There and back again…

OK lets get this straight. San Pedro Sula is a complete s**t hole of a place. Even where I was staying which was two blocks from the main plaza looked like a war zone. There are hobos and vagrants on the street and it is not a safe place to be. It is the only place I’ve been in the whole of Central America that I felt unsafe walking, even the two blocks to the taxi rank felt like a gauntlet run. So my advice to anyone is – do not stay in San Pedro Sula unless you absolutely have to. Even then don’t walk around when it gets dark and only stay in hotels that can book taxi’s for you. But you are far better to just pass through using the bus terminals.

After the gauntlet run I got a taxi without too much problem and got to the airport in good time. I had bought two separate tickets, one to get me from San Pedro Sula to Miami and the other to get me from Miami to Caracas, Venezuela. Both tickets were for American Airlines though which caused my credit card company to initially stop the payments. However, because both tickets were for America when I checked in at the airport I asked the checkin lady if she could book my luggage all the way through to Venezuela and check in me for the second leg. Luckily she could and I knew that this would save me time on the way through. My check in luggage was slightly over weight though so I had to put my trainers and my hammock in my carry on. Thankfully I had thought to put my hiking boots on before this journey otherwise I would have had problems.

The flight from SPS left on time and it was a good flight arriving in Miami at around 11am. One of the great things about passing through Miami was that I could get some money of the cash machines in USD and I took the opportunity to change some travellers cheques as well. At this point I had 1120 USD in cash on me, secreted in various pockets and pouches. I also took the opportunity to buy another 8GB flash drive to mail my photos home, as the one from Cuba has not arrived, an maybe never will! There is a US Postal Service on the 3rd floor of Miami Airport so I downloaded my photos and put this in an envelope and then I also mailed home the two dive PADI dive books, which will save about 3kg from my day sac.

After this I had plenty of time to check in and grab some food. Here is where I made a silly error. I spend around 60 USD in the airport on Duty Free (Southern Comfort and JW Red Label for the overland journey), a book and some food. But I paid in cash. Why is this stupid? Well in Venezuela there are two exchange rates, the official rate at just over 2 B (Bolivaes) to 1 USD and the black market rate of 5 B to 1USD. If you exchange traveller cheques or use your credit card you pay the official rate. The black market only uses hard currency. Therefore spending 60USD in cash could cost me 150USD if I need to use a credit card or exchange travellers cheques before getting to Brazil.

We boarded the flight to Caracas on time, but because there was a lightning storm near the airport, which we could hear and see, we could not leave. Then after the lightning storm passed the pilot noticed a crack in the housing to the radar which needed replacing. All in all we were delayed over an hour. The flight should have arrived at Caracas at 6:30pm but we arrived around 8pm. I was very relived that my baggage arrived in one piece and I made my way to where the taxis we waiting. You hear lots of nightmare stories regarding the drive from the airport to Caracas city. Mostly with people being robbed at gun point. Out of the waiting taxi drivers I went for the black official taxis and chose a rather fat, blond woman as the driver thinking that she looked the least likely to pull a gun on me. Before I got in the taxi I send a picture message of the licence plate home just in case. The taxi driver tried to charge me 60 USD for the journey. The official price, set by the government is 150 B; which is 60USD at the official exchange rate. However I argued that if I gave her USD she could change them on the black market. The dragoman literature said that the taxi price should be 20 USD. Eventually I argued down to 45 USD. The fair price I found later was 30 USD, which is where I started my bargaining. I should have stuck to my guns, but I didn’t want to dropped of in the middle of nowhere.

I got to the hotel and found that there was no record of my booking or the money I had paid dragoman. I spoke to the tour driver, Dion, and he said the best thing was to pay again and we’d sort things out with Dragoman later. The hotel cost 230 B, 107 USD or 70 GBP!!!! This makes this the most expensive hotel I have stayed in so far, not including the Radison in Belize City (but I didn’t pay for it). It certainly wasn’t worth close to 70 GBP. But this is Venezuela, expensive!

I had noticed when doing the night dive that Ocean Connection had a dive heading out to the wreck. The wreck (El Aguila – “the Eagle”) was moved deliberately to its current location and scuttled to add variety to the reef, both for divers and marine life. It was then broken into three pieces by Hurricane Mitch. It lies with the stern in about 30m of water. Apart from being able to dive a wreck the other thing that attracted me to this dive was the fact that we would leave about 8:30am which would give me plenty of time to get back, pack my stuff and get to the ferry terminal for the 2:00pm ferry.

