All set to leave El Tunco, we say our goodbyes to Danny (you always feel better saying goodbye to English people as there is a chance you may meet again back home!) and set off to catch our string of chicken buses to the capital San Salvador. To picture these buses think of the school bus from Simpsons all battered up and full to overfilling with local people, there are no bus stops you just hope it will stop for you and shout when you want to jump off. Don't expect much room and be prepared to get to know the locals personal space very well!

We waited and waited and true to form they ran on there own time and never showed up! Lucky for us there was a group of cyclist who had cycled from San Salvador and were getting a lift back by lorry they offered us a lift in the back of the open top lorry with the bikes, offering us cold beer and the best air con to the bus station. We liked to think of this as our first time hick-hiking, but without the thumbs! The journey was only an hour and it was great fun drive through the capital like a local standing up and taking in the sites waving to everyone who passed. Knowing San Salvador(and to be honest most capitals around the world!) isn't the safest place to walk around,we stuck close to the bus station and enjoyed a well deserved and enjoyable Boxing Day (that only British seem to celebrate! Does anyone know why? We don't!) watching sky movies all night in our double double bed with ensuit hotel room!

Following day we had more luxury on our bus, we had food and drink supplied every hour that was actually edible. It was a long day traveling with our second bus blowing a tyre to La Cebia. To make matters worse our new beds were in the kitchen of the hostel and Hana swears she saw a rat! Far from the luxury of last night! Oh well lets get Pizza Hut tonight a fast food chain we haven't indulged in yet! Remember it is only one night.

We caught the ferry to Utila early the next morning, our lack of Spanish came in handy as the Captain started shouting demanding people to leave the boat as it was overloaded. We didn't understand him so just sat still until others left and were the lucky ones to cross over. At the dock all the dive centers were hassling you off the boat boasting that they were the 'best on the island'. We had done our research and was going to take it at our own pace and not be fouled by the talk. After a discussion with a dive instructor who told us all about the sites we chose UNDERWATER VISION, our main decision was based on it being a local run facility!

The setting was beautiful, an open beach area with a volleyball court, wooden chalets on either side, a private jetty to sunbath or swim from and best of all the dock was right outside your room perfect for those early dives. Settling in we went for a wonder of the island. It had the same local small style feel like Caye Caulker but bigger so more to see and do! That night we all went out for dinner and enjoyed a few drinks and partied the night away on the two night clubs jetty's. Coco Loco and Teatonic were great, sitting on the top of Teatonic was a strange feeling the jetti was actually swaying below us, I promise it wasnt due to too much drinking!!!! I doubt that helped thou!

The following day we took it easy and explored some more, finally deciding to book our Advanced Open Water as it was nearly the same cost to do so many dives. We decided to focus our Advanced course on, deep water (30m), underwater navigation, night dive, buoyancy and wreck dive. For those who don't know Utila, Honduras is an amazing place to dive not because of the sites but because it is soooooooooooo cheap! Early night for us as tomorrow at 7am we will be diving our first 30m wreck dive!!!!! WOW

Neither of us had seen a wreck before, so everything we experienced was a first which made it so much more exciting The wreck was at 30 meters, so after not having dived for the last 11 months we were a little cautious however as soon as we were at the wreck, the depth and inexperience wasn't an issue. First off we swam around the wreck, poking our heads in all the port holes and looking under the wreck for hiding marine life. While we were swimming around we saw a skeleton of a Pilot whale. This was an experience in itself, the whole skeleton was laying around and you could picture what it would have looked like. As our confidence grow, Matt our instructor lead us through the shaft of the wreck and into the captins bridge. On the bridge someone had put a camera and ipod on the side, to give the divers a giggle. We slowly ascended up and jumped back onto the boat and headed to shore to change our tanks.

