Our Utila visit was capped off nicely in the morning. We were up and ready with our bags a little early and were actually able to see out to the mainland from the hotel top floor. This was good, the last thing we wanted was bad weather stopping the ferry from sailing. Downstairs there were a few piles of wasps against the walls of the building, turns out about an hour earlier there had been an entirely random swarm of wasps hitting the hotel, and Josh said it sounded like rain hitting the walls. They were wasps without stings but we still stepped around the dying insects. There was meant to be a vehicle arriving to ferry our bags to the ferry terminal so we waited down the path from the hotel as it hadn’t yet arrived. Then is started raining. Soon it was obvious our transport wasn’t arriving and the rain wasn’t going to stop so we had to quickly get out our wet weather gear, cover the bags in their rain covers (if they had them) and then make our way to the terminal. Keryn and I got very wet, even with our raincoats. I spent the rest of the day with damp clothes and wet shoes and socks.
We huddled together with the other people waiting for the ferry as the rain thundered down, it was a proper downpour. There was next to no wind and this was probably the saving grace that allowed the ferry to sail, I think the group would have turned mean if we had to stay another day with nothing to do. Ten minutes late the ferry sailed and we had a mostly smooth trip over to La Ceiba, leaving the rain behind as a dark stain on the horizon.
Taxis took us to the bus station and our bus journey took us south most of the way across the country to the capital city of Honduras, Tegucigalpa. Josh had warned that this city wasn’t a place we would be safe walking around at night so once we were settled in at the Granada 4 hotel we met at the lobby to be loaded into taxis to take us across town to a big mall for the evening. The traffic was terrible and it was raining and Josh had quite a job getting taxis for all of us but we got there in the end. The locals certainly like to use their horns and road rules seems to be mostly non-existent, much like many places in Central America so far.
Keryn had left her sunglasses behind earlier in the trip so our main mission at the mall after having a tasty meal of takeaways was to find a new pair. This didn’t prove too difficult in the end and Keryn now has new sunglasses that are comfortable and look quite good as well. We had been planning to go see a movie but most people pulled out, preferring to return to the hotel for a rest instead.
While waiting for people to meet up at the movie theatre in the mall we met a somewhat strange man. This guy had already talked to Aaron, Cecylia and Matt and moved on to us when we arrived. He was a savant I think, his party trick for want of a better phrase was his ability to memorise the land mass figure for various countries. For us he gave the land mass of New Zealand, showed us the figure on his little calculator and then proceeded to rattle off the different regions of New Zealand (Northland, Auckland, Waikato etc) giving the land mass for each region and adding these all together. The total at the end matched the initial figure given. He also then gave the languages for the country (English and Maori) and then we were given the traditional Maori greeting, touching noses for a Hongi. He was strange but friendly and in no way threatening though he was a little sweaty, I think he was just happy to have an audience.
We had a good night’s sleep, the hotel rooms were very modern in styling and also very clean and tidy. All in all it was our most western experience this evening of the whole trip, like a brief holiday from our holiday.