Originally I was due to dive with Peter, but his student was ill so I went with another DiveMaster called Ricardo. He was from Panama, but living and working on Roatan now. We got on the boat and headed out through the reef to the dive site. This is the furthest we had been out on the reef, about 30mins from the dock, but still close by other countries. At first we almost tied up at the wrong dive site, but then Ricardo had noticed so it was actually the next one. Unfortunately Ricardo’s dive computer was being repaired so we had to do this the old fashioned way with my stopwatch. 13min at depth ascending up to the reef, 35min total dive time including a 3min safety stop at 5m. When I get to San Francisco I’ll buy I dive computer for the Fiji and Aus section, plus any other diving I do in the future. Its worth having one as your life can depend on it. As it was we had no problem on our dive as Ricardo had done it so many time before and we were keeping to conservative timings. I had a little problem getting down though. We Tyll’s I had been using a 2mm shortie with a medium BCD but with Ocean Connection I had used a 3mm shortie (with arms) and a large BCD. I had dropped my weight down to 12lbs for this dive, but it wasn’t enough. Luckily Ricardo had spare so we put an extra 2lbs in the pocket of the BCD and then I had no problem.

We dropped onto the stern of the boat and then swam around the wreck. I was hoping to see some Moray Eels, but there were none. The sheer number of Groupers made up for it though. There must have been between 10 and 15 swimming around us. I also saw a huge parrot fish and some angle fish around the wreck. Two of the most interesting marine life I saw for the first time was Flamingo Tongues and Fire Worms.

Again the dive was over much too soon and we were soon back at the dock. I suppose my only regret about this was not doing the dive with Tyll’s. I would recommend both Tyll’s and Ocean Connection. If anything Coconut Tree is a little too big but the personal attention I got during all my dives here was fantastic.

I had enough time to grab an omelette for breakfast and then I checked out of the dorm rooms and jumped in a cab. The cab driver wanted to charge my 20 USD but I said that I had only paid 15 USD to get to West End. He agreed to 15USD, but a little too quickly making me think that I should really have tried 12 USD as a starting point. It started to rain just as I got in the cab and there was a bit of a downpour before we reached the ferry port. The weather cleared though and I arrived in plenty time at the ferry port.

The ferry left at 2:00pm and it was another smooth ride back to La Ceiba. Leaving Roatan, I felt as though I could happily return there again. In fact the Dive Master courses look really good value so it may be on the cards for the future. Utlila is also one of the best places to see Whale Sharks. Anyway that’s for another time, but for now it was time to get back to San Pedro Sula.

I got a taxi from the ferry point to the terminal, and the fee was agreed as 50 L. When I got there though I only had 50L which is around 100L. I had a huge battle though to try and get my change, but in the end had to settle for 40L change. The bus left at 5:00pm and again took around 4 hours, with clear roads and only a short stop half way. I don’t believe it is possible to do this route in 3hours. The bus journey passed with only one incident when we stopped at the service station. The intention was that everyone would get off for a quick toilet break, grab some food and get back on the bus. This is fairly standard and you don’t take longer than you need. The chap sat across from me though took over 25mins. The bus almost drove off and if I hadn’t said something (in broken Spanish) probably would have. I won’t mind but he was a local, even though he was dressed like an American tourist. The guy didn’t even apologise to the coach for holding everyone up. I arrived back at the bus terminal around 9pm and got a taxi to the centre of town. I walked back to the Hotel Sendero Maya and got a room for the night. I asked the girl on reception to call a cab for the morning for me but either she couldn’t or wouldn’t. I think she was saying that the phone didn’t work for outgoing calls, but she did say that it would be easy to get a cab in the morning, even at 4:30am. As an evening meal I popped round the corner and got a chicken burger at Wendy’s. The first fast food I have eaten since watching “SuperSize Me” in Cambridge about 4 years ago. But I was hungry and there was nothing else open.

My stomach was off during the night, which is awful at the best of times, but made much worse by being in the top bunk. By the morning though it had settled down and I felt OK to go diving again. I just had some plain biscuits for breakfast just to b safe though.

