I know I’ve been a bit quiet over the past month but that’s because the last month has been a bit quiet too. Saying that there have been a few interesting things. 

A few weeks after my birthday we went to Santa Rosa with a small group of other volunteers for some celebrations followed the next weekend by a trip to Gracias. This one was quite interesting because we were trying to get back to Candelaria the same day as the primary elections. This meant there were less buses running or in the case of Candelaria, none.

Seeing as we couldn’t get back on Sunday we decided to take an impromptu trip back to Yamaranguila with Grace and Hannah (free accommodation, what can I say?) and because our bus to Candelaria from La Esperanza wasn’t until 12 on Monday, we got to visit their school.

Abundant Life Christian School is a big contrast to Escuela Urbana Mixta de José Cecilio del Valle. It’s a bilingual school which we hadn’t actually seen before and blew us away. The school is also in a beautiful location surrounded by mountains and pine trees and in cool air. 

We did eventually get ourselves back to Candelaria and in the next two weeks we finally started some adult classes with a small group including our host mum Saida, celebrated World Water Day with a parade through Candelaria, were laid up in bed for a week (that one’s just me); and had our visit from Vegas and Fra. 

Vegas is our in country rep who lives on Roatán and visited us back in October to see how we were settling in and Fra is our country coordinator from Coll. Thankfully I was just about better from my bout of sickness in time for their arrival, after having been floored with the flu and/or dehydration the last time Vegas visited us. We had lunch together and Fra came to see us teach in the colegio in the afternoon and then we had a meeting with the people involved in our project in the evening. 

Amy and I plus the girls from Tomalá and the 6 month project San Francisco have just gotten back from Belize where we have been to renew our visa. We stopped for a few nights on the way in Livingston in Guatemala. Livingston is only accessible by boat but it’s the same boat that takes it across to Belize so it was kind of perfect. 

We stayed in Casa de la Iguana, a hostel highly recommended by Calum and Tom who have stayed here before, and used our few days to do a few boat tours in the area, one of which was to Rio Dulce where part of Jurassic Park was filmed and another where we had dolphins swimming around our boat! 

We moved on to Hopkins in Belize because as nice as it is, Guatemala does nothing for our visa. I’m not sure if I’ve explained this before but it’s because there’s something called the C4 in place here. It basically means a 90 day tourist visa is valid for Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua so a visa run involves a quick hop into Belize or going all the way to Mexico or Costa Rica in order to renew it.

Hopkins is one of the most chilled places we’ve been. That’s maybe because most of our time was split between the beach and the hammocks in our hostel, The Funky Dodo (what a name, I know!). 

We wrapped up our visa run by heading back to San Pedro Sula to pick up our families at the airport! I now have my dad and Kirsty visiting for the next two weeks which should be interesting! 

(Also I apologise for the title to those people who find puns offensive but I really just can’t help myself, there’s just too many good ones!)

As I write, there is officially less than 24 hours until travelling is over, Amy and I are back in Candelaria and life returns not to normal but as close as it gets.

Our last week has been spent resting up before getting back to work. From Lake Atitlan we returned to Antigua for one night before getting a 2am shuttle down to El Tunco in El Salvador. El Salvador wasn’t on our original plans but we decided to skip Semuc Champey in Guatemala (a controversial decision among other travellers) to give us time to tick off another country. It was only the four girls that headed down to Honduras’ neighbour as the boys decided they wanted to visit some of the other projects in Honduras before returing home instead.

We arrived in the lazy, two street beach town of El Tunco at 8am and began as we meant to go on. It was a gruelling three days of sleeping, reading and not much else, either by the pool or on the beach. 

Amy and I did manage to pull ourselves off the sun loungers one morning to get a surf lesson though I might have been better staying where I was. With one previous two hour lesson under my belt from Costa Rica last year, I thought it would all come back to me. I was wrong. Along with lacking the natural rhythm to be a salsa dancer, I do not possess the balance to be a surfer. Amy however was a natural!

We were sent off with one of the best sunsets we’ve seen as we prepared to leave at 4am the next day. Our aim was to get all the way from El Tunco on the Pacific coast of El Salvador to Tela on the Caribbean coast of Honduras. It was a long day that lasted 17 hours and took 5 buses and a border crossing but we did it. 

