Nicaragua to honduras via van
It was early in the morning, around 4am from memory. I was waiting on the side of the street in Leon Nicaragua for a bus to Honduras. It was dark and I could still hear people partying. This always makes me nervous when I have a backpack, holding everything I own with me. I had looked up if Honduras was safe for tourists and was met with the answer that “Tourists need to exercise a high degree of caution due to high level of violent crime.” Not comforting, although I was still curious about the world class diving I had heard rumors about. Naturally, this outweighed the danger and I went.
So back to the street corner, our bus pulled up after half an hour. When I say bus, I more so mean van. It had maybe ten seats and we quickly realized that we had too many people. This left a few people to sit on the floor. Everyone else squished together on the seats. Off we went, on a 10+ hour drive to La Ceiba.
Border Crossing
We arrived at the border, I had to use the restroom. I always forget that selling toilet paper and purposefully not leaving it in the stalls is a money maker for the Latino’s. There was a bucket of toilet paper outside which I thought was strange. I was tired so I grabbed some, did my business and went to leave the bathroom as one does. Here, I discovered I had been locked in the toilet. There was a woman in the entrance who decided I was not allowed to leave until I had paid for my toilet paper. I had no money… Luckily another girl from the van had come over just after me. She paid her a dollar and I was free.
One thing I find particularly funny about Latino’s is that at the border they like to make you wait. There will be no one in line and they will sit there and find amusement in your annoyance. I was in Nicaragua and a man decided once we arrived that it was the perfect time to have a nap in his hammock. There was no one else around, he maybe serves 5-10 people a day. He proceeded to nap for half an hour before stamping our passports and letting us through. They did this on this day, not the napping but taking extra long to stamp our passports. Usually, a border stop takes between 1-2 hours.
We continued, through winding roads in beautiful mountains. Our driver was acting like a NASCAR racer and flying through corners at high speed. This caused a girl in our van to start projectile vomiting. We had a bathroom stop, I went into the stall and saw blood smeared across the wall. In conclusion, not a good day for bathrooms.
La Ceiba
Finally, we arrived in La Ceiba. It was strangely nice; they even had a Little Caesers! We stayed with a lovely family; our room had air conditioning which was a luxury I always looked forward to. While in La Ceiba we tried some white-water rafting. We hitchhiked part of the way after walking for an hour. We ended up at Villas Pico Bonito. This was a highlight of my 6-month backpacking trip.
La Ceiba
White Water Rafting
We showed up in the back of a truck, jumped out and got right into it. Our guide took us down to the water and said he wanted to test our swimming skills. He proceeded to jump off the rock into the rapids and started swimming across, gesturing for us to follow. This continued, he started jumping off higher and higher rocks. So did we. At this point I was intrigued because we were practically cliff jumping. He showed us all sort of cool plants. At one stage he picked up a spider and then showed us how it can hop on water. It was awesome! Then the white-water rafting started and it was insane. We were going down big drops; I got my adrenaline fix. I will link the business below.
We hitchhiked home and I noticed a mix of people. Half were lovely, while the other half held a lot of animosity towards us. We got lots of death stares on the ride home, a few of the people in the back of the truck with us would not even look at me.
Ferry To Utila
After two days in La Ceiba, we caught a ferry to Utila. This is a famous diving spot and it was beautiful. I will warn you that at the ferry terminal there are people outside who will try to rob you. From memory, they would ask what ferry you are catching. For a small tip they will take you to the terminal. When you grab out your wallet to tip they take it and run or possibly worse. Just beware of this.
View from the ferry
Back to Utila, the ferry ride is incredible. As the mountains disappear, the islands appear. The water is a beautiful clear blue color. There are palm trees everywhere, white sand and quirky colorful buildings. For $250 US, we were able to go on 10 dives. This included 5 nights of accommodation.
Things to do in Utila:
Diving
We went with Parrots dive centre, they had a tonne of awesome cheap activities you could all do as a group. We did a big variety of dives, including a night dive with bioluminescent. This was incredible. We were also able to dive off the edge of the continental shelf. Alongside two awesome ship wreck dives.
Kayaking
We rented a kayak and paddled through the mangrove canal. This took us through the middle of the island to the other side. Make sure you go on high tide! We almost got stuck because the water level was so low. Also bring a snorkel. Because it was so quiet and we were the only people here, there seemed to be more wildlife. There was even a reef shark, these are harmless. Although it scared me so I got back in the kayak after this.
Kayaking
Cenote and Bat Cave
There is a cenote in Utila, although I am having trouble finding it online. We came here with the dive centre. Not only did we swim in it, we also went into a bat cave. Here there is a cavern that you get to by swimming underwater. Our guide brought candles in a dry bag and used them as light in the cave. It was insane!
Pumpkin Hill
I didn’t actually do this but lots of people recommend it so figured I would at it. It is a beautiful hike, at the top you can see a view of the whole island.
Partying
There are lots of bars and very cheap drinks… We entered a beer pong tournament at Captain Morgan’s Dive Centre. They have this every Friday, it was very fun.
Watching the storm roll in
Cafes
Watching the hummingbirds from Rethink Café. I would get a chai latte here each morning. Every day without fail there were hummingbirds in the morning. It was fun to watch, you can also see the water from the balcony.
Hummingbirds at Rethink Cafe
Neptune’s Beach
Catch a boat to Neptune, this is an isolated beach resort. It has some amazing snorkeling. It also has delicious cocktails…
Was Honduras Safe?
Utila felt very safe, the mainland not so much. It turned out to be one of my favorite places from the whole 6 month trip. I didn’t visit Roatan, from what I heard it is more expensive and more touristy. More of a resort place. A lot of backpackers I met preferred Utila. I can’t recommend it enough. If you are going, as long as you are street smart you will most likely be fine. Although, I didn’t have too many moments where I felt unsafe.