The first dive today was going to be the deep dive. I was really nervous about this as I sometimes have difficulty to equalise. It would also be the deepest I had dived to as I thought we would be diving to 40m. Actually the 40m dive is only for the Deep Diver Speciality so we were only going to dive to 30m, which is what we dived at the Blue Hole. Before the dive I also dropped the weight on the belt from 16lbs to 12lbs. Before going down we did a simple test to check how susceptible you were to nitrogen narcosis. This test was a simple grid of 20 numbers randomly arranged. You do the first run at the surface and then repeat the test at 30m. We went back to Lighthouse Reef which is were we were last night for the night dive but this time we dived over the edge of the wall to 30m. I had no problem getting to depth and equalising which was great. We did the test again, it took me about 6 secs longer to do the same puzzle at 30m. Ironically I only got stuck on the location of number 17! Karla had also brought down a bright red a cooler. At dept the neoprene that that the cooler was made from had crushed which shows how a wetsuit loses its ability to insulate the deeper you go. The colour was also completely different as Red Light doesn’t permeate this deep. This is important to know as you take photos underwater as you photos need to either adjust the white balance as you descend or touch up photos afterwards.

The last experiment we did was amazing. Karla had brought down an egg which she carefully broke. Removing the shell the yolk formed a perfect sphere with the white as a gelatinous surround. I was able to touch and lift the egg without disturbing the yolk. After 15mins we ascended back over the wall to the higher reef for a further 20mins. We saw several interesting fish and animals including a feeding turtle.

The second dive was called “Underwater Naturalist”. The theory section of this was quite interesting and on the actual dive I had to find and identify 2 plants, 5 Invertebrates (or which 2 could be coral), 4 vertebrates and 1 symbiotic relationship. In addition to this I had started to look at the “Underwater Photographer” section of the book also. This was really good and I also talked to Karla who gave me tips about adjusting the “white balance” on the camera as we dived. My camera has a manual function where you are able to adjust aperture, shutter speed and the white balance. As you descend through the water you loose colour. The first colour you lose is red, then green. This is why my photos upto now, unless they’ve been shallow, have been very blue. It is possible to alter the colour balance using photoshop, but it is far easier to adjust the white balance as you dive. You do this by pointing the camera at a white reference, like a slate, every time you descend or ascend more than a few meters.

Before the dive I even dropped a further 2lbs from the weight belt down to 10lbs. The dive itself was great fun, I had most difficulty with the plants but could easily identify corals, sponges, species of fish, etc… We also saw two types of symbiosis. One was a Grouper fish mouth being cleaned by wrass and the other was a cleaning shrimp on the coral. Eventually it was time to surface and that was it, I was a qualified Advanced Diver. I was pretty tired though after doing 5 dives and the deep dive in two days, so after getting the paperwork sorted I went for a lie down and woke up 3 hours later!

In the evening I had heard about a place that sells Rotisserie Chicken so I went there for my evening meal and headed back to Sundowners for a beer. I met up with Karla and Pete in the bar and had a beer with them. They left around 9pm, but then the other Pete and his girlfriend arrived so I had another beer with them until closing time.

I got up early and I was excited to be diving again in a new place. I grabbed some breakfast from one of the stores in the town and got to Coconut Divers for 8:00am to discuss the advanced and sign up. This is when things started to take a wrong turn. When Gaye turned up she said that there was no room on the deep dive heading out that morning. There was already 40 tanks on the boat and there was no more room. Without getting the Deep Dive there would be no chance to get another deep dive in the next two days and since that was a compulsory diver I wouldn’t be able to do the Advanced Diver. This was beginning to feel like a nightmare! Gaye said I could stay in the bunkhouse which is usually reserved exclusively for Coconut Divers, but I would have to try another dive shop. She phoned a friend of hers who said they may be able to fit me in, however when I walked down to the next shop they had had chance to look at their schedules and they would not be able to fit me in either. They in turn recommended Tyll’s. I was getting fairly anxious when I got to Tyll’s but they were great. Because I had the Altitude Speciality from Lake Atitlan I only needed 4 dives to get my Advanced and they would give me these 4 dives changed at the adventure dive price (55 USD) and then sort out the paperwork for the advanced diver. In addition because they were fairly light I would get one to one diving with one of their instructors, Karla, who is coincidently the girlfriend of Pete from Coconut. We discussed the dives we would do so in addition to the two compulsory dives (Deep and Navigation) I would do “Peak Performance Buoyancy” and “Underwater Naturalist”.

