but satisfied with the interesting day I just had. Funny the kind of unexpected adventures you go through when traveling. I love it!
Rural hills surrounding Tegucigalpa. The campaign truck stopped at every single village!
My short stay in Honduras had come to an end and Nicaragua was due next up, but then I received news from home: my girl-friend from London, Branimira, had reserved a flight ticket to see me in february in Peru few days earlier than I had expected. This meant that I had about 15 days to make it to Peru, flying from San Jose (capital of Costa Rica), which consequently meant that I had only 15 days for Nicaragua and Costa Rica. Nop, not doable, not nearly enough time. So I was forced to give one of the two up, and I chose to disregard Nicaragua because I had heard wonders of Costa Rica's national parks and I wanted to check them out. So I had no other choice but to bus my way through the whole Nicaraguan territory all the way from Tegucigalpa (Honduras) to San Jose (Costa Rica), pit-stopping for one full day and night at the colonial town of Granada (Nicaragua).
Granada (Nicaragua) After crossing the border, I got off the bus at Managua, capital of Nicaragua. I am afraid I got no better reports about Managua than other Central America capitals like Tegucigalpa or Guatemala City: seriously dodgy and un-secure looking. Hear out my very first experience in Managua: so here I get off the bus and I call up one of the taxi drivers hawking for customers at the bus station. We agree on the price and I throw my luggage in the booth. He takes me to his taxi parked nearby. I get into the car at the passenger's sit and the taxi driver follows suit behind the wheel. Well, instead of powering up the engine with a key, he rips out the frontal panel of the dash board, pulls out two wires, links them up and the sparkle sets alite awakening the engine. I, of course, immediately stepped out of the car, grabbed my backpack up and hailed another taxi (this one had a key, thanks God!). It didn't take long for me to leave Managua for Granada, less than an hour south. Why is it that the main cities in this world-region are so shitty? Nestled by the shore of the massive Lake Nicaragua and founded early XVI century along with its eternal political and social rival, Leon, Granada is pretty similar to Antigua: sprawling around a neat central plaza featuring the cathedral, townhall and the rest of significant buildings, it has a remarkable colonial architecture with medieval fincas and haciendas, blissfully quiet backstreets and a somewhat healthy community of westerners in a status of semi-expatriation, learning Spanish or simply travelers doing the Central America circuit. I found Antigua more charming though, but like I said they are pretty much the same sort of town. Granada had been razed (and reconstructed) few times between XVII and XIX, both by English pirates and William Walker, a US-born filibuster who led Leon's assault in the Leon-Granada civil war in the mid-1800's. The pirates themselves would sail the rivers all the way from the Caribbean Sea up to the Lake Nicaragua in order to pillage Granada, as it was one of the wealthiest commercial towns of its time. I only spent here one day to split the tiring 24 hours bus ride from Tegucigalpa to San Jose in two, so I didn't have chance to do or see much other than walking down to the lake shore, admiring the town's most important buildings and sit at the central plaze people-watching. Mentionworthy were these two teenagers I saw hunting by the lake. They were carrying one of those boulder-throwing, Y-shaped weapons powered by an elastic thong (I don't know what's it called in english). Well, I have never seen such a display of lethal accuracy: they would wait about till a pigeon would land nearabout and, without closing in at all, they'd shot it down with one single shot from over 20 meters distance. Simply breath-taking. I know it sounds cruel and stuff, but they were hunting them to cook them up for dinner. Nicaragua is the 2nd poorest country in the western hemisphere after Haiti with a 70% of the population living under the UN standards poverty level after all. I didn't dare to take a picture of them in fear of getting shot down and boiled up for dinner myself, but despite the cruelty it was a show worth seeing. Random pictures of Granada bellow:
The cathedral
This hacienda was owned by a french count centuries ago
The cathedral from inside
	Peaceful backstreets of a colonial town
And that's about it. The next morning I resumed my bus ride into Costa Rica, my final destination in Central America before flying right into the heart of South America.
Diving the awesome Caribbean reef at Roatan for dirt cheap. Definitely one of the best scuba diving destination in the world. I had a good time there and the guys I met at the guesthouse were cool too.
Honduran people proved to be most friendly. The cloud forest at La Tigra National Park and the charming rural villages over the nearby valleys. Those few days butt-scratching at Roatan beaches, playing chess and sipping down a cold beer.
Not having been able to navigate up the Rio Platano Biosphere Reserve due to the absurd cost of the expedition. Entrance fees and tourist-related events are over-priced. Tegucigalpa and Managua, respective capitals of Honduras and Nicaragua: nothing to see here guys; drive through. Copan ruins are a mere shadow of those further north in the Yucatan peninsula. Having to give up on Nicaragua due to my approaching deadline to arrive to Lima (Peru) few days earlier than expected.