Honduras and Nicaragua

2 weeks since our last post and we´ve covered a lot of territory. Our first stop in Honduras was Copan and it´s the last Mayan ruins we´re going to visit. This time we really mean it! This site stands out for it´s stone carvings. About 1400 years ago a king wanted to record the history of the rulers of the kingdom (his ancestors) so he commissioned a huge staircase to be built on the main plaza and to be carved with the hieroglyphic history. It is really quite impressive to see what amounts to a political billboard.

We were only there for a day and then we were off again to the island of Roatan. Roatan is just off the northern coast of Honduras and was a haven for pirates in times past. This place is paradise. Perfect weather, beautiful beaches and just offshore is a part of the second largest barrier reef in the world. The scuba diving courses are inexpensive (relatively) and so we decided to take the plunge (sorry, I couldn´t resist). Our instructor was excellent, the reef and wildlife was beautiful, and are now certified to fly through the water as open water scuba divers. One of the oddities of this place is that there are vendors along the beachfront street that sell fruit and seafood out of their pickups and we found some shrimp that rank among the best I´ve ever tasted. After a week of snorkeling and diving we decided to move on.

One of our next travel adventures took us from Tegucigalpa (Capital of Honduras) to Managua (Capital of Nicaragua). This journey of 360km usually takes about 7 hours on a nice coach. The bus was one of the most expensive bus rides we´ve taken yet but it still managed to break down twice and the same movie was shown twice.

We´ve been hanging out for the last couple days in Granada, Nicaragua which claims to be the oldest continuously inhabited city in the Americas. It´s a beautiful city situated on the shore of Lake Nicaragua (the 10th largest freshwater lake in the world). The spanish colonial houses are known for their thick adobe walls, high ceilings and beautiful interior courtyards. The temperatures are high but we´ve found a hostel with a small swimming pool to help escape the heat.

It´s always fun to see familiar faces when you´re on the road and on Monday we ran into an old friend from our Spanish school days in San Pedro La Laguna. Kelly Mossman from Vancouver had been part of our ¨family¨ and was a huge help in getting a few Christmas gifts home to our families.

We´ll be uploading some more pictures to our flickr in the next few days. Be sure to check them out.