In addition to the course fee I had to buy another damned PADI book “Adventures in Diving”. These books weigh a lot and I was not looking forward to travelling with this, as I was still trailing round the Open Water Book from Mexico.

The first dive was Peak Performane. This is all about getting buoyancy spot on and getting the lead weights down to a minimum. As with the Open Water there is a theory section first and then the practical exercises to be done in the ocean. The first of these was hovering in the yoga position just using breath control to adjust position in the water. Karla would then hand me additional weights at 2lb at a time and would compensate by breathing deeper. This continued until I had 8lb additional weights. Then there was a similar exercise where I would take some weights of my weight belt. But by far the most fun was swimming though hoop; backwards, forwards, upside down, doing barrel rolls. The purpose was to ensure you knew exactly where you were in the water. So far at each place I’ve dived I’ve been told that my buoyancy control is pretty good; in Mexico and at altitude in Atitlan. Once I got used to swimming through the hoop and the size of the tank then I could do most of the exercises first time. This gave us some extra time to swim around and look at the reef.

Then it was back to the dive shop for the surface interval and some lunch. Unlike other places I had dived like Mexico and Belize the reef in Roatan is really close, so close in fact that the sites nearest the town could realistically be reached by swimming out from the shore. I had decided to try and get a night dive in as I had been told several times that the reef is an amazing place at night. Unfortunately Tyll’s only do one night dive a week and it didn’t fit in with my timing. So initially I went back to Coconut Tree Divers. Though they had space on their boat heading out that evening, they had no spare torches, or rather no spare batteries for the torches. I was told that if I could find some batteries or a dive torch then I could dive with them. I don’t understand why they don’t use rechargeable batteries but I’m sure there’s a good reason. I walked down the street to Reefgliders who don’t rent gear. Next door was Ocean Connection. They had a night dive going out and I not only could I sign up but they were running it as an adventure dive for their Advanced Divers so I could get it signed of towards my Advanced Diver also. This would mean I would get the five dives in two days.

I popped back to Tyll’s, had a sandwich from the shop next door and did the theory for the Navigation dive that afternoon. The Navigation Dive is pretty much about using compasses and natural formations and other aids to help find your way underwater. The first exercise was to swim out and back 30m along a line and count fin strokes. After this I had to navigate a square, each 30m and come back within 8m of the start point. I managed to do this arriving around 4m from the target. Karla and I then swam around the reef looking at the various wildlife. After around 10 minutes I then had to fin our way back to where the boat was moored. I had been taking note of the reef formations as we had swum out so I could find my way back, but at the end I started doubting myself. Turning to Karla I indictaed that I though the boat should have been somewhere near here. She replied to look up and the boat was there!

When we got back to shore I had a bit of free time, but not too much as I needed to do the theory section for Night Dive. I turned up to Ocean Connection as the sun was setting, we did the theory review and then we could kitted out with equipment. The instructor for this dive was Peter from Czech Republic. One of the other two divers was Alan, a Civil Engineer from Honduras, working on the cruise liner project adjacent to the ferry port. The last one was Alaistair, who honestly only looked about sixteen.

The four of us headed out to Lighthouse Reef which is the closed reef to town. Coconut Tree Divers were also out in force, but they moored at the other buoy at Lighthouse Reef. The Night Dive was one of the most amazing dives I’ve done. We were not deep and in fact we stayed down for 59mins. The dive site of Lighthouse Reef is composed of two sand patches connected by a cut through. We saw some huge lobsters moving around the reef and we also saw an Octopus.

This was amazing and I’ve never seen one alive and moving around the reef before. They are such interesting animals. At one point in the dive we got surrounded by tiny creatures called blood worms. They swarmed around the lights. By shining the lights on coral the blood worms would swim into the coral and get caught in the tentacles and we could then watch the coral draw them in and feed. Towards the end of the dive, back at the mooring line to the boat we turned of our lights. As we got use to the dark we could see bioluminescent life called string of pearls in the water around us. I’m not sure what these are but it was amazing. The light was dim, but there were so many of them it was as if we were surrounded by a clear night sky and stars. In addition to the string of pearls there was another form of bioluminescent life which when you moved your hands they would light up as you disturbed them. It looked as though sparks were shooting from your hands. By swimming round we had great fun seeing who could put on the most impressive light show.

