15: the last of the Mayans

sunset from the wooden bar

We said goodbye to our Aussie friends, who were heading back to Roatan (the sister island with an equally large if not potentially more affluent number of divers) and on our penultimate day on Utila, went diving with Dec. Dec took us to Black Hills, a coral mountain to the south east of the island. This was the most impressive site we visited, and were treated to seeing toadfish, trumpetfish, black triggerfish, big eyed jacks, blue wrasse and ocean-going triggerfish, as well as many juveniles. The volume of marine life was much more impressive than any we had seen in Honduras so far, although it still felt lacking compared to the Red Sea and further north in the Caribbean.

The rest of our time in Utila was spent reading books we didn't want to carry, sunbathing, and drinking rum. We took a very early ferry to La Ceiba back on the mainland and got a fancy Hedman Alas coach to San Pedro Sula, where we treated ourselves to a carb-loaded and very cheesy pizza in the cavernous shopping centre. After that it was a long journey to Copán through amazing lush scenery. Traffic was delayed along the road, and as we approached a bridge we realised it was because part of the road making up the bridge had fallen away. We crossed it anyway.

Copán stela with jungle vines hanging behind

The next morning we were woken in Copán by rythmic drumming from the nearby school. After doing boring things like dropping laundry we took a tuktuk up to the Mayan ruins at Copán. We managed to team up with some American missionaries to cover the cost of an English speaking guide, and wandered through the site, almost managing to avoid the site. It was the last Mayan site we visited, and an impressive one to finish on.

amazingly intricate stonework

We climbed over huge tree roots that were breaking up the stones to the top of the main structure overlooking the plaza and sat enjoying the view for a while. On our way out the peace was interrupted as there was a massive influx of teenage schoolboys, whose teachers were apparently blind to the fact that they were blatantly taking photos of us (not that we looked interesting?) and making hissing noises - a particularly unattractive trait of Latin American men. Now normally it takes quite a lot to annoy me, but for some reason it really, really pissed me off - to the point where I shouted "a little respect!" in Spanish (nearly followed by "you little fuckers", but I wasn't certain on the grammatical structure to follow) and looked around frantically trying to identify their teacher so I could relay my thoughts on the matter. Luckily for Clare, he wasn't easily identified (probably the fat guy on his mobile smoking a cigarillo), so we headed out toward the museum.

The museum was probably the best we'd seen. It was large, airy and well lit, and had a huge central reconstruction of one of the central pyramids in the ruins which we'd declined to pay extra to see. There was some beautiful stonework, particularly involving animals and birds, and we enjoyed the respite from the heat, until we were chased out by the hoardes of schoolboys arriving.

We jumped on another tuk tuk to Macaw Mountain, a nearby bird and butterfly sanctuary, where we drank beer in the pouring rain, and a large parrot destroyed the top of my hat. That night I switched on our lightswitch and the power in the whole street went out.

The next morning I didn't feel too good, probably because of the badly microwaved burrito I'd been served the night before, but we packed up and got the bus across the border towards La Antigua in Guatemala. The journey was rainy and foggy, and we could hardly see the mountain roads as we wound through them.

We arrived at the Black Cat hostel in the rain, squeezing into the heaving bar for shelter. Clare went off to find about rooms while I waited with our backpacks, and managed to get one bed there and another at the sister hostel round the corner. We had a quick beer in the bar and then headed our separate ways. That night at the Black Cat put the final nail in the already decaying hostel coffin for me, when I was woken at midnight by an American girl who decided that the courtyard in the middle of the hostel was an excellent place for her to have a three hour shouting match with her boyfriend; only to be woken again at 4am by people sleeping through their alarms for getting up for buses.

rainclouds cover the volcano

I was in a pretty foul mood the next morning, surprisingly enough, and Clare and I managed to find another room near the market. Antigua is full of churches, many of which have been destroyed in various earthquakes shuddering through central America. We wandered round visiting the grounds of all of these, hoping the next earthquake wouldn't hit while we were there.

There were lots of weddings going on, with participants and guests dressed in various shades of shiny synthetics. The weather changed quickly between sunshine and thundery showers, and we escaped from the rain into Casa Santo Domingo, a beautiful hotel created in the grounds of an old monastery and containing ruins and some interesting galleries and museums.

The next day, we discovered the Bagel Barn, where we had a four hour breakfast. The afternoon was spent dodging the pouring rain and going into some really crap museums. Clare was leaving the next day; she went to get her hair cut and, pissed off with the rain, we went to a cafe and talked about her experience of Peru. As the rain cleared we headed down to see the last church ruins at Capuchinas and La Récolecion. Slightly out of town, this felt more isolated than the other ruins, and as the sky darkened we were anxious to make our way back. That evening we headed back to Casa Santo Domingo and celebrated our trip with a bottle of prosecco and probably our most expensive meal.

I felt sad when Clare left the next morning, headed for Rio to meet her friend Sarah, but we'd had such an amazing time and neither of us wanted to prolong the goodbye. I wandered to the adventure tour place, where we'd already enquired about trips up the various volcanoes surrounding the town, but they were still not running any trips due to the heavy and persistent rain, and there were few people interested in signing up. This was disappointing as I had a few days to spend in Antigua and this had been my plan, partly to warm up for Peru, but the weather had caused many problems around Guatemala, with mudslides and death, and I wasn't about to screw things up by being swept down (or into) a volcano. So after a few days of updating this diary and eating many bagels, I took a 4am colectivo to Guatemala City, and boarded a plane to Lima.