Our next dive was our buoyancy control one which was only at around 10 meters and all skilled based. We descended down and had to swim through a square hoop, forwards, upside down and over and under it, without hitting our tanks. We then did some froward and backwards summersults with our fins on. We then took our fins off and tried it again and it was really hard, we also tried swimming without fins and practice karate underwater. Matt then set us up for a race, with no fins on and you had to run along the bottom of the sand, the first person to reach him got to drink for free that night. Unfortunately neither myself or Becki won, but it was fun trying! Again we surfaced and headed back to land.

Our final dive for that day was a night dive....... it was strange, we lost one of our senses, sight. We only had a torch for light, which only had enough juice to shine about two meters straight in front of you, so we had to stay close to our buddy. The dive was amazing as you had to use your torch to hunt out the marine life and stay with your group. On this dive we saw an octopus, a spotted ray, lobster and much more. After this dive we went for dinner and headed to bed, Diving makes you extremely tired.

The next day we did our navigation dive, where we had to use a compass on our arm to move in a square and triangle with the help of our buddy. I was a little worried about this as I sucked on my Open Water but I actually did really well and it was Becki who got lost! This was a fun dive as we had to use our brains and think for yourself. Our last dive was a deep dive so we would experience Nitrogen Narcous (apparently this feels like being slightly tipsy, something we obviously have never experienced), we only went to 30 meters but we were tested at the bottom to see how our reactions were effected. First off we had to count to 20 using a board of mixed up numbers, touching our noise after every number. The theory is it should take you twice if not longer to do this under water as it does on land. We both disproved this theory as mine was the fasted in the group both under and above water and becki's was only 5 seconds different. The other people on our dive proved the theory right (according to divers this just proves we are good drunks!) Our second challenge was to guess a veg underwater, we both guessed tomato which was right, then we had to watch how the depth changed objects colours, but playing with Skittles. Finally we had to try and peal an egg underwater concentrating on not crushing it. We all crushed it fairly quickly but the membrain stayed together so we played with it and the yoke. We all passed and headed back to the boat to party the new year in Utila style.

Cross Creck another dive centre was our first stop as it was all you can drink and a plate of food for 200L(£7). Like normal for Utila there were a number of power cuts and horrible toilets but it all added to the experience. It was really cool here as we met lots of people who we had previously met, including Chaz and Doug who we met in Playa Del Carmen in Mexico! We then headed to the Coco Loco to see in the new year, with our new Ozzie friends we had. There wasn't a count down but there was lots of beer and champagne flying around and everyone was kissing screaming happy new year! We partied hard and had a wicked night.

The past few days Becki hadn't been feel that great and after diving she caught a bit of a cold and ear problem, so for the next few days we chilled out, swam off the dock and explored the island so she could recover. We also took the opportunity to research our next move and after lots of reading, talking to people and internet we booked a £400(the same as it cost us to get to Mexico from England) flight ticket to Ecuador. Luckily Bridie has sent us an in depth what to do in South America and her favorite place was Ecuador, so our decision was made.

We did our last dive which wasn't that great but it was all good experience, chilled out in our rooms as the weather was horrible and then partied big style. One day we will learn not to go out the night before we are due to travel! We went to a bar called TreeTonic which was voted the 4th best bar in the world because of its decoration. The place is indescribable and the pictures were indescribable. The owner was a Carpenter and every wall had something different on, such as marbles, paintings, port holes, diver flags, statues. The toilet was all glow in the dark with shooting stars and rockets up the wall. We had a really good night and even continued partying at the hostel.

The next day we caught the ferry to the main land, jumped onto a chicken bus to San Perdo Sula (which we were told had the heights murder rate in the world) and we were due to arrive at 9 o'clock at night. Knowing this neither of us wanted to hang around, so we planned all our moves on the bus, so we jumped into a taxi, headed to a fairly nice hotel in a safer area and got some much needed shut eye!

The next day we headed to the airport to catch our three flights......12 hours later and after popping to 2 other countries we arrived in our new continent and country Ecuador. Let the South America adventures begin!