La Ceiba

We all woke up early and had the breakfast of beans, plantain, cheese and ham. Then we had a fruitless search for some tour companies before visiting the beach. La Ceiba lives up to LP's assertion that it's a dump! It certainly isn't geared up for tourists. We didn't pass any nice looking restaurants, the beach was fairly non-existent and dirty looking and the central park was a concrete block.

It's one saving grace (which may save it from being in the top 3 dumps of our travels) is a small park next to the hotel with lush trees, plants, animal statues and old trains which were used to transport fruit. One other notable bonus point is that we had coconuts for 13L which are some of the cheapest yet and very tasty.

We spent the afternoon at the pool and then got a taxi to the port (50L each). We took a tin-can type speedy ferry to Utila, one of the Bay Islands (1 hr; 802L return).

On arrival we were bombarded with hostels offering one nights free accommodation to try and lure you to dive with them. We ended up going to Utila Dive Company which were really friendly and very professional. We were then dropped off at their sister hotel, Mango Inn, which has a jungly setting and a nice pool. We were given a dorm for just us three which was nice and wooden and fairly spacious but had shaky bunk beds, lumpy mattresses and smelt a bit of wee! But it's free and we were tired and couldn't be bothered to lug our bags elsewhere. We were promised a non-dorm room the following night but decided to shop around a bit. The place was rammed full of people, mostly Americans, and seemed a bit noisy for us. It's the most touristy place we've visited yet by far.

We went to Captain Morgan's, which is where I had originally wanted to go, based purely on the fact that it's piratey. The rooms were marginally more expensive but looked shiny clean, new and were en-suite; the vibe was far more chilled, it is right on the beach and the diving is cheaper. Far better option for us, so we booked in for the following night.

We had street-food 'gringas' for dinner which seem to be a cross between a quesadilla and a taco. They were yummy and 35L each. I had one, the others had a couple each. There was a brief, heavy downpour but it soon stopped for our walk back.

We had come here hoping to see whale sharks but both dive companies said there have been few sightings recently; we will have to do a whale shark dance to encourage them to come and visit us!!Read more