There was a massive meet up planned for 15 out of our now 21 volunteers (our 8 month volunteers arrived last week and made the trek over to Tela) for Saturday night. As it was Tomalá and Candelaria’s first time in Tela we got to experience the gorgeous beach and interesting nightlife of Tela while being amazed at how Eilidh and Sophie get anything done here in the heat! Thanks to Amy we even had a bit of excitement when we got back in the early hours of the morning when the kitchen tap/pipe that sticks out of the wall came off and we had to deal with a rapidly flooding house! 

And then it was over. Amy and I travelled back to San Pedro on Sunday with Jesse and Lucy as well as our 8 monthers, Norome and Eva whose project is on our side of the country, close to Tomala. Our last night is being spent back in Gracias, our home away from home, relaxing and getting ready to return to Candelaria tomorrow. 

It has been the perfect way to end our travels, relaxing and easing ourselves back into Honduras so we can go back with lots of energy to throw into our work. And we hope to have lots of it when we return!

Stepping out of the bus into the city of Antigua, we experienced something we haven’t really felt for the past five and a half months – cold (even though it was 18°C!). Jumpers went on, shorts were regretted and we marveled at how good it felt. 

To be fair it was still early in the morning, and as we would learn over the three days that we stayed in Antigua, the middle of the day could actually get quite warm. Nights were colder than we are used to which lead to a welcome discovery in our hostel. They actually give you duvets! It’s the little things. 

Antigua is such a lovely city that we were quite happy spending our time wondering around and taking it all in. Antigua is filled with cobblestone streets and even more colourful buildings and is filled with the perfect balance of tourists and travellers and the people that actually live there. It’s not a city made especially for tourists but it welcomes them with open arms. Antigua is also ringed by mountains and a few volcanoes, some of which are active, and this just adds to the charm. 

We didn’t really get up to much here other than enjoying the town itself. I did manage a walk up to a cross on a hillside that overlooks Antigua and gives you the most incredible views and also took part in a free salsa class. Let’s just say that my parents gifted me neither the natural rhythm or the coordination of limbs to allow me to take it to a professional level. 

After Antigua we had a bit of a split. Five of us left for Lake Atitlán while Amy left for Guatemala City to retake the chemistry exam she needs to get into her uni course for next year. I think I suffered from more separation anxiety during those few days than I ever have with twin Amy! It’s going to be a long month of waiting for the results but everyone keep your fingers and toes crossed! 

Atitlán is a lake with multiple personalities. For example, there’s Panajachel, the tourist town, where coaches unload their passengers to buy souvenirs by the armful; San Marcos, the hippie town, with yoga retreats and spiritual workshops galore; and San Pedro, the backpackers town, split pretty much in half and shared between locals and travellers. 

Our relaxed approach (or laziness depending on your viewpoint) continued into our stay at Atitlán. Our first day solely consisted of looking around the little town we had chosen to stay in, San Pedro de la Laguna. We ventured across the lake to visit Panajachel too, with plans to kayak but we backed out because Atitlan, being a mile high lake was even colder than Antigua. 

I really enjoyed the time we spent in both of these places and even though it sounds like we didn’t do much (which we didn’t) it was just what we felt like. We have been travelling for almost three months now and going from place to place every couple of days takes its toll so that by now, sometimes all we want to do is nothing. And our next stop would cater to this perfectly…

It seems like every blog post I write starts in the same way – with a long bus journey – and this one is no different. To get from Mexico to Guatemala, our last country before returning home to Honduras, we had to cross back into Belize first and change buses twice despite having paid for a direct shuttle. Apart from that, and the surprise exit fee from Mexico that left us penniless, the journey actually went quite smoothly and we arrived in Flores in the early evening.

Flores is a little island in Lake Petén Itza in the Petén region of Guatemala which was celebrating it’s anniversary while we were there meaning there was a feria on during our stay that involved a lot of parties, presentations and pageants. Flores is the most common base for tourists and travellers that want to go and visit the Mayan site of Tikal, which was on our agenda for our stay.

We decided to save Tikal for our second day and took the first day on Flores easy. The town is very cute, full of cobblestoned streets and colourful facades. In the afternoon we grabbed one of the local boats and got it to take us across the lake to a rope swing. It was the perfect way to spend the afternoon, with a cold beer and a pack of cards, and provided a good deal of embarrassing moments to as we overestimated our strength and elegance! The view of the sunset was unparalleled too.

