Home » Honduras » TRAPPED IN HONDURAS! - "Everypeople are you ready to party?"

“Is that rain?”<br /><br />Who ever thought that three small words could usher in a more, err, colourful period of travel adventure? Waking in beautiful, spectacular La Ceiba early, we aimed to get to the terminal ASAP so we were certain to make the ferry to Utila. Utila is an island off the coast of mainland Honduras that was used as a hideout by pirates who would plunder Spanish ships that were carrying bounty the Spanish had plundered from South American Indians. The population of the pirates in these parts grew to 5000 or so until the authorities killed or enslaved the mauraudering bunch. Nice. Nearly as nice as the weather that bucketed down and filled the streets of La Ceiba with floating refuse.

TRAPPED IN HONDURAS! - "Everypeople are you ready to party?"

Patrick Gatland
2006-04-05 09:31:59

Displayed times (last time: )

“Is that rain?”

Who ever thought that three small words could usher in a more, err, colourful period of travel adventure? Waking in beautiful, spectacular La Ceiba early, we aimed to get to the terminal ASAP so we were certain to make the ferry to Utila. Utila is an island off the coast of mainland Honduras that was used as a hideout by pirates who would plunder Spanish ships that were carrying bounty the Spanish had plundered from South American Indians. The population of the pirates in these parts grew to 5000 or so until the authorities killed or enslaved the mauraudering bunch. Nice. Nearly as nice as the weather that bucketed down and filled the streets of La Ceiba with floating refuse.

We aimed to create our own pirate ship while in Honduras. We had arranged to stay on a sailboat while in Utila and do some dives around the Honduran reef. After a few days of idyllic diving our boat crew (consisting of two Spanish marine biologists - cum welfare rorters) were to sail us to Guatemala where we would continue our journey north. We caught a taxi to the ferry Terminal only to discover that the ferries weren’t running because of bad seas and worse weather. Our quick thinking taxi driver suggested we try flying out of La Ceiba to Utila. We hastily agreed. He stopped to fill his tank on cab with petrol on the way to the airport. He explained that because the murder and robbery of taxi drivers was so common in this city it was only safe to drive near on empty. That way if he was murdered for his cab the bastard robbers wouldn’t get very far. A god plan - I didn’t have the heart to ask if he had considered the possibility that the bandits could use his takings to buy fuel and continue their escape.

Arriving at the airport at 8 AM we were greeted by the unsmiling, stony face of Honduran customer service. After a good four hours of discussion that would rival any Iranian nuclear weapons negotiations for intensity we discovered that: ...