Eventually it was time to surface and get back into the boat. As we were lifting our equipment back into the boat Alan and Alastair both yelped in pain. They were being stung by jellyfish on the surface. I was OK as I was wearing a shortie wetsuit with long arms. Getting back into the boat we could see that the jelly fish were mini box jelly fish. Tiny cousins of the infamous Australian species. These weren’t as dangerous but they gave a nasty sting. Back in the safety of the boat we were shining our torches onto the water to look at the jelly fish. This then attracted a swarm of blood worms. These would get stung and drawn into the jelly fish. This was amazing to watch this which I had only seen before in Natural History programs. Then we would see shrimps and fish coming up to the surface to investigate. Occasionally a fish or shrimp would get stung by the jelly fish and jump out of the water.

All good things come to an end though and it was time to leave and head back to shore. The boat driver said that the Coconut Tree Dive group had not even turned their lights off at the end of their dive. This was one of the best bits for me. Back on shore I had some chicken Faitas at a restaurant whilst I worked on the theory for the deep dive in the morning. As I was walking back to the bunkhouse I bumped into Peter and his girlfriend. This was actually a different Peter, also from the Czech Republic originally but had worked for a merchant bank in London and New York before quitting to travel around the world. He had been on the boat with us for the first dive in the morning. We had a drink at a bar and then moved onto another bar. I was feeling pretty shot and my stomach felt a bit off so I headed of to bed.

I was up early as I wanted to get a bus around 6am to get to La Ceiba for 9am so I could get the ferry to Roatan and start diving again. I walked from the hotel to the taxi rank, which was a quick walk, luckily, because the area is a complete dive. I got a taxi to the bus terminal without any problem and then asked around for the bus to La Ceiba. I was directed to one bus company and I asked them whether this was the next but to La Ceiba. He said yes, but it leaves at 6:30 and should take 3 hours. 6:30 was pushing it a bit but I got the ticket and wandered into the waiting room. I then saw a bus to la Ceiba that was due to leave at 6:00 am but with a different company. I was so angry at being lied to again. I tried to get my money back on my ticket but it was too late and I even though about just paying an extra 100 L to get this other bus. In the end I waited for the bus and talked to a Jehovah witness for a while. If anyone want to see an argument against complete deregulation of the transport system then they should travel around Honduras. There are several competing companies on the popular route, many leaving at similar times but then nothing at other times and other routes. The whole system is a shambles so whenever someone wants a really good reason why we shouldn’t have a completely open market on public transport they should come to Honduras.

The bus journey was incredibly frustrating. Not only did the rather rotund bus driver keep stopping for food, but the journey took around 4½ hours including a delay for a demonstration as we were getting into la Ceiba. By this time I knew that I had missed the ferry while only sails at 9:30am and 16:00pm. I think it was around 11am when we arrived or even slightly later and it was a choice between heading to the terminal when I arrived and hanging there or looking around town first and then heading to the ferry terminal afterwards. However because of the big bag it wasn’t going to be much fun walking round town and there did not seem to be a lot to see so I got a taxi out to the ferry station which is about 8km east of the centre and killed time reading, catching up with my blog and grabbing a bite to eat at one of the small huts outside the terminal building. The mutton curry was lovely, but there was some banana cooked in some sort of grease and I can honestly say that I’ve never wanted to gag as much after a single mouthful of food. The ferry terminal is very much on its own with very little infrastructure such as restaurants and shops, but the time passed and then it was time to board the ferry. The ferry is a fast boat similar to those that do the run between Liverpool and Dublin, but with no cars. The journey itself was very pleasant and the sea was calm and flat, but not calm and flat enough for some passengers who were sea sick.

The ferry arrived at the terminal at Roatan on time and I was hoping I could find someone to share a taxi with. There seemed to be a few groups of backpackers on the ferry, but most seemed to be in groups. At the same time I also wanted to get back to a dive shop and sign up to do the PADI Advanced Diver and hopefully get a night dive in as well. The PADI Advanced Diver has 5 dives, you can choose one of the 20 or so dive categories but one must Deep Diver and another Navigation. Night Dive is another category and my original thought was that if I could get the Night Dive as soon as I arrived then this would give me two full days to do the others.

