I made the long trek from Antigua, Guatemala here to Copan, Honduras Thursday. It was a long day of travelling involving several bus rides, but a good day. Crossing the border was cheap and easy: it cost only $1.30 to leave Guatemala (I had feared much more in bribes), and only a dollar to enter Honduras.

The reason I came to Copan was to see the famous Mayan ruins which were great. The pyramids weren't the biggest or even the best I've seen, but the stelae were. All the others are very much a bas-relief style; at Copan, they are much more like three-dimentional sculpture than two-dimentional pictures. The talent of those artists was amazing; too bad their work is so badly decayed.

From Copan, I went nearly to the north coast of Honduras, to the city of San Pedro Sula, Honduras's second largest city. Wow is it hot and humid here!

I am staying at the home of a nice American family. They have three sweet kids, ages about 15, 13, and 8, and we have been having fun playing board games and fetch with the family dog—a beautiful cocker spaniel. After travelling like a vagabond for over seven months, feeling like part of a normal family is nice for a change.

John—the dad in the family—and I drove up to the coast and took a look at the port town of Puerto Cortez the other day. It's a nice enough little town. We drove along the coast and saw a couple of small Garifuna villages. The Garifunas are descended from African slaves and West Indian people who have settled all along the Carribean coast of all the Central American countries. The are known for, among other things, making thatched houses out of wild cane and for dancing and drumming on the beach. John and I saw a lot of the thatched houses, but no dancing. Maybe later...

Leaving San Pedro, I went south and did a one-day stop in Comayagua. It's a nice, small colonial town. Then I came to the capital and country's larges city, Tegucigalpa, which everyone calls 'Tegus'.

One of the first things I did was hike in the nature reserve near hear called La Tigra. My base camp for the treks was the abandoned mining town of San Juancito. I spent an entire day walking thru the forests of the reserve. I crunched thru the leaves on the paths to a nice, small waterfall. On the way, I saw a rare and beautiful Quetzal bird. They have a bright red body and shimmering green tail feathers. The bird had a great importance to the native peoples who lived here before the Spanish arrived and are still important to the people now. I also saw lots of other birds, butterflies, and lizzards.

The Easter holiday is in full swing here in Tegus: the streets are empty of cars, the park is full of church-goers and soapbox preachers, most stores are closed. It all has a very relaxed feeling and I like it.

I have seen something not too pretty here that some Latin American cities are known for: kids huffing glue on the street. They are kids in their teens begging for money on the street. Every so often, they take a plastic bag or baby-food jar out from under their shirts and breathe from it several times then put it away. It was kind of eerie and scary and I felt bad for them.

I left Tegucigalpa and came to the north Honduran coast. I visited three small beach-front towns, Tela, Trujillo, and La Ceiba. They are dirty and poor and not really exceptional in any way, tho the beaches are quite nice and the seafood is deliscious.

One day in Tela, I walked west quite a ways along the beach collecting shells and pretty rocks. Eventually, I turned inland intending to walk back to Tela by the highway. As I walked along an airstrip, two young men started walking along with me and soon were "asking" for money. When I said 'no', they started getting insistant, and the "leader" pulled out a long fishing knife. He pushed the point into my jugular vein and said angrily, "I'll kill you! I'll kill you!". So, I gave them the two dollars and the necklace I had and they left. I was actually pretty calm while it was happening, but afterwards I was a little shaken. The necklace was a protection and good luck gift from a friend and I am sad to lose it. These kids had a lot of anger and not a lot to lose, so I suppose the protection worked and I am lucky I wasn't killed.

In Trujillo, I relaxed a bit after my ordeal. I read on the beach and visited the grave of William Walker in the old cemetery. He tried to take over all of Central America back in the mid-1800s. He sucessfully controlled Nicaragua at one point, but eventually was captured and executed in Trujillo.

La Ceiba is the port town where you get the ferry to the island of Utila. I liked it the best of the three; it is the biggest, cleanest, and wealthiest (i.e. most comfortable). I stayed at the Amsterdam 2001 hostel which is run by a nice, slightly crusty old Dutch man, Jan, and his wife. Jan served on submarines in World War II and reminded me of the Skipper on Gilligan's Island.

I came to the island of Utila to do my SCUBA certification and some diving. The island is a typical tropical paradise...lots of palm trees, lots of sandy beaches, a slow pace of life. I did the Open Water and Advanced Open Water Diver courses. The diving is really fun. Once day, I swam in the ocean with a big whaleshark—those are the ones with all the white spots on them. Another time, two graceful sea-turtles swam right by me—what beautiful creatures. And of course, I saw lots of colorful fish and coral.

The island is a big backpacker's hangout, mostly for people interested in diving. I made some friends and enjoyed the laughter of a group of people with numerous different accents as we recounted the day's diving.

Back from the island, I spent a day in La Ceiba to go white water rafting along the Pico Bonito national park. It was nice to be in fresh water for a change!

Heading west, I made one-day stops in San Pedro Sula, Santa Rosa, and Ocotepeque. I have been in Honduras for five weeks and it's time to move on: tomorrow, I am going to El Savlador.

Wow, here I am in the "forbidden land" of El Salvador. It's not really forbidden, of course, but I have yet to see another American traveller here who doesn't have something to do with the Peace Corps. I think Americans are afraid they'll be killed or something if they come here. Very few travellers come here at all which is a shame because the Salvadorean people are so vivacious.

I spent the first two days in the capital, San Salvador. It is a big, noisy, dirty Central Americal city with smoke-chugging busses everywhere. The contrasts here are amazing; along the Boulevard de Los Heroes, you find posh hotels, American fast-food restuarants, and expensive clothing and electronics stores. Further downtown, there are big piles of garbage being sorted thru by hungry, dirty people looking for any morsel of value.

After the capital, I went northwest to Santa Ana, a much smaller city with a charm of its own. The tree-filled central plaza is pleasant and a popular hang-out for locals.

Then I came to lake Coatepeque for a couple of days. It is a pretty volcanic crater lake like Atitlan in Guatemala, but smaller. While here, I took the short hike thru the park at Cerro Verde with its excellent views of two other volcanos and the lake.

From the lake, I came to the tiny Pacific beach village of El Zonte. This is the surfing coast of El Salvador and most of the people in the hostel are surfers. My favorites are the three from South Africa who are driving from Viginia to Panama in a camper; their accents are sweet and they are such nice people. The waves are great here for swimming or surfing, but the rip currents are dangerous. I have spent many lazy hours reading in a hammock and swimming in the pool of this way-cool hostel, Surfcamp HoriZonte.

Back in San Salvador for a few days doing errands and getting ready to explore the eastern part of the coutry. I also went to a couple of movies with my new Finnish friend, Peka.

First stop east was San Vicente. This area had a lot of earthquake damage. All along the highway, I saw newly built corrigated steel shacks and tents next to houses too damaged to live in. Here in the city, many buildings are badly damaged and vacant.

Next stop was San Miguel. No visible quake damage here. It's a big city with a tree-filled central square that reminds me of Santa Ana in the west. The cathedral here is huge, but not ornate like most.

Then I spent a day in La Union on the Pacific coast. I had heard that it was possible to go by boat to Nicaragua from here, but I couldn't find out anything about it.

So, I came inland to the little city of Santa Rosa to prepare for the long haul tomorrow to Nicaragua. El Salvador was a quick trip, but interesting. The people are definitely the best part; they are poor and they've been thru hell, but they smile all the time and have a lot of spunk.

Now it's time to see what the other forbidden land, Nicaragua, is like....