It took us 4 days of strenuous traveling but we eventually made it to Utila (one of the Bay Islands in Honduras). After 2 border crossings, 7 different buses (most of which were decommissioned US school buses), 2 separate boat trips, 4 nightly stopovers in varying degrees of comfort and a few taxi trips thrown in, we were very glad to hang up our traveling boots for a bit while we completed our PADI Open Water scuba diving courses.

There were definite signs of the renowned "Gringo Trail" as we made our way from Mexico towards Honduras. This trail is a well worn path around Latin America that backpackers tend to stick to either because of the interesting sites that are close by or because they are gateway and communication hubs to reach other interesting areas. We decided to stick mostly to the later (i.e. gateway towns) on our way south because we were making a pacey beeline for Utila. Later on, when we reach South America we're going to allow ourselves to travel at a slower more enjoyable speed, but at the moment while we're still fresh and staring rather wide-eyed at all the possibilities in front of us, we're cramming in as much as possible and also breaking ourselves into the backpacking way of life by figuring out what works and what doesn't. There were some interesting stopovers on this rollercoaster of a road trip; here's a summary of the places we stayed:

Chetumal, Mexico
This is a frontier town on the border with Belize and has a much more authentic Mexican feel to it than most other places around the Yucatan peninsula (most of which are set up around tourist activities). There are lots of shops open during the day and apparently there are even charter buses coming from Belize which allow them to partake in some cheap shopping there. Arriving in the evening, it seemed a strange, slightly seedy place but maybe we didn't spend enough time there to really suss it out (not that we felt like doing that after the roasting bus trip). The only type of accommodation that we could see around was purely functional motel type places. We teamed up with an Italian guy who was heading on to Guatemala while we were there.

Belize City, Belize
The moment we arrived in this tiny city of less than 60000, we could see that we were starting to hit the Caribbean proper now. The slow pace, reggae music and deep accent are exactly what you'd expect from this part of the world and most people seemed genuinely nice and friendly (often going way out of their way to help). Most travelers coming to Belize head straight to the islands (called Cayes) or the nature reserves in the countryside rather than spending any time in Belize's biggest city. Once it started to get dark we began to see why this place is often skipped, as there is undeniably a dodgy element to it which is best avoided (ten minutes walking around just before dusk, and after being approached by several shifty characters in that space of time, was enough to convince us to return to the guest house). We spent the evening drinking with some English medical students who were staying in the same guest house as ourselves and got to sample the local brew, Belikin (which was the only one even close to being affordable).

Mango Creek, Belize
The only reason we got taken to this small backwater village in southern Belize was to avail of the daily ferry to Puerto Cortes in Honduras, but surprisingly we actually liked this spot and were quite intrigued by it. With only one hotel and one guest house (that we could find anyway) and almost everyone taking the time to say "hello" to us, it seemed that the amount of people actually stopping off here must be negligible. To highlight the remoteness further, we were greeted to a fairly innocent chant from some of the local youngsters that I don't think I'll forget for awhile; "White people! White people! Hello, white people!".

La Ceiba, Honduras
An error (or rather lack of planning and making more distance quicker than we thought possible) on our part meant that we rolled into La Ceiba at the busiest time of year. It was the day before the big carnival so the place was packed to the brim and made finding a room for the night a bit of a problem. It took a few hours, but in the end we got a room for about $30 USD (expensive in Honduras) that we had to check out of by 8am. Any notions of staying around to see the carnival were swept aside as we were repeatedly told by staff in multiple hotels that they had been booked out for this weekend months ago. The only option was to continue with our plan of taking the boat to Utila, meaning that we arrived there early last Saturday morning (almost exactly 4 days after leaving Playa).

Considering that this was our first time traveling in Latin America and we hadn't been on the road for too long yet, we were surprised at how smooth most of those days on the road had gone by. Up until our last day on the move, our biggest complaint was the high prices we encountered in Belize, which were more on par with Dublin and slightly shocking compared to the countries surrounding it. We never had to wait more than an hour for a connecting bus (often being able to grab one in minutes) and even managed to avoid a scam at the Mexican border where there was a dodgy looking guy getting people to fill out some strange immigration form which had "para Mexicanos" clearly printed on it (not surprisingly, this form had a fee associated with it).

Of course this fortunate luck couldn't keep up. True to form, it all started to fall apart at the seams (literally) on our last bus trip in Honduras going towards La Ceiba. On arrival, it appeared that our bags were covered with mud or oil, or some other such muck from the luggage hold. Because the rucksacks still looked perfectly fine, we didn't dwell on it too much, and pressed on with finding a place to stay. As mentioned above, this hunt for a room turned into quite an ordeal and two hours later, the corrosive nature of this gunk from the bus was starting to become apparent. The whole face of Kev's bag was burnt at several points while some of the straps on Nate's were looking quite frayed. Luckily damage to Nate's was fairly superficial and did not affect the integrity of the bag (although the T-shirt worn while carrying the bag made enough contact with this crap to wreck it). Kev's was a whole different "kettle of fish" however and seepage inside caused destruction of a few items of clothing as well as the bag itself (which is only held together with some Oral B dental floss as we speak). That's a new item to add to the shopping list then; 1 rucksack!

A retreat on this island has been exactly what the doctor ordered after all the effort to get here. Days have flown by while scuba diving, eating out at some of the excellent and cheap restaurants, and just enjoying the general buzz of the place. We'll be making a move from here soon enough but to where, we're still not too sure. Our next flight is from Mexico City so we are starting to turn our attention towards that direction and we will have to be in proximity of Guatemala in a few days to reach that without having to rush too much.