We left the island of Ometepe and took a much better ferry to the main land. We took a taxi to the Tika bus station on the outskirts of Granada to book a ticket to San Pedro Sula in Honduras. We stayed across the road in a clean hostel and they gave it us cheaper because we were leaving at 3 o’clock the next morning. Our room had 2 double beds a shared bathroom just outside the room and it had a small square swimming pool. We went out to have a meal near the town square and when we got back our heads were straight on the pillow until the next morning. I didn’t like the beds because I got bit by Doctor flies which are really bad and they leave a big round bite. We woke up at about 2:45 and got the taxi at 3 am and the taxi brought us to Managua Tika bus station. There was a creole guy who tried to take our bags out of the taxi but we hadn’t asked him to so the Ultimate Traveller shouted at him to back off! He backed off! We had to wait for about 1 and a half hours before we were on the bus. Our journey lasted until about 5:30 pm. (15 hours) It wasn’t the best journey because I could hear people being sick and things like that. We stopped twice altogether. I have found that the best way to travel on a bus is to sleep as much as you can.
We drove through a bit of Nicaragua and then we got to the border where the immigration people said we had 5 days to get out of Honduras because you have overstayed your time in Nicaragua(we knew this would happen. It’s to do with an agreement between the countries of Guatemala,El salvador,Nicaragua and Honduras called the C4, basically you get 90 days for all these countries as opposed to 90 days in each but you shouldn’t have to pay to get in but we did in every country so it was a nightmare and we got fined too. Mum argued a lot and we ended up paying less but still had to get to Belize within 5 days).
When we went through Tegucigalpa (capital of Honduras) I couldn’t believe how big the city was. It was mainly all shanty towns. San Pedro Sula is supposed to be the most dangerous city in the world (drugs and gangs apparently) so when we arrived at the bus station we had a real good look out for our luggage. A taxi came for us and brought us to hotel La Posada which was in a posh, nicer part of the city. On the way there we noticed there was a big coca-cola sign on the hills above the city(like in Hollywood but smaller) which was a very weird thing to put up. The city was in a lovely setting with lots of hills around it. It didn’t seem dangerous apart from there were police with guns and barbed wire around most of the houses and buildings.We stayed at our hotel for 1 night and the next morning we had breakfast and then took a local bus to a fishing town nearer to the border of Honduras-Guatemala called Omoa.
As we were driving in the city to pick people up lots of salesmen kept jumping on and off and babbling on in spanish really quick.On the way there we noticed that Honduras was a really beautiful country with lots of lucious green, jungly hills. Our hotel was 20 meters away from the caribbean sea shore. The sea didn’t look as blue as the other parts of the caribbean we’ve seen. The hotel had very peculiar and interesting statues in the garden.Our room had 1 bunk bed,1 double bed,1 bathroom with a sink outside of the bathroom(?) and a table. We stayed here for 1 night. The same day we walked to a fort which we saw on the way here in the taxi. We took a guide in the fort and learnt these things; It’s the biggest fort in Central America. It was built by the spanish to protect commodities such as gold,silver,tobacco,cocao and spices before these were transported back to Spain. The british pirates stole all the commodities from the Spanish in about 1740 and about 10 years later the Spanish took it back but there was no gold…” The fort was triangular shaped with dozens of the same dome shaped rooms used for several things like storing gun powder,rooms for the officers,kitchens… There was also a room which was storing canon balls. The fort also had a small church which was the only room that echoed so everyone could hear the priest even the people out-side the fort. Our guide gave us a demonstration and he was right. I thought that the guides english was very hard to understand so I had to keep asking mum what he was saying. The fort had a triangular garden in the middle where they had placed big canons on the grass. The fort also had a big terrace above looking over the fort. We could also see a cemetery at the back of the fort and there was a gate way which the guide said the sea used come up to but now it’s 150 meters away from the gate way(the gate way was part of the fort).
On the way back to our room we were really thirsty so we bought some water and it was in a plastic bag and we found that all around here they only sold plastic bags of water to prevent plastic bottles being thrown everywhere. At about 10 am the next moring we took a taxi to the border of Honduras-Guatemala which was about 1 and a half hours away. Once we got to the border we had to have our passports checked and then we took a local mini bus to Puerto Barrios which is a port on the only bit of the Guatemalan Caribbean sea. We only stayed 1 night here. Our hotel was called hotel Norte(north hotel). This hotel was an old fashioned wooden hotel with 3 floors. It had a swimming pool so I was in there all day. Our room had 3 single beds and a fan. We got bit by mosquitoes all night here. When we had explored the hotel we found a few run down rooms on the 3rd floor with the best view of the ocean . The next morning a taxi brought us to the dock to get a boat to Punta Gorda in Belize. Our boat was quite small but very fast,but we didn’t get wet. The ride was 1 hour and a half. Right at the end of the journey I stuck my head out to look at the main land but I got drenched with sea water,I even swallowed some.