Honduras is another country with a fairly bad reputation but due to time getting a bit tight on my visa I was only planning to spend a week or so sunning it up in Utila, a small Caribbean island famous for its cheap scuba diving and backpacking parties.

Getting to Utila, was a journey of a few stages. First up leaving Santa Ana at about 2pm, we crossed the border and made it to Copan about 5 hours later. No dramas at the border other than a small delay with some tyre issues.

Included in the shuttle price was an overnight stay at a little hostel in Copan, but there wouldn’t be much time to explore as we arrived in the dark and would be leaving at 7am the next day for La Ceiba. I managed to go for a little walk to get some cash and find some dinner and of course had to try the local corn street food of Honduras – the Baleada. This time think corn tortilla, but a bit thicker than normal and filled with again, your choice of cheese, beans, meat, avos, what ever you desired. I decided to keep it simple with a creamy cheese and beans, so good.

Next day it was a 7am pick up and with a couple of stops for lunch and the bathroom we arrived at the port town of La Ceiba about 8 hours later. Then about an hour and a half wait for the ferry, so quite the journey. As the ferry pulled up to the wharf in Utila, I had an anxious moment where I was arriving to an island with no booking and there would be no return ferry until the next day, it was dark and my small bit of data wasn’t working. But my optimistic self was sure I could find somewhere. And as I disembarked I was certainly reassured that I would be fine as people hustled and haggled for my business, offering places to stay and diving deals. I heard someone mention Underwater Vision and this name rang a bell as someone I had met in my earlier travels had said this was a great place to stay, right on the water, good dive instructors, basic dorms but covered by the cost of your dive tuition. So I opted for this place and a short walk along the sandy road I finally arrived at home for the next 8 days.

My timing is often perfect and again confirms to myself that there is no need to book things ahead of time as there was an Open Water Certificate starting the very next day. $280 covered accommodation, the course and 2 fun dives at the end. Instead of recovering from the long journey with an early night it was straight to bar and cheap drinks and tequila which resulted in a nice 4am bed time – luckily the course was starting in the afternoon the next day and was only theory.

The next few days were filled with diving, eating baleadas, and making our way around the bars each having a ‘special’ night so everyone on the island all congregated at the one place. More people the merrier right. Tequila Tuesdays was an obvious hit with free tequila for an hour!! Luckily still completing the theory aspects of the course and skills section in the shallow water. Normally a quick swim would see me right but when the water is about 29 degrees it doesn’t really shake the hangover like it should.

I really didn’t get too many photos of this cool island but we did venture up to this abandoned hotel and climbed up onto the roof top to get these cool views.

It is a running yarn on the island that no one ever leaves but my visa days were running down and I still wanted to potentially explore Nicaragua (90 days total tourist visa for Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua) and not wanting to repeat another Tequila Tuesday I finally booked my ferry ticket out for the next day.