Next country on the list was Belize, so after a long ass bus and boat journey across the border from Guatemala, we finally reached Belize City, which isnt the nicest. Not that we minded as we were not planning on staying there anyway, it was straight on the ferry to Caye Caulker. A taste of the Carribean. After much shall we, shant we, we finally decided against diving the famous Blue Hole, for 200 bucks for 8 minutes bottom time we dont didnt think it was worth it. We did a couple of dives though which were so so, I dont think safety if their number one priority in Belize, someone ran out of air and the Divemaster just pointed in the direction of the boat. Comical really, just glad we didnt run out of air. One of the highlights of our whole trip was a 3 day sailing trip from Caye Caulker to Placencia with camping for 2 nights on complete remote islands. We had a great group, incredible food and damn strong rum punch. We did loads of snorkelling on the way, Joel caught 3 Barras fishing, which made a delicious dinner. We even had dolphins swimming along with us when we were sailing, it was an amazing experience and anyone going to Belize needs to do it, Raggaking Tours.

After spending a couple of nights in Placencia we got the boat back to Guatemala as it was off to see Clares Mums sponser child Frandi and his family. It was in the middle of nowhere and with our lack of Spanish and their lack of English, thank god a translator was provided. We saw the local school, health centre and spent the morning with the family, they fed us a feast which was lovely. This was such an awesome experience and well worth the hassle of getting CRB checked and spending 2 nights in the middle of nowhere in Guatemala. Next we bused it down to Antigua through Guatemala City = dont go there = but Antigua was great, kind of a tiny place, cobbled streets and what not. Great coffee, markets and we also went to Pacaya Volcanoe which was cool, so hot on the volcanoe, people throwing things in the cracks and them bursting into flames. Really worth doing, except it was so busy, loads of Americans and Canadians on their summer holidays.

Next country was Honduras and first stop was Copan and the ruins there. Copan was tiny but soooo cute, one of our favourite places so far. The ruins are just outside the town so can just potter along to them which was nice. The ruins itself were also small but still just as cool as Tikal and Palenque, its been great to see all 3. The Macaw parrots just hang around in the trees swarking as you walk by. From here it was up to the Bay Islands and Roatan for scuba diving we had heard so much about. And its right what they say, INCREDIBLE. We spent a week here, Joel did 10 dives and Clare 6, had to stop at 6 as her ears were giving her gip. We saw turtles on most of the dives, the vis was amazing and our bottom time was usually over an hour. The diving is just amazing here, much better than Belize. We didnt want to leave here and can see how people turn up for a week and stay a month, esp as a dive is 25 bucks a pop. We will def be going back here.

And that brings us to Nicaragua, where we are now and the country is different, think we were expecting it to be a bit nicer after the other countries in Central America. Leon was a nice old city but Granada was just hussle and bussle, guest it doesnt help as its so so hot at the moment. And it doesnt help that we have both been feeling a bit under the weather. Isla de Ometepe was beautiful and even though we planned to climb one of the volcanoes, we didnt as we were both so knackered, so instead we just rested on the beach and enjoyed the views.

We are now in San Juan del Sur, Nicaraguas beach town and its quite nice but the sea isnt very blue. Also, Clare got stung by a jellyfish this morning so she is not a happy bear and wont be going back in the sea again. We are enjoying the sunshine though and its been nice to relax after feeling run down.

Tomorrow we are off to Costa Rica, our 24th country of this massive trip, then off to Panama before Miami then home to the UK in 2 and a half weeks. Arrgghh.

Clare and Joel x