Well, Livingston turned out to be a bit strange, so we left after a day and headed to Honduras. Getting there was an interesting day of travelling. First, we had to take a boat to the town closest to the border, Puerto Cortez. From there we were supposed to catch a small bus over the border. Well, due to a teachers strike, the borders were blockaded. Angry teachers had cut down trees and dragged them across the road, and lined up across the highway with machetes. Our driver stopped in the traffic jam and told us we´d have to walk across if we wanted to get to Honduras. Through the picket line. Nice. Well, we walked through without incident, caught a bus on the other side, who took us to a pickup truck, who then took us to the border where we caught yet another bus. We stopped for the night in the beach town of Amoa.
We headed the next day to the little beach town of Tela, which was pretty cool. One of the neat things to do in Tela was take a tour of the mangroves by kayak. Jay and I signed up along with a British couple, Shawn and Niki, who we were now travelling with. It was an incredible tour. Because there are no motorboats in the mangrove, all the wildlife is easy to see. We saw aligators from 1 foot to 5 feet, these amazing huge blue butterflies, jumping fish (one of which managed to jump in to the leg of my shorts), and a couple types of monkeys. We ended up seeing a family of white-faced monkeys that seemed to be as curious about us as we were about them. They´d run about their trees to get a better look at us, and then would sit there and stare. The mangrove was somewhere you would get lost in a second without a guide. Narrow waterways and vines hanging down which all look identical. You could go 100 feet in and never find your way out.
One our way back to town, our guide stopped in a Garifuna village for us to grab a bite to eat. The Garifuna people are decendents of a mix of Africans who fled from slavery in the 1700´s and the locals that saved them. Their cultures have remained unchanged for hundreds of years. Except for the Pepsi stand.
Pepsi and Coke have such a huge battle for market share down here, that if you have land suitable for a store, they will build one for you, and give you a Coke or Pepsi machine to sell their product in. They then paint their logo on every conceiveable spot on the outside of that store. These little shops are everywhere. Now, even in the Garifuna villages.
Tela is where Jay and I finally parted ways. I meet many people who say they´ll plan to meet up, but few do. It was great that it worked out and to travel with him for 2 months.
So the 3 of us left Tela and headed to La Cieba to catch the ferry to the Carribean Island of Utila. Utila is known for its good weather, its good diving, and its bad bug problem. We got to La Ceiba and a taxi driver asked us if we needed a ride to the ferry terminal. When we replied yes, he began to unload the items from his cab belonging to the elderly lady who was about to take the cab. He´d rather ditch a 10L fare in exchange for a 75L fare. What a slime. We walked off and caught the next cab.