I came to Honduras with three ideas on my mind: The mayan ruins in Copan, diving in the bay islands and hiking around the national parks surrounding Lago Yojoa. First up, what I´m almost 100% sure is my last mayan ruin site, Copan. Compared to Chichen Itza, Palenque and Tikal, it´s a lot smaller, but is well famous for being extremely well preserved and detailed. At arrival in Copan town, the close - by town, I was surprised to see that also this place was almost cleared out of other tourists. Once again I was the only person staying in the hostel, and although more frequent than El Salvador, seing other travellers in the streets was a rarity. I got up early my first morning and walked over to the ruin site. As I suspected, the temples were much less impressive than beautiful Tikal and Chichen Itza, but the detail of inscriptions and figures was marvelous. I strolled around the site for myself an hour or two, taking photos, watching figures, temples and the red macaws flying by, before I eagerly looked up a bus and headed for the bay islands, a divers paradise.

Because of delays and ineffective buses I didn´t make it all the way out to the islands in one day, and therefore had to spend a night in much less charming La Ceiba. I checked in to the s***tiest hostel I´ve been to in months and fell asleep on the rock hard bed in the empty dorm.. The port were the ferries leave for The Bay Islands, Utila and Roatan, was a mere 5km outside town, and since I had plenty of time I just waved the taxis away and started walking. As it turns out, people don´t like gringos walking places when they should be paying taxi - drivers, so when I asked around for directions and stubbornly declined all taxi - offers, they started pointing me in circles around town. Ended up walking for almost two hours in the blazing heat with my backpack on before I realized it was hopeless, swallowed my pride and jumped in a Taxi.
On the ferry-ride out I met some fellow divers who already had booked their dive-adventure in Utila with "Utila Dive Center". We were met in Utila with a representative from UDC who gave me an offer I couln´t decline, with almost free accomodation and the cheapest diving I´ve ever heard of. The hostel connected with the dive center, Mango Inn, was perfect: only 5usd a night for a dorm-room, were nobody else slept, nice beds, hammocks and an awesome pool.
Diving in Utila is world famous for the healthy corals and the whale-sharks that pass by time to time. Being a bit spoiled with dive-experiences so far, I was excited to see what Utila had to offer. Unlike many of my other dives, the highlights here aren´t sharks, big groupers or tarpons, but great visibility and spectacular coral reefs. There is also a big shipwreck at about 30m depth and night-diving. Since I´ve never tried neither shipwreck diving or night diving I was quick to sign up for both. The shipwreck was amazing. Not because of the marine life around it, but just the strange experience of swimming around in and out of cargo-wholes and exploring the big hull on the bottom of the sea. The night diving certainly wasn´t any worse. Night life in the ocean is just as exotic as on land, and the strangest creatures come out from hiding to grab some food. The most mesmerizing was a squid who graciously glided along the water-floor, changing colors within the whole specter.

When we weren´t diving I spent most of my time reading, swimming in the pool and hanging out with Nathan, Nataly and Jordan, who were staying at the same hostel. The social setting around a tourist - mekka like this was well missed, so I ended up staying way longer than I planned. After a week I got back on the ferry, looking for a very different life-style up in the mountains of Honduras..