¡Bienvenido!

Ladies and Gentlemen- I made it. I have landed in Central America (It is most definitely not Barbados). I managed to get myself from Guatemala City to Antigua without being mugged, shot or traumatized in any way, shape or form. The worst thing that happened was that I had to wait 5 minutes for the other passenger to finish his ciggie before we could leave. I was most relieved as was feeling very nervous as the taxi driver who took me to the airport had said to me that he recently went and was mugged and he is even from there. The lady at check in told me to be careful and not to trust anyone, the guy at security told me to wear my crappiest clothes and no Jewelry and Lonely Planet said murders had recently escalated from 2000 to over 6000 per year. Great. On top of the last little bit of hangover, 1 1/2hrs sleep and a 1:30am start (is that even counted as a start??) I was feeling pretty excited and pumped about the upcoming  adventures.....

However despite being only 45 minutes drive away Antigua is a beautiful town with cobble stoned streets, teeney weeney people in colourful outfits and houses and churches that look like something from a film set. I half expected Antonio Banderas in a Zoro outfit to go running past brandishing a sword with Catherine Zeta Jones slung over his shoulder. Or hopefully maybe even me. Unfortunately due to the above mentioned recommendations from the helpful United staff I was too nervous to get my phone out to take some photos so you will just have to google it. Sorry. First day nerves I think.

I met the Intrepid group in dribs and drabs and found them to be on the whole welcoming and friendly (what a relief). We range in age from 19-83 (!!!) and come from NZ, Switzerland, Germany, Australia and the UK. We had a debrief and welcoming as 2/3 of the group have been travelling for a month already and there were 5 newbies joining. That made me a bit anxious as they are already very close but they have been great in including those that joined with me.

First adventure started with a trip to the post office to attempt to post some boots purchased in NYC. Was feeling confident as I set off with Val, Kathleen and Michaela. Luckily Michaela had gone the sat before and knew where it was. We had an hour before our bus was due to depart. First problem occurred when my boots didn't fit into the box. Luckily a supermarket close by provided a bigger box. Second problem occurred when she announced that we had to wrap our boxes in brown paper. So off we went to look for a stationary shop. When we found it I managed to describe what we needed. Finally we made it back and we were all frantically wrapping. We used all the tape in the post office and the poor lady got so frazzled by us she fell off her chair. Really. At last after filling out three forms the boxes were ready. I'm not even entirely convinced it is going to arrive but I was not prepared to lug the boots around. We had the poor lady smiling by the end and we had a good laugh. All of this pushed my crappy Spanish to the limit as no one spoke any English at all. 

On the bus we jumped for a long day of  traveling to Honduras. We had to drive back through Guatemala City which meant we all shared the worst statistics we had read or the worst things we had heard which culminated in Ernesto our guide admitting that in the 6 months he lived there he had to take a different route to work everyday and that he was mugged twice-once at gunpoint and once at knife point. We were all relieved to be driving past and not stopping. We arrived in Honduras at 5 in the evening in a town called Copan which is the site of some amazing Mayan ruins. A quick walk around town (it took 15 minutes) proved it again to be a picturesque and relaxed town. No guns. Phew. I sat in the main square with the kids running around and the men in their cowboy hats and boots (main uniform here is cowboy boots, hat, jeans and a shirt) and really enjoyed the atmosphere. Just realised the lovely photo I took was on my camera. Sorry.

The next day was a free day to do what we liked. Four of us chose to have a guided tour of the ruins. Julio Ceasar (yes that's right) was our guide and he was great. He had worked for 17 years on the excavation and restoration of the site and was a fountain of knowledge. 

It was getting pretty hot by the time we finished and I was feeling quite pleased as can now recite the last 16 Kings from that region. I'm sure that will come in handy at a trivia night at some point. Val and I headed off to the coffee shop and then to find some lunch. We managed to find our way to the markets where there were a whole heap of little hole in the wall restaurants. We found a very friendly lady who made us a delicious lunch of Balledas which are kind of a cross between an omelette and a quesadilla and a plate of Plantanos Fritos. Now I'm not sure how many of you have had Plantanos Fritos but its like crack on a plate. Very addictive and absolutely delicious. Plantains are like giant bananas that taste really crap if you eat them raw but AMAZING once you have fried them and served them with bean dip and cream. A bit like Banana Nachos. Hang on-not sure that sounds as good as I meant! Trust me-they are awesome. Now Val is a very lovely English lady and we had a grandmother-type Honduran lady sitting at the end of our table watching the proceedings, so Val, being the generous and kind person she is, offered her a plantain. As quick as a snake she darted out and took the whole plate. She was definitely much quicker than she looked and we were both very startled. She then put the plate on her lap under the table and proceeded to polish it off. Well, I was having none of that as I was bloody enjoying those plantains so I stuck out my fork and in Spanish asked if I could have another one. Pretty much 'No' was the answer that I got. The cheek of it! We all ended up in hysterics (we had accrued another member of our group -Jay- at this point). Never again!

Next stop was Macaw Mountain which is a sanctuary for birds that were seized or rescued from poachers and private residences. We saw Macaw's, heaps of different parrots, Owls and hawks. The group that went in the morning managed to get some photos with the birds and I was hoping to get a comical photo with a macaw on my head for the blog but we got there a bit late so you will just have to settle for a comical photo of me driving a tuktuk (bizarrely the main mode of transport here). Our tuktuk driver was called Nolan and he was a machine! It was probably a blessing in disguise as they all ended up with huge holes in their t-shirts from the birds claws.

Happy Hour with $2 Daiqiri's wrapped up a really wonderful day. Woohoo!

Next stop Roatan!