Hello Honduras!

Hey, we're in Honduras. Yup, we finally left Nicaragua behind, but not without a little bit of hassle.

As it turns out Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua are all on the same entry stamp, so when we entered Nicaragua months ago we had 3 months to spend in all 3 countries. But nobody told us that, so we were all set to head into Honduras with one day left on our passport stamps. Luckily we were on a hike wth QuetzalTrekkers in Leon, Nicaragau and our guide filled us in on the latest visa developments for the area. Once we got back from hiking up and sleeping under an active volcano, we made a beeline to Managua to get another visa extension. We had heard it could take 7 hours or 7 minutes to get the process completed, so we were a little worried we would have to make a run for the Costa Rica border lickety-split to get a new 90-day stamp in our passports after spending 72 hours out of the country. After an hour at the immigration office we had a 2-month extension to spend in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. We celebrated with lunch at McDonald's (the fast food fiend only has restaurants in the capital) and headed north to Esteli for a night before we crossed into Honduras.

Not much of a shock upon entering the latest country on our trip. The money has a new name (lempiras), but the exchange is identical to the Nicaraguan cordoba. The biggest difference I noticed at first was the non-stop reggaeton coming from every radio and stereo in Nicaragua had been replaced by some kick-ass classic rock blasting on Honduran buses.

We started out in Tegucigalpa, but the big city didn't agree with us. We actually went to a huge, modern shopping mall to get more cash before we headed to the north coast. A couple nights in La Cieba to get some much-needed laundry done and we were off to the Bay Islands, Honduras' little corner of the Caribbean. And that's where I am now writing this post.

Mary Beth has done her Open Water Scuba certification and I did a refresher course, and today we had our first dive together. Lots of coral and fish to see, and the water is so warm, nothing like the Canadian waters I first learned to dive in. We plan to do a couple more dives, hopefully we'll see some whale sharks, before we get back to the mainland and check out a couple more spots in Honduras before going to El Salvador.