Honduras

The title should say it all, really. I´m about to do an entire country a huge disservice by glossing over it in but a few short paragraphs. But you know, there really isn´t much to say except, and I´m a little afraid of the retribution that may be forthcoming, my reaction to Honduras has essentially been ´meh´.

This is nothing but a sign of my growing snobbery and familiarity with the once unfamiliar. Honduras is a lovely place, but a combination of only a few days stay in the country and the fact that I´m still pining for Guatemala has left Honduras with an uphill battle to win me over. Copan though was fun; you can´t beat a large selection of parrots, toucans and red vs yellow tuctuc racing through some jungleside streets. The trouble is that in that other town, which I love, one finds it hard to distinguish between the tourism and the lives of the people that actually live there; Antigua´s beauty permeates, and in the majority of cases actually is its day-to-day life. Whereas in Copan, you have some great Mayan ruins, a beautiful exotic bird sanctuary, and a central plaza that looks as if was manufactured in plastic using a case mould and plonked in the middle of this remote little town.

After Copan we set sail for Utila, which is a lovely island famous for its diving opportunities. Does this sound familiar to anyone? Yes, I´m afraid despite its larger size, or perhaps as a consequence of it, after visiting Caye Caulker the island of Utila comes across as a little... bland? (Surely he didn´t just refer to a tropical island with crabs, watersports and an ocean as blue as Blind Willie McTell as ´bland´did he? What an arse!) But it is! The snorkelling opportunities are not as interesting; there is a lot more hustle and I dare say a fair bit more bustle; and there are less places to chill out on an island that is supposedly significantly larger. I apologise to Honduras, but Belize wins the fight for best island in Central America thus far.

So after doing remarkably little on Utila for three days, I find myself in a town for which I do not know the name, and in all honesty I have no desire to find out. We´re only here for one night, because if we weren´t the journey to Nicaragua would be impossibly long. (It has already been seven and a half hours today, and continues tomorrow with a further fourteen hours traversing six different chicken buses!)

And so Honduras, I am sorry. I´m sure that given a bit more time and fewer encounters with fast food chains I would come to admire this country as much as the others. As it is, you have one more night to wow me before it´s too late. I´ll say this though: considering there is only powdered milk on Utila, Mermaids does a pretty decent cup of coffee. For that, you should be applauded.