Tuesday. 6:00am. Today we travelled on another Collective to Rio Dulce (7 hours). The driver dropped us off at the main port area and we were collected by Gary from the Kangaroo hostel (free). We had not made a reservation so we were pleased to find out that there was a cabin available for 220Q per night.
Photos to be added - camera not working
The hostel was the nicest hostel we have stayed in so far and to top it off, there was a jacuzzi!!!! Gary (Aussie who built and owned the hostel for 7 years) was great and was really knowledgeable about central America. He gave us great tips and convinced us to go to Copan in Honduras on our way to El Salvador. The hostel had free kayaks for the guests so we grabbed one and headed out to El Castillo De San Felipe for a little wonder before it got too dark. We made sure we got back in time for a beer in the jacuzzi!
Photos to be added - camera not working
Wednesday. It was Roland's turn to look after me. I was sick all day from a 24 hour tummy bug. Not fun! I didn't do anything all day except lie in the bed and drink lots of water.
Thursday. Another tip from Gary. We headed out at 8:30am to catch a Collective (15Q each) to Finca El Paraiso. We were joined by Gunter from Switzerland. Entry fee was 10Q. This place was great! A hot waterfall which flowed into a cold river. It was lovely to relax here. I even jumped from the top of the waterfall ... didn't really like it! Won't be doing it again! Too scary! After we were guided to the source of the hot water, we covered ourselves in mud and sat in the hot spring, before heading back to the waterfall.
Photos to be added - camera not working
Afterwards we caught another Collective to El Boqueron where we travelled down the river to see the canyon. Beautiful! Gunter described it as a scene out of Avitar and we agreed.
Photos to be added - camera not working
While waiting for a Collective to take us back to Rio Dulce, a guy called Louis stopped in his pick up truck to offer us a lift! Super!! Free ride and air conditioned! He was such a nice guy who informed us that the nickname of Guatemala is Eternal Spring due to the greenness of the country throughout the year.
Another act of kindness happened when we arrived in Rio Dulce. Randomly a lorry (32 tonnes) carrying the the local beer Galo, stopped to talk to Gunter to ask where he was from. Discovering that he was from Switzerland and us from the UK he got out of the lorry (parked on the side of the busy road) went into the shop and brought us all a beer to say thank you for visiting the country!!!! We were all quite surprised by this and thanked the man before he drove off in his massive lorry!
Friday. 8:30am. We thanked Gary for a super stay at his Hostel and caught the bus to Honduras. The bus company, Litegua, charged us 75Q each (we paid once on the bus, not at the ticket office) for a 7 hour bus ride to El Florido, a small town on the Guatemalan border. The border crossing was easy. Paid 10Q exit fee and 65L entry fee into Honduras. We walked about 20 meters to the waiting Collective to take us to Copan Ruinas (20L and 25 minutes).
Copan Ruinas is really small to navigate, so finding our hostel for the evening was no problem - not as nice as the last one, very small room and smelled like a cave. We quickly dumped our bags and headed out to Twisted Tanya's for happy hour cocktails (100L for 2 drinks) followed by some street food (70L).
Saturday. We really didn't like this hostel so we got up early to check out and checked in to Via Via, much nicer and slightly cheaper. The breakfasts at this place were massive and really tasty (75L) -it filled me up until dinner!
 |
| Our hostel - the nice one! |
Armed with a map we walked to the famous ruins (entry 300L). Only took us around 20 minutes to get there and about 1 hour to visit everything. The ruins were a lot smaller than the others we have seen but they had amazing rock carvings and other decorative features. I was more fascinated by the resident Macaws flying about in the trees!
 |
| View of main plaza |
After the ruins we visited Macaw Mountain (200L). We loved it here. A great place to get up close to some amazing birds and as the name suggests, plenty off Macaws to play with. Roland was amused by some parrots that copied everything I said, even my laugh! We spent 1 hour here and then headed back to town for a coffee.
We were really missing wine. After walking around the same area for about 20 minutes we finally found a place which sold wine AND cheese, Cafe San Rafael! We ordered a couple of glasses and shared a plate of delicious cheese (410L) for our dinner for the evening. It was lovely!
 |
| The wine was delicious! |
 |
| Amazing!! |
Sunday. Today Roland had a go at horse riding! And he enjoyed it! Even managed a few good long trots! 3 hours of riding (300L) took us out of the town and into the surrounding country side (and walking like John Wayne after!). We really got to see a different way of life. The trip was worth every penny! I did have a little giggle when I found out that Roland was riding a horse called Princessa ... hehehe
The afternoon was spent relaxing and preparing ourselves for the early morning start.
 |
| Princessa not looking too happy |
 |
| My horse was quite small, but it certainly 'shifted'! |
Monday 3:30am. For $36 the collective pucked us up from our Hostel and drove us to El Tunco, El Salvador. Surprisigly we had to go back to Guatemala to re-enter El Salvador. We had to pay $1 exit fee and then 20Q to enter Guatemala. At the Guatemala and El Salvador border I was greeted with the cutest kitten and when the driver asked if I wanted to take it, I was almost tempted to say yes.
 |
| Sooooo Cute!!! I wanted to take to El Tunco with me. |
 |
| Path to hostel |
El Tunco is a small surfers village. The Beach is covered in black sand and the waves are big. As soon as we checked ourselves into the hostel we headed straight to the beach to get some breakfast and then chilled out for the rest of the day. It was hot!
 |
| Path to beach |
 |
| Surfers! |
 |
| View of El Tunco |
 |
| View of beach while having breakfast |
No comments:
Post a Comment