We've just come from 8 days diving in Utila, part of the Bay Islands off Honduras. What a top week. We did 10 great dives and saw plenty of stuff including turtles, rays, sea horsies (ha!), plenty of other brightly coloured fish (that we don't know the names of) and even a shark! Unfortunately the Whale Sharks must've heard we were in town so they buggered off, but even so, we had a great week. This was topped off by the fact that we were staying in a big house with a huge deck over looking the water and a private jetty with some fab people. The fact that we could unpack and cook for ourselves was a plus too.....and did we mention the rum???!

We were lucky enough to be on Utila on Honduras' Independence Day. They seemed to celebrate this with the typical street parade and then in the not so usual way with kid boxing fights (picture 5 year old girls going at it) and a big greasy pole (i.e. a massive pole, greased up, that you climb to the top off for an undisclosed amount of money). The festivities ended with 1 Lempira notes (about 5 cents) being thrown into the crowd causing absolute riots (business must be slow??), followed by bags of flour. Needless to say it was easy to spot the scabs thereafter.

Other than that we weren't too wrapped in Honduras...underwater it was tops, above water?.....hmmm. Copan Ruinas was pretty nice but Santa Rosa de Copan and Gracias left a lot to be desired. Gracias ended up being a case of us planning to spend the day there and instead taking the bus back out 2 hours later, jokingly saying, 'Gracias, pero, no Gracias (i.e. thanks but no thanks). And the other place is memorable as it's the location of the biggest dive of a hostel thus far (refer to the photo´s)....the stench mixed with the unknown substance on the shower floor certainly left an impression...definitely a kodak moment.

But before Honduras came El Salvador...and this place rated pretty good. We decided to stick to the mountains and not the beach (sorry Lyndell and Jacko, we didn't get to visit your block of land and move along the squatters). The mountains though were great. We did 2 massive walks, one bushbashing near a small town called Tacuba for 8 hours in torrential rain....good fun although it took days for everything to dry. The second was on Kate's birthday up Volcano Izalco...in the rain again, but good fun. That night we celebrated Kate's 26th with a dinner on a pretty spectacular lake, choosing a restaurant with a strict 'no guns policy'...and who said we weren't being careful over here?!?!?!

This brings us up to date. Tonight is our first night in Nicaragua after 2 massive travel days. Yesterday the plan was to visit another place in Honduras called La Union for some more treks, but this plan was aborted when we were dropped off by the chicken bus on a random cross road yesterday and told we had to hitch the rest of the way....and with no cars in sight for 1.5 hours, we aborted mission and added 5+ hours of buses to the day.

More soon....