chicken buses and Mayan ruins

Well, to say the last few days have been an adventure would be an understatement! We left utila at 6:30 Friday morning on the ferry. It was such a rough crossing people were getting seasick and I thought I was going to die a little bit. The waves were massive but we made it to la ceiba. We intended on taking the hedman alas bus to copan ruinas, but when we got in a taxi and said hedman alas bus station please, we ended up at Diana express. Didn't really matter because it ended up costing us about 13 dollars instead of 50 so that's cool. Hedman alas is like greyhound with ac and a bit more fancy, Diana express is like a greyhound bus from the '70s haha it also stops every few km to pick up new passengers. We passed heaps of famed "chicken buses" on the road thinking, hmm we'll have to go on one of those one day for the experience.... We finally made it to San Pedro sula where we had half an hour to wait for our next bus. Time to get some lunch. We went into the food court, and the options were pollo, pollo or pollo. Chicken, chicken or fried chicken hahaha! I ended up having rice and salad which was actually delicious! We set out to the road for our next bus... The driver walked towards a refurbished school bus and motioned us for our bags. We were on a chicken bus!!! Good lord. Literally. Complete with Jesus stickers, a full set of tires on two seats, and a dirty diaper, we had started on a journey few gringos had done before lol just kidding, those buses are popular with budget travellers. Every stop, locals hop on a try to sell you stuff like food, drinks, even shampoo! Hah They take a long time, we got to copan ruinas at 6ish and checked into our hostel. We walked around to find some dinner and ended up at Cafe San Rafael and had an epic cheese plate and a glass of wine. Ended up going back for brekkie today, it was so good! Wicked coffee as well, straight from the source :) there is a coffee plantation quite close to here it's nice to know they are supporting local businesses! 

Then we took a tuk tuk out to the ruins and wandered about for a few hours. This was just amazing. The carvings are so beautiful. It amazes me that they are still in tact because they are hundreds of years old. So cool to picture what life was like here so long ago.

We walked back and stumbled across a cool fruit and veggie market, along with some places to get food little more than holes in the wall with a little old lady cooking meat and making corn tortillas by hand. It was full of locals so you know that's the place to eat! We are going to try there for dinner. We got some delicious mango for snack and came back to the hostel to book our bus tickets tomorrow. Sarah is headed to lake atitlan in Guatemala for a week long yoga retreat and I am headed to Leon Nicaragua (with an overnight stop in el tunco El Salvador) to surf my way down the coast to Costa Rica!!! I'm really sad to be parting ways with my travel mer-sista, but excited to do some solo travel. It will be a completely new experience for me, and I'm ready to jump right in! 

Sending love and baleadas from Honduras xx

S 

the island life for me...

hola mi amigos y amigas! Como estas? Yo soy mucho mucho bien 😄 I've been on utila for almost two weeks now and have done so much, that I could go home now feeling like I've had a wicked holiday. Thankfully, I don't have to go home for a while (you poor souls facing those temps aaah!) 

Last week, Jayme was here so we did lots of fun stuff like renting four wheelers and going all around the island, climbed pumpkin hill, you can see the whole island from there because it's so flat! We went into the freshwater caves, went to the fancy resort neptunes for the day to swim, suntan and have a few cheeky drinks :) 

This week I did my PADI open water scuba diving course at utila dive center (also where sarah is doing her divemaster course) it was fantastic! I don't know how I haven't been diving all my life. Diving is literally something I never thought I'd be able to do ever. At first I was pretty scared, but with more practice I really began to enjoy it! It is a whole new world underwater and such a cool feeling to be able to explore while breathing normally! Im pretty stoked for myself for stepping (hugely) outside my comfort zone and being rewarded with this beautiful new way to be closer to the ocean which I love so much! I'm looking into doing a few adventure dive courses which will hopefully count towards my advanced open water course. Or heck, I might even just do the advanced, we shall see I'm on a budget haha 

Utila is pretty cool. It's a super small island, everyone is here to dive, get certified or do professional courses like divemaster, instructor etc so it's all scuba all the time! Things here are very cheap, but more expensive than on the mainland because everything is brought in on the ferry a few times per week. Everyone basically knows everyone although people tend to stick with people from their own dive shop ( there are about five main ones ) 

We've been doing some yoga, drinking great coffee, meeting lots of new people and reading a lot. It's been pretty stormy the last few days, so lots of Netflix has been happening haha next week I'm hoping to get into a regular running and yoga routine with a few dives here and there! I just love it so much! 

Around the second week of March I'll be headed to the mainland of Honduras to go see the copan ruins and then to Nicaragua where I'm going to surf my way down the pacific coast! Meeting my momma in Liberia, Costa Rica in April for a week and then we will see where I go, depending on how much money I have left lol 

That's me for now! Life is good, I'm slowly getting my tan back and enjoying relaxing and hanging out with sarah who I haven't seen in almost a year! So nice to be back together :) hope everything is well with you guys at home, you're all rock stars for enduring those awful temperatures, I'd be crying for sure haha

Much love to everyone, sending island vibes your way! 