I managed to get my bags fairly quickly and find a taxi driver and haggled him down from 20 USD to 15 USD and then I hung around for a few minutes to see if there was anyone else heading my way. In the end I had to go though.

On the way to West End I discussed dive shops with the Taxi Driver and originally I had though about heading to ReefGliders but taxi driver seemed to only know Coconut Tree Divers which also had a reasonable write up in the Lonley Planet so I went there. As I pulled up in the taxi the boat with the night divers was already heading out. But I got talking to one of their instructors, Pete (from the UK), and it seemed as though it was realistic to do the Advanced Diver in 2 days with them. In addition I could stay at their bunkhouse for only 5USD a night. But then we hit the first snag. None of the staff could find a key for the bunkhouse. Two of the divers were out on the night dive and the other keys had disappeared. As they were getting this sorted out three of the backpackers I had seen at the ferry port also rolled up. In the end they called the owner of the shop, Gaye, who was not really impressed at being called back to the shop as the shop should really have been closed before we had arrived, but fair credit, she got it sorted and found some spare keys. The bunkhouse was pretty basic with 3 sets of bunks, but it had hot showers, which is something I will never take for granted again. In the end there was only room for two of us in the bunkhouse so I took one bunk and Autumn, from Portland, Oregon, took another. The Candian couple, Greg and Jerry, who Autumn had met on the ferry managed to get set up with something up the road. Autumn was actually born in May, but as she said “You do the math!”

After a quick shower we met up with Greg and Jerry at the Sundowner Pub round the corner from the hotel. The beer was fairly expensive (about 4.5 USD for a bottle) but it was good to eat and drink something.

Copan is one of the Mayan sites that was on the original Ruta Maya Trek so I was keen to see this. I recall that Juan Carlos said it was always a struggle getting there though as they had to drive for hours across Guatemala from San Cristobal to get a few hours at the site before getting back on the road and driving back through Guatemala. In the end this always tainted the experience. The ruins opened at 8am, but by the time we got our bags sorted and had a relaxing breakfast at the Café Via Via it was around half nine when we got to the ruins. The ruins themselves cost around 15 USD to visit and then there are some tunnels for a further 15 USD and the museum for 5 USD. I was hoping to get a coach back to SPS at 1pm and the guide book stated that the tunnels were over priced for 15 USD so I just bought a ticket for the main ruins. Carlette and I had discussed hiring a guide and there was one who spoke good English. He would charge 35 USD for a tour of the ruins. As we were queuing to buy out tickets we met 3 Swedish medical students who were also interested in sharing the tour. So in the end it only worked out at 7USD each. Walking from the entrance to the ruins we saw lots of Scarlet Macaws in the trees. These are huge birds. I never knew they were so big, and so colourful. Beautiful birds (but noisy).

Copan is a really interesting site. Its not as imposing as Tikal or Palenque or Chechen Itza, but what it does have is really well preserved Mayan hieroglyphics. In fact I think this was perhaps the best of all the hieroglyphics of all the sites I’d seen. There were 16 kings in total of the Copan site spanning over 400 years. The most famous called 18 Rabbit (called because he was born in the 18th day of the month of the Rabbit – imaginative!).

There are some interesting sculptures to King 18 Rabbit including one which is two faced, one young facing east towards the rising the sun and one old facing towards the setting sun. To me this seemed very reminiscent of the Roman god Janus. Perhaps this is a common thread through many ancient cultures, especially those which the sun played an important point. There was also a sacrifice stone and reference again to the human sacrifice linked to the ball game. In this the captain of the winning team would be sacrificed. It seems really strange in our culture that the captain of the strongest team would be sacrificed. But it is believed by scolars that the Mayan’s believed that the strongest sacrifice would be reincarnated as a demi-god in the next live. Perhaps we should bring back sacrificing some of the premadonna footballers, it may give them a bit more backbone!

Perhaps the most interesting ruin is that of the Hieroglyph Stair. This was constructed by the last king, Smoke Shell the grandson of 18 Rabbit. In total there are 64 stairs containing a history of the 16 kings of Copan. However the top section is not in the correct order as the pieces of the stairs had collapsed when it was discovered and the archaeologist who were repairing the stairs did not know the correct order so only the bottom fifteen steps are in order. Another interesting omission from the stairs is the left hand part of the statue of Smoke Monkey (the father of Smoke Shell). This was taken by the archaeologists from Harvard as part of their payment for restoring the hieroglyph stairway. This part of the carving is now in a museum in Harvard. If I ever get back there for some lecturing I’ll be able to look for it.

