09/03 - 12/03
Sorry all, we are almost a month behind!
The trip back from Caye Caulker to mainland Belize was a nice little water taxi. The poor couple in our row on the left got absolutely saturated... From the ferry we jumped in a taxi, six hours and a couple of buses later we were in the quaint seaside village of Placencia.
There isn't much to Placencia. A handful of restaurants and places to stay, a couple of bars on the beach, and some ok swimming. Steph didn't even take a single photo!!!
We headed to Placencia as it is the easiest way to get to Honduras from Belize. The trip to Utila would take: a 5 hour ferry from Placencia to Puerto Cortes (Honduras), which is a ferry that runs only once a week on a Friday. From Puerto Cortes we catch the bus to San Pedro Sula for 3 hours, after a three hour wait we get a second bus from San Pedro Sula to La Ceiba, for 4 hours. We get in to La Ceiba after 9:30pm and have to spend the night and then catch a water taxi the next morning to Utila, which takes an hour or so....This trip really is quite common amoungst travellors, so it is quite strange that the route is not a little better serviced.
BUT.......
We ran into a couple we had met in Guatemala, and ran into in Caye Caulker. They had sailed from Caye Caulker to Placencia and had been told by the captain about a guy who runs a private charter that could take us from Placencia straight to Utila in a couple of hours - but it was fairly expensive...They told us briefly about the trip during a random meeting and we said we would think about it. After quite a few bus trips in a short amount of time we liked the idea of travelling solely over the water and it sounded like a bit of an adventure. If we went the traditional way a few of the towns we would be passing through in Honduras are less than desirable to drive through, let alone arrive after dark. After a few beers and some deliberation, we decided to take the charter.
The six of us on board would make the trip on the Friday, getting us there a day earlier and with much less hassell than the normal trip. We met with the owner of the boat the next afternoon, and arranged to leave early the next morning...or so we thought.