Peace and pineapples! 🍍

Sophie

I've got my travel fins, and my flippie floppies

Ola mi amigos! Well, it's just about that time again... One week until departure! It's been a while since I posted on here, I was too busy saving the world, one latte at a time haha its also probably because I feel way more prepared for this trip than I was for the big move to aus. I'm not stressing about packing at all, and my must have item this trip was my travel fins for snorkelling, not crazy vaccines and malaria pills. In fact, I didn't even go to the travel doctor at all! I'm feeling much more relaxed about the whole thing. Which isn't to say I didn't plan at all (don't worry mom!) I got my travellers insurance, sunscreen, vitamins and whatnot all sorted. Now just to shove it all in my backpack with a few pairs of shorts and 10 bathing suits and I'm good to goooo! 

Had a great FaceTime sesh with sarah last week who has been living the island life for a few weeks now (in our sweet bachelorette pad nonetheless) and she is loving it! She said the diving is amazing, food is awesome and everything is really cheap which is wicked when you're on a backpacker budget 😜 our reunion will fall almost a year to the day since she left our little trailer park in Margaret river to head for New Zealand how funny is that?! I am so beyond stoked to see her again!!! And her friend Jayme who is coming for the first week of the trip!

At first I was going to stay one night in San Pedro sula and bus to la ceiba then ferry to utila the next day but Jayme decided to get the little island hopper plane to arrive the same day, so I booked it too! I only have an hour to get off the plane go through customs get my bag get my new boarding pass recheck my bag get through security and get on the new plane! Sarah said I will make it because the airport is tiny and everyone is on island time haha I really hope so!!! 

The first week I'm going to chill, explore the island, do some snorkelling and hang out with the girls. Then the mermaid adventure begins! I booked my PADI open water course to begin feb 16th I am seriously so stoked for this! As part of Sarah's divemaster course, she may end up teaching part of my course! That would be so cool! I have made a vow to myself that I am not leaving utila until I have swam with a whale shark. This island is known to have some of the most  concentrated whale shark populations in the world, so I think it will be a good possibility haha it is basically the Honduran version of my Australian sea turtle quest lol I'm such a nature nut lol

I have three more shifts at work then Thursday and Friday off to finish last minute running around and packing! Then off to the airport for 430am on Saturday 😊 if all works out, I'll be sipping a cocktail out of a coconut watching a beautiful sunset about 12 hrs later!!! 

I'm amped, ready to go, ready to get tan again and stoked to reconnect with the role of beach bum mermaid that I was born to play hahaha 

Our apartment has wifi so I'll be able to update the adventure as I go. I'm thinking it will revolve around eating amazing local fresh food and taking ridiculous pictures of myself underwater sooo, sorry in advance for the #goproselfies lmao 

Love you all heaps and missing you already! If anyone's free Thursday night I'll be heading to my beloved Alice's for one last open mic night jam sesh! Come have a beer ($5 pints of beaus!) haha 

Peace love and island vibes 

Sophie xx 

on the road again...

hello my friends! it's been a while since i've dusted off the ol' blogger login and written a post. i've been home for about 4.5 months now, working at a cafe, coming home and looking up random flights on skyscanner to see where i should go next. and finally, the research has paid off. my itchy feet are finally gonna get scratched! i'm off to central america! 

the first little while i was home, i was super bummed, not knowing what my next move was. i couldn't find a job, i had no money, and the mean visa man kept saying i owed them my first born child. so i finally got my current job, where i learned to make delicious lattes (today i had an eggnog latte and it seriously changed my life and appreciation for christmas :P) and i decided that when i had enough money saved up, i was going to go to new zealand for a year. 

hmmm... have you looked at the price of a flight to nz?! not cheap man. so i decided maybe not. meanwhile, my good pal sarah, you may remember her as one of my trailer park sistas from margs, was cooking up a plan to go do her divemaster training in utila, an island off the coast of honduras. i never really thought about travelling in central america before, but one google image search of utila, a mention of the massive whale shark population, and i was in. 

so i booked my flight! leaving ottawa on february 7th for san pedro sula, honduras. i will stay one night in this *ahem* ...fairly dangerous town from what i've read, and then take a bus to la ceiba and then a ferry to utila, which will be my island home for a month! i'm stoked to get my dive ticket, work on freediving, see wicked sea creatures, and obvssss to be reunited with my lovely mermaid! after that month, no plan really, but i definitely am going to head to the pacific side for some surfing. no return ticket yet, but upon googling, we found that it is around $200 to fly home from cancun, mexico.. so i'm thinking i will try to head up that way :)

if anyone has travelled in central before, hit me up with some suggestions. i am excited to have a really open plan, basically i'm just going to come home when i run out of money lol. so ya i'd love to hear anyone's advice, what they liked, what they didn't etc. etc. and maybe some tips on where i can buy pepper spray bahaha 

anyways, that's it for now! looking forward to updating my blog while on the road again :) 
¡Hasta luego!

soph xx