Last time I posted we were about to go to an NHL hockey game on our last night in Canada... and what a night. The game itself was awesome: the Toronto Maple Leafs ended up winning 5-4 against the Pittsburgh Penguins, in a see-saw edge-of-our-seats contest. In addition to nine goals, there were a couple of fights, including an awesome one-on-one (just after Nelson, Jen's cousin, had finished bemoaning the Americanisation of hockey and the fact there were no fights anymore). Also, they were retiring Doug Gilmore's number (93) so there was a big ceremony before the game and everyone got Doug Gilmore bobbleheads. Got to be the best souvenir so far.

Anyway, the game was an absolute highlight of our time in North America, but it did mean that we only got 2-3 hours sleep before we had to leave for our flight to Miami, and our connection on to Guatemala City. We flew American Airlines and both flights were about 30mins late in leaving, but that was better than we'd been told to expect. We got to Guatemala about 2pm, but getting through customs took a while (they don't have x-ray machines just a line of people waiting to rifle through your bags). Once outside the terminal we were met with a sign saying ''Marisa Donaggio" (she was chuffed with that), which was our transfer to Antigua.

After reading a lot about Guatemala and its capital, actually being there was quite surprising. The two things I remember most about GC is franchise fast food outlets and people riding in the back of jeeps. It didn't feel the slighest bit seedy or dangerous (at least: we can think of a lot of worse places we've been). The drive to Antigua took about an hour, and was basically 30mins driving up a mountain and then 30 down the other side. Antigua itself is a well preserved colonial town, small enough to walk around (and full of tourists). We only had the afternoon there as our tour set off for Honduras the next day, but we managed to get around and see a lot of the old churches and things, and try some mystery baked goods from roadside stalls.

In the evening we met with the rest of our GAP tour group. There's 15 of us, ranging in age from 20something to 70. Some of them have been travelling all the way from Mexico, and will go on to Panama. But for us it's just 17 days through to San Jose, Costa Rica.

It was an early start the next morning and about a nine hour bus ride to get to the Honduran border. Our time in Guatemala was very brief, but from what we saw, and from what others have told us, it really deserved a lot more time. Anyway. After the border it was only about half an hour to Copan, were we stayed the night. In the afternoon, me and Marisa went to the Copan ruins. The rest of the group were a bit ruined-out from earlier tours, but this would be our first and only chance to check out some Mayan ruins, so we weren't about to miss it. At first the site was a bit underwhelming, suffering in comparison to the things we'd seen in Egypt only 2 weeks before (smaller, about 2500 years younger, less well preserved)... but after scaling some of the structures and finding the complex was bigger than it first appeared, it was actually pretty cool.

The next morning was another early start and a long travel day which consisted of two public buses (but not "chicken buses", actually they were really comfy), then a taxi from the La Ceiba bus station to the port in the middle of a torrential downpour (our bags couldn't fit in the boot of our taxi so the driver tied them on and we could only watch them get soaked... luckily we'd lined them with heavy duty rubbish bags the night before), then a 1.5hr ferry ride to the Bay Island of Utila. The ferry ride was rather bumpy (at one stage I was lifted up off my seat and landed on the floor)... lots of people were sick (though not us, thank you Gravol), and most got wet.. but we made it. The next day the sea was too rough for any ferry crossing, which stranded a similar tour group to ours. Fingers crossed it's clear tomorrow morning.

We're on Utila for three nights. It's touted as the cheapest place to dive (especially to earn your certifications) in the world, and the island pretty much revolves around that industry. Due to the rough seas and gloomy weather reports (which so far have overstated things) there were no snorkelling trips running yesterday or today, and a beginners dive didn't seem like a sure bet either, so we've stayed on dry land, mostly, exploring the island on foot, though we did go for a swim this afternoon just down from our hotel.

So, that's our tour so far. The food has been uniformly good. Plenty of cheap options (baleadas for breakfast yesterday cost about 75 US cents each... a bottle of rum was about $6 US), though being with a group we all tend to eat at proper restaurants in the evening which stretches the budget a bit more.

Tomorrow, we will hopefully head back to the mainland and stay the night in Tegucigalpa, then it on to Nicaragua and Costa Rica. Hopefully I can post some photos soon (and maybe a video of a hockey fight if you're lucky).

Craig