Next to the main pyramid and the adjacent to entrance to the tunnels was a relief called the dancing jaguar. This is part of the legend of the night when a Black Jaguar reaches up and swallows the setting sun. He then descends into the underworld and fights his way through the gods of the underworld to reach the east when he vomits the sun back into the sky. Hearing the legend and seeing the relief I’m sure that this is a fighting stance similar to karate rather than dancing. It makes me wonder whether the Mayans were also learning flighting arts from the Chinese as well as trading with them.

From this part of the ruins we followed a path up onto the top of the observatory and from here we could look down onto the main plaza. This is the same view that is shown on the 1 Limpre Note.

With the main ruins of Copan pretty much done Carlette and I walked back to town and to the Café Via Via. I sorted out my bags and then left to catch a coach back to San Pedro Sula. I was actually going to get a bus at 2:00pm. The coach that used to leave at 1:00pm no longer runs from Copan to SPS. I could have waited a bit longer to get the Helman Alas coach that Carlette was catching, but I really wanted to get back to SPS as soon as possible to give me time to get to the football match.

The bus back only cost 110 L instead of the Helman at almost 3 times the cost. It took a similar time to the journey from SPS to Copan, but the traffic was already building up for the game. I got to the bus terminal and got a taxi into town. Again I really struggled to find the hotel that Marco had told me about. The taxi driver even phoned up to find out where it was. He thought that he had the right street so he let me out the cab. I then spent around 40 minutes walking around trying to find the hotel. I asked in several hotels around the area but no one had heard of Sendero Maya. In the end, out of desperation I walked into a cheap looking hotel with the intention of staying there. I asked how much it would cost for a night and was told 200 L which was pretty good for a cheap hotel. I then asked the name and it was the Sendero Maya. The exact hotel I was looking for. It turns out that the address was 3rd Ave 3rd y 4th Calle not 4th Ave 3rd y 4th Calle as Marco had written.

By the time I got to the hotel Marco had left for the game so I jumped in the taxi to the stadium, both hoping that Marco would be able to sell the ticket he had bought and that I would be able to buy another. In the end I needn’t have worried as tickets were very easy to buy at the ground. I only needed to pay face value for the ticket at 300 L. I handed over a 500 L note and the guy gave me 20 USD change (400L). Tired of being ripped of I said nothing. I’ve never been to an international football game before and my only experience with central American football was the Cancun v Manta game in Mexico which was a bit of a wash out. The game started of very well and Honduras was the dominant team with El Salvador defending mostly and then occasionally attacking on the break. The first 30 minutes was very good, and the crowd was very excitable. Unlike most modern football stadia, the seating was open so you could sit anywhere, except for the away supporters who occupied one half of one end stand. As a consequence the side stands were packed. Unfortunately I had taken the batteries from my pocket camera earlier and forgot to replace them so I have no photos. But the crazy thing with this arrangement is that people bunch in the centre, because it’s the best view and also stand on the lateral gangway, because there are too many people for seats. We’re always telling people what a bad idea lateral gangways are in the design of stadia and I wish I had my camera to show people exactly why. Honduras scored and the crowd went wild. Beer, popcorn and pretty much anything that wasn’t tied down got threw into the air. This was the climax of the match, because after this, with Honduras winning and the dominant team, they just sat back and time wasted. Even the Honduras fans were getting a bit annoyed by the time the half time whistle blew.

At the half time I wandered around the stadium to see if I could find Marco and also Carlette who was going to try and get to the match. Unfortunately I didn’t see either, but the concessions were really interesting to see. Around the perimeter of the stadium, instead the perimeter fence were a multitude of food vendours of all sorts. Many cooking on gas, but some on open coals. It was an amazing site to see, especially for someone used to designing the most modern stadia. At half time I swapped onto the other side stand, mainly so I could find a place to sit down. Unfortunately the second half continued pretty much in the way the first half had ended. Honduras would waste time, though they did have a few missed chanced. El Salvador looked as though they should not have even turned up for the second half. Honduras should have won by 3 or 4 goals so it could have been better.