Day 2 meant off to Tikal. Tikal is famed for it’s sunrise tours but being 18 and lazy none of us really fancied getting up at 3am to get there in time so we opted for the less popular, much quieter sunset tour. The transport we bought from our hostel included a guide so we were led around the many impressive temples of Tikal before arriving in the Central Plaza in time to watch the sun set… behind a tree.

Despite the slightly disappointing end to the tour, Tikal was definitely my favourite of the ruins we have visited so far. With many of the buildings still standing and in good condition, and with a defined Central Plaza, it’s easy to imagine Tikal as the bustling city it was until it’s decline in the 9th Century. Tikal was a major economic and political centre during the Mayan era and features the tallest pre-Columbian structure in the Americas, Temple IV.

To break what is becoming a habit, I’ll finish this post with a bus so I can dive right into the next one. Our next destination was supposed to be Semuc Champey but after some discussion we decided to skip it to give us the chance to fit in one more country – El Salvador! We were warned that to get from Flores to Antigua, where we decided to go next, night buses were the fastest options but having not been prepared for this, it meant a day hanging around in our hostel before embarking on the single most uncomfortable bus journey we’ve had. And before anyone says anything it wasn’t even a chicken bus! Anyway we eventually got to Guatemala City where it was a quick ride over to Antigua, getting us there bright and early to find breakfast and explore the city before we could crash out and catch up on some sleep.

After eventually making it out of Utila, our next stop was Mexico. With not much time left we had decided to spend our time in Mexico exploring the Quintana Roo region. Our first stop was Tulum but to get there we had to go through four countries, cross three borders and take an unexpected night bus. It took us a full two days and one night of travelling but we eventually arrived in Tulum in the early hours of the morning.

We had arrived earlier than planned after deciding to take the night bus from Belize City so hadn’t found any accommodation. This meant we ended up walking around Tulum at 6.30 in the morning, being turned away from hostel after hostel because they were full. We did eventually find some hostels that had space for us but as they were over $20, more than double what we usually pay for a bed, we decided that we couldn’t afford to stay in Tulum for more than night.

While we were too exhausted after all of our travelling to do much the day we arrived, we made plans to visit the Mayan ruins before taking a bus to Cancun the next day. These were the first ruins I had visited and while they were impressive, there was something even more breathtaking. The ruins at Tulum are right on the coast and it was hands down the most beautiful water I’ve ever seen.

Cancun was our next stop and after the disaster that was trying to find somewhere to stay in Tulum we booked ahead this time. Our stay involved even more beautiful water, another visit to the Mayans and the most expensive night out ever. Do you know it costs $60 to get into a club in Cancun???

A major Central American attraction is the Mayan site of Chichen Itza near Cancun. The main temple is on postcards, magnets and souvenirs everywhere you look and despite all the hype, it didn’t actually disappoint. It did take us five hours on a bus to get there just to spend a few hours looking around before enduring the same journey on the way back but it was worth it to see such a well known historical landmark.

A little history about the Mayans seeing as they’re featuring so heavily in this blog. The Maya civilisation spread all the way from the southeastern regions of Mexico, down through Guatemala and Belize to the north of Honduras and El Salvador. The Mayans were around from 2000 BC until the mysterious collapse of Mayan civilistation toward the end of the ninth century that led to the abandonment of their great cities.

After a few days hanging around in Cancun, we weren’t quite ready to leave Mexico so we decided to make a stop on our way back down to the border. We chose Laguna de Bacalar, also known as the lake of seven colours. I thought the water in Tulum and then Cancun couldn’t get any better but Mexico just kept it coming. Bacalar has the clearest, most crystalline water you could imagine and is hard to look away from. 

Overall we only spent a week in Mexico, partly to try and avoid the departure tax for stays longer than seven days (which we still had to pay by a day), partly out of a desire to get to Guatemala and partly because despite what everyone had told us Mexico was much more expensive than we were prepared for. This may be because we were there in the high season, right over the Christmas holidays, or maybe because we mostly just visited the notoriously touristy places.

Anyway, whatever it was, I feel like I owe Mexico another chance to bowl me over like it has most of the travellers we’ve met but that means giving it much longer than a week – I mean have you seen the size of it? – and visiting places that show off the true Mexican culture. I have a feeling that once I dig past the cities like Cancun and Tulum, Mexico could be a place that I could love.