Mexico To Honduras

This post covers the first half of December


So we managed to finally leave Cardenas, I thought it was never gonna happen!

The way out was a very nice ride along the coast, where the road hugs the seashore, and my glasses kept getting hazy from the humid salt in the air. Cool!

We stopped to take a picture of these funny pelicans

Captain Radu checking the horizon

We stopped in this little village where I had fish for the 100th time, I can't get enough of it!

Than had to take a pic of this little monster, freakin' hilarious.

Yes, it's dead...but what a brilliant face! He's talking!

Caroline giving all the love she can to yet another furry thing (and this one had plenty of it)

Made it to Merida. Very nice, clean town, lots of tourists, good vibe. Had some food in an expensive restaurant (we have to treat ourselves every now and then)

hmmm, a church...

They LOVE to decorate their central plazas.

Continued on to Chichen Itza, which is one of the most famous ruin sites in mexico (probably also due to its proximity to Cancun). It will also stay infamous in my memory because an ATM machine decided to declare me a thief and promptly and irreversibly swallowed my bank card.

These romanian vandals!

The whole peninsula is full of "cenotes" which are underground caves carved in the limestone base, there's an entire "river" system that runs underneath Yucatan.
This one was close to Valladolid, you can even swim there, as the pic shows.

Then we finally got to Cancun, to our fancy Westin room, courtesy of papa. Thanks!!
Caroline is enjoying the luxury to the max.

And the morning rooms service...

Postcard view. This is the last picture with my $350 set of Oakleys. They were offered to the sea.

Always wanted to do the Corona commercial...

Yepeeeee! I look like a grampa.

Beautiful sunsets too,

Selfportrait

We had the great opportunity to release some baby turtles into the sea. They were so small!! The waves were battering them, but they kept on going.

Another animal friend, who thinks that if he can't see anything, then he must be safe...

We could easily sell this as a beer ad.

The beach at Cancun might have been great before, but in some areas it's completely gone, just a cement wall in front of the hotel. The best part was right in front of our hotel, yeah!

Then, one morning, someone BIG came to visit us,

He was huge! and funny.

We continued the trip on to Playa del Carmen which is a great place, can't say enough good things about it, we loved it! Took the ferry to Cozumel island and rented a scooter to go around the island. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Plus I have a nazi helmet, how cool is that!

Stopped to get some local fish, awesome.

Than the cold set in, not so cool anymore, but we had some fantastic views, so no complaints.

Next stop along the coast was Sian Ka'an Biosphere Reserve, where we pitched the tent on the beach, this was sooooo cool, full moon at night, glorious morning.

Our personal little paradise.

Find Waldo.

We eventually crossed into Belize (at Merida), had an uneventful and mostly unrewarding ride (with one 50km exceptions). Stopped in Placencia which is a nice little seaside village, with lots of little cute hotels and cabins. Not much to do though. And forgot to take pictures...

On to the end of the road, Punta gorda. Beyond that, the road stops, something to do with a history of border disputes between Guatemala and Belize. So we took a speed boat, of course!

Scariest shit so far in this trip.

And we thought we were loaded, check this guy out, only the dog is missing.

Lots of people, mostly useless. I honestly thought the bike was gonna go ploosh in the water!

Bienvenidos a Guatemala, Puerto Barrios. From here it's a short 50km ride to the border with Honduras. We decided to skip Guatemala on the basis of numerous robbery reports on bike travel sites. In retrospect, it seems we skipped an important destination, and we both feel sorry for it.

The border crossing at Corinto, Honduras closes at 6pm! Not much of a border, especially since about 15 minutes before closing the light went out in the entire compound., I actually had to stay there with a flashlight so she could finish the paperwork, awesome stuff. The light you see in the pic is from a car's headlights.

Rode next day into La Ceiba, which is our jumping point to Utila Island, the cheapest place to get PADI scuba certifications.
We got up bright and early in the morning only to get to a defective ferry that was only gonna go in the afternoon. So we befriended with some other travelers that were equally happy about the turn of events. This was the beginning of a long string of parties and good times, as we stayed more or less together for the next couple of weeks.

Got on the ferry, and promptly got sea-sick! Of course my new friends figured it was amusing to play with that. Here's Carly, the Ozzy.

I loved this place, very low-key, no big developments, a cool relaxed atmosphere and lots of like-minded people.

We decided to celebrate our arrival. So we got smashed.

Dancing makes you hot.

Communal food.

Communal housing. What a mess....you ignore it after a while

The first dive, with the very professional Alton's Dive shop. They also had some hot dive mistresses.Tested the camera in a waterproof bag. The next natural step is to wash the salt water out of the camera. It now almost works, maybe 1 in 10 tries.

Getting jiggy with it. This irish girl was an alcoholic, we found her one morning passed out seminaked on the bed, in a perfect gynecological position, showing us the best she had....I have the proof but it's too graphic to be posted here. It provided us with great laughs and jokes for days after.

Rob is also getting jiggy with it, with a local.

Aaaw...on the booze-cruise

re-aaaww

Beautiful sunset as the night cruise is underway,

Another night, another theme, this one was Ho's and Pimps, but as not many people had pimp clothing with them, we turned it into cross-dressers... Rob was a natural.

This was one of the best ones, he looked in real life like the perfect pirate, dressed like this was such a laugh.

divemasters at their best.

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The Fantastik 5. Yes, i'm wearing a coconut bra. It became famous afterwards.

More divemistresses. Hot!

We rented an underwater camera for our last dive.

Caro

Showing off

We were very lucky, we saw this Stingray buried under the sand

only eyes poking out.

Some trumpet fish

Caroline is showing off her navigation skills,

Look at this guy, he's so funny, he looks like a bulldog,

My new Tissot made it to 60 feet

Monkeying around.

Next post, From Honduras to Nicaragua.