Honduras

Day 104
Broke the Guinness World Record for the highest number of short flights required to get to a not too distant destination today, by taking three flights to get from Managua to El Salvador, from there to San Pedro Sula and onward to La Ceiba, Honduras. Nevertheless, this crazy flight routing seemed much more desirable than the alternative of a 15-hour bus journey with hours spent in passport control, which we anticipated based on our trip from Costa Rica to Nicaragua.
Found out just before leaving Granada that there would be no ferries the next day from La Ceiba to the Bay Islands, because of Semana Santa (Easter weekend). Apparently, Good Friday and New Years are the only days in the calendar during which there is no service, however, the ferry company had unfortunately not found this important enough to mention it on their website. Booked a flight for this 50 km trip instead, as we didn’t want to waste a day on the islands. When we finally arrived in La Ceiba late in the evening, none of the local taxi drivers had ever heard of our hostel, neither did they have any clue as to where the address we had noted down might be. After an hour-long odyssey via dodgy backstreets full of potholes and without lights, we finally decided to ask a friendly local if we could sleep in their hammock on the beach. We built a ‘fort’ with our bags and attempted to somehow get a couple of hours of sleep....to no avail, as strange noises, bird calls and shadows kept us awake for most of the night, until we were picked up by the same taxi driver for our early morning flight.

Day 105-Day 113
Landed in the paradise that is the small island of Roatan after our short flight. After NO hostel at all the night before, we were ecstatic to find that our new home for the coming days was located in a bay so beautiful that it would not have been out of place in any cast-away blockbuster. To make things even better, the best dive companies in the Bay Islands were our immediate neighbours, so that Thomas was looking forward to exploring the second-biggest barrier reef in the world from his doorstep.

Both of us quickly agreed that investing in your own snorkel gear had never been more appropriate than here. Fully kitted out, Laura started to explore the reef and got more and more into her snorkelling. Thomas went for a couple of dives every other day, including an amazing wreck dive in the bluest waters imaginable, as well as unforgettable cave and drift dives amongst surreal cities of coral.
The rest of our days was filled with snorkelling, sun-bathing and simply RELAXING - something we both agreed had often been a little neglected on our trip, in the effort to fit 14 countries into 4 ½ months.

So, the planned 5 days turned into 7, and then into 9. And, at some point, we were seriously contemplating to stay in this paradise for another 3 weeks until the end of our trip, and simply get a flight to Cancun to connect us with our home-bound flight for London.

Day 114
The sad day had come to say goodbye to our Paradise, for now anyway... We boarded the ferry to La Ceiba and on arrival this time our hostel actually existed!!!