We crossed the border into Honduras in the north, along the Atlantic coast and our first town, Omoa revealed the beauty of this part of Honduras. Rainforest mountains rising out from the ocean. A great place to watch the sunset from the many restaurants along the seafront and an historic fort to tour. It was a great place to stop for a few days and absorb Honduras.
San Pedro Sula was a quick stop to meet our shipping agent, if we can't get into Costa Rica (they don't allow right hand drives into the country), we will return to Puerto Cortes and ship to Columbia from here. So some time out to plan ahead.
As we continued along the northern coast we stopped in Tela with its beautiful sandy beaches and took some time to visit Jeanette Kawas National Park. Some walking, some fishing and some snorkelling made this a great day out to Punta Sal.
Our last stop before heading out to the Islas de la Bahia was La Ceiba. The saying goes that Tegucigalpa (the capital) 'thinks', San Pedro Sula 'works' and La Ceiba 'parties'. For us it was a stopping off point before a few days snorkelling in Utila, the only island we had planned to visit - that was, until two friends from Cuba, Gus and Sal, posted a message on FB, suggesting we go visit them on Guanaja. And so the adventure began.....
Guanaja is the third island in a row, so we took the morning ferry from Utila to Roatan, not quite knowing how we would get to Guanaja from there. Our thinking was, well we'll be a bit closer but knew that there is no ferry service from Roatan to Guanaja. However, ever resourceful Gus found someone who had made the trip from Guanaja for the day and at 5pm, we boarded Derrick - 'hello, I'm a pirate!''s boat and followed an electrical storm for an hour at about 30 knots all the way, reaching Guanaja around 7pm.
Guanaja is beautiful. It's difficult to reach which means it s is not as touristy as Utila or Roatan, but well worth the effort, if you can get there. We stayed with friends of Gus and Sal, Carl and Dottie, who looked after us like royalty. We were taken to various parts of the island, including the Cay where something like 50% of the island's inhabitants crowd into a town built on stilts off the island. Possibly seeking to avoid the sand-flies, me thinks. Guanaja was a great place to hang out. All of the people we met were lovely and we were sad to leave. However, as Tropical Storm Nate was due to arrive the following day and Guanaja was right in its path, in true friend fashion, we abandoned the island and hopped on the ferry that runs a few times a week back to the mainland. The ferry is a former drug running boat. It had been scuttled by the narcos when pursued by the authorities - some enterprising locals had raised it, refurbished it and put it to use as a ferry service between Guanaja and the mainland - Trujillo. The pier in Trujillo could also do with a bit of refurbishment, but it was good to reach the mainland, where we jumped on a bus for a 3 hour ride (£4) back to La Ceiba to resume our van life.