Honduras Highlights
Continuamos... The journey from Guatemala to Honduras was fast and easy as our first destination lay just across the border. The ruins at Copan did not boast the impressive pyramids and temples we climbed in Mexico and Guatemala, but it is famous for unique stone carvings called "stelae" with hieroglyphics depicting Mayan life. We quickly found a lovely 7$ a night hotel room and were off to the ruins. The ruins in Copan were very tranquil and proved to be a nice grand finale of the Mayan tour. We had the place to ourselves, partly because it is off the beaten track and partly because it costs 15$ a head to enter. . All in all: pretty cool, a little pricey, and a bit ho-hum after Tikal. 
While in Copan Ruinas, we were tempted to pay for an afternoon horseback tour into the local mountains but then couldn't find the sketchy looking guy who offered us 3 hrs. for 20$. This turned out to be a blessing as later a fellow Canadian traveler told us that his guide was drunk and he was robbed by 2 teenagers holding a loaded pistol. We are grateful for our Central American karma thus far... 
After a little culture, we wanted to have some more fun in the Carribbean. We took a 10 hour ride on a sticky bus to the Bay Islands. The ride took us through the green, lush mountainous interior of Honduras with intermittent forest-clearing fires and road-side trash. The land is beautiful here and several regions have been preserved as National Parks and Reserves. Rather than visit a park or two (which posed logistic challenges), we decided on the islands famous for the cheapest scuba diving in the WORLD - 20$ per dive! We had to decide on either Utila: backpacker mecca, smaller, cheaper, fewer beaches; or Roatan: bigger, more expensive, more night life, better beaches. We chose Utila and our Lonely Planet Bible, Central America on a Shoestring, was right on... smaller, cheaper, and smellier as the local trash dump was right behind our hotel (and everywhere else for that matter). But alas, we quickly focused on our real destination, the coral reefs under the surface, and decided to spend the week on a small caye off of Utila.
This island, called Jewel Caye, was even more developed than the mainland with all the buildings overextending the island in every direction. There wasn't a grain of sandy beach and every space was covered by concrete, decks, or trash. But at least it put us right on the coral (mere steps from our hotel room) which facilitated daily snorkeling and diving jaunts. I can pretty much describe it as a 3-D hike on an alien planet. The coral landscape is truly breathtaking and the octopus, squid, turtles, rays, and zillions of fish made the overcrowded terrestrial world worth it. Once again, we tourists were at odds w/ the local fishing community and so we tried to stay away from the cheap lobster and fish dishes.
The highlight of the week was our final dive where we were joined by 2 marine biologists from the Whale Shark Research Center. A whale shark had been sighted off the island the day before and they were in search for some pictures and to observe behavior. Their eyes were acutely trained to search for "boils" in the sea caused by a tuna feeding frenzy on minnows which were feeding on plankton. During this time of year, whale sharks feed on tuna and a boil nearly always indicates the presence of a whale shark. It was pure excitement when a boil was spotted on our way to the first dive site. As the boat pulled right up to a huge dark shadow in the water, we were instructed to glide into the water as gently as possible. When we ducked our snorkels underwater, we saw a 30 foot male whale shark!! We knew this was a tremendous event because even the biologists were beaming. And all of this before we even dove for the day... This picture was taken by one of the marine biologists. Although I´m not sure this is the same day, this is what it looked like: 
After a quick stop at the capital, Tegucigalpa, we pretty much kept trucking to Nicaragua.
posted by Rachel and Scott @ 5:52 PM
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Hola Amigos, next on the big trip was more Espanol. San Pedro boasted the cheapest school & lodging in the world... and they were right. One week of school (20 hrs. with private instruction) cost around 53$ and one week of camping in our tree house with a view of the lake was 14$. San Pedro is situated on Lago de Atitlan surrounded by mountains and 3 massive volcanoes. The small town is a mixture of hippie gringos who have opened restaurants/hotels and authentic locals still wearing the traditional clothing of Guatemala. We chose Casa Rosario to study for 3 weeks because the school is a lush garden on the lake and it is run by Vicente, the community saint who is deeply involved in community projects (including personally giving $ to families ensuring their kids go to school rather then work). Our payments for school largely contribute to this which makes the experience that much sweeter...
Every morning we would buy banana bread on the steets for breakfast (50 cents), eat cheese and tomato sandwiches for lunch, and splurge on typical gringo food for dinner. Dinner was the big social event in San Pedro for extranjeros (foreigners) because all the restaurants lured you in w/ free big screen movies. We've never watched so many movies in three weeks... But it was the nightly gathering where we would meet our friends and it gave you something to talk about in Spanish class - as talking everyday for 4 hrs. can drag w/o new material. Here's a picture of our new buds from school:
After a few weeks we began to feel like the veterans of Casa Rosario and were charged w/ educating the newbies about the ins & outs of gringo-hippie-lake-world. I'm approaching this entry w/ a bit of a stream of conscious approach... and now I realize you might have a few questions. Tree House? Well initially we wanted to just camp next to the lake as we have all our gear and we want to justify hauling it around. However, each study area in the school consists of a tin roofed open air cabin and some of them have 2 floors. We layed out our air mattresses and felt like we were living amid a nature preserve. Birds and insects would wake us up each morning and we even had a guest scorpion:) But really we enjoyed it and were able to host many students into our abode during rain showers or snack breaks. 
Another curious issue: "lago w/ floaters". This was the issue of much debate among the students... but alas paranoia got the best of us and we kept the swimming to a minimum. The issue is this - there is no such thing as centralized community plumbing in most of Central America (there are few trash dumps as well). Each house is responsible for their waste management strategy and unfortunately this usually means the biggest lake in Guatemala is kinda like the biggest toilet in Guatemala. Our best buddy Vicente assured us the water is safe and that the lake has a "self-cleaning" mechanism (either settling it out or washing it on shore), regardless the problem is exacerbated after rain storms... as all the sewage from the villagers further up the hill flows down to the lake. We did recieve eye witness reports from our best gringo buddy of genuine floaters making their way to the lake. Sad but true. In addition to the lake being the community septic tank, the locals also use it as their washing machine and bathtub. This place is truly amazing and if you want to visit it while it's still (mostly) pristine, go soon!
During our 3 week stay at San Pedro, we were lucky enough to witness the big Semana Santa celebration. This Easter holiday consists of 5 days of celebration by carrying Jesus, Mary, and the cross on 3 separate floats through the streets for hours on end. The highlight event was the creation of "alfombras" or carpets made with fruit, flowers, pine needles, and colored sawdust. At midnight, locals from the Catholic church begin creating these elaborate carpets into the wee hours of the morning, only to be demolished with the marching parade early the next day. It was an amazing spectacle to witness... 
We are now moving on to Honduras for some more Mayan ruins, diving in the Bay Islands, and hours of chicken buses...