Getting from the stadium to the taxi was an interesting experience though. I walked from the stadium with the majority of the fans, trying to find a taxi to take us back to town. Eventually I managed to find a taxi and having agreed a price of 80 L back into town I then found another tourist heading the same way. He was a german football fan who travels around the world for international games. He’d been in central America for 3 games and this was the last before heading home. When we got back to the central square the taxi driver we tried to pay 80L but the taxi driver wanted more. In the end he basically told us to get out the car so we did, not having paid anything! When I walked back to the hotel Marco had just arrived a few minutes earlier. It was great to catch up and chat for a while.

There are some days on this trip that seem to be just about travelling and this was definitely one of those. I got up early with the intention of phoning the bank and sorting out the tickets for my flights. I tried to log onto Skype, but for some reason it was giving me errors so I phoned the bank using my mobile and got my credit card sorted out. I tried Opodo with the same problem but because I was then running late for the airport I phoned home and gave my parents the details and asked them to sort it out with Opodo. After this I checked out of the hotel and got a taxi to the municipal airport.

The municipal airport is little more than a collection of huts and a dust strip. The airline I was going to fly with was Mayan Air. The plane was a single prop 8 seater plan. This flight was great fun as we got to flight out over the sea and we could see the islands and reefs clearly from the window. It looked so beautiful. The flight was not direct and called at 2 other airstrips, including Placencia, before arriving at Savannah. Placencia was were the Canadian girls, from the Blue Hole were heading in the hope to see Whale Sharks. I didn’t see any from the air…

At Savannah we would have to switch to an international flight to go to San Pedro Sula, Honduras. Checking in with Mayan Air for the international flight was an experience. Because they don’t have any scanners that the larger airports use they had to go through all my bags and I had to unpack and then repack my rucsac. The flight was running late due to weather over SPS, but eventually we got off around 30mins late. This plane was a twin prop though there was less room in the fuselage for passengers. The flight was a bit bumpy towards the end but not too bad.

Going through customs was an interesting experience and there was only two of on the flight so it was like VIP treatment. On the other side of the barrier though it was a different storey and back to the usual hussle and bussle of an airport. I got a taxi into town and gave him the address that Marco had given me for the hotel. Unfortunately Macro had written the hotel address wrong and we spent a good 30mins driving round to find the hotel. In the end I gave up and asked the driver to take me to the bus terminal so that I could head to Copan.

The bus terminal at SPS is huge. Its slightly out of town and all the buses seem to stop there. When I arrived at the bus terminal the driver took me to the Hedman Alas part of the terminal. Helman Alas is the most expensive bus carrier, like Vezul in Cuba. The buses are very nice and the routes are direct, but you pay for the pleasure as its more than three times the cost of a cheaper bus company. At this time I wasn’t aware that there were cheaper options, so I paid the 350 L (Lempira ~ 17 USD). I had hoped that there would be a bus soon, but the next one was due to leave at 4pm, giving me about 3 hours to kill at the bus terminal. The terminal is also a big shoping mall so I wandered through the mall, found an internet café and caught up on emails, blogs and facebook. I then grabbed some lunch at the food court and had a coffee at an American style coffee bar, having my first Mocha since leaving the UK; very nice!

After this I headed back to the Helman Alas waiting area and read for a while. The bus eventually turned up and they started loading our bags onto it. I got chatting to an American called Carlette, originally from NY but living in Seattle. Its sometimes easy to sport the travellers, especially when they are clutching one of the various travel bibles, like the Lonely Planet.

The destination was Copan Ruinas, the small village just outside of Copan. This took about 3 hours in the bus and we arrived around 6pm. The jouney would have been great except for a guy sat two rows in front of me emptying his guts onto the floor. Luckily I’d already lifted my bag of the floor a few minutes earlier. Talking to Carlette she was thinking about heading to Café Via Via to see if they had rooms available. I was going to head to the hostel owned by the same café but in a different part of town. However I walked with Carlette as far as the café. When we got there they actually said that their hostel was full, but they could offer us a twin room for about 16 USD, which only worked out slightly more expensive than the dorms. That evening we ate at the restaurant across the street. The food was really nice here but the electricity failed half way through the meal leaving us initially eating in the dark and then by candle light for the next 15 minutes until the lights came back on. Carlette is really into Salsa dancing going around 5 times a week, in the guide book it mentioned that there was some pubs with Salsa so we wandered around for a bit, but in the end couldn’t find anything