Central America: Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras

Trip continued: Costa Rica & Nicaragua & Honduras

Sep. 30- October 9
Our next stop is Costa Rica. We could not find direct flights from Mexico to Costa Rica, so it took us couple days to reach San Juan: first from Chihuahua to Mexico City, then from Mexico City to Guatemala City, where we stayed overnight, and then the next day we got into San Juan. Taxi drive from the airport was pricey - $30, and the overnight in the capital city was not cheap. Actually from now on we could not find good cheap deals anywhere except of the public buses, which are often overcrowded and the roads are very bad. San Juan is a large relatively clean city with a lot of shoes stores, expensive restaurants and cafes. We saw a lot of expats and gringos on the streets, and for the whole stay in Costa Rico we did not see any native Indians. We could find much things to do in San Juan, and the next day we took a bus to La Fortuna, the little touristic town near volcano Arenal park. We really loved our stay for couple days in the Backpackers Hostel Resort - probably the most luxurious hostel we have ever been. The view from our room was amazing - right on the volcano. We also liked the bar in the courtyard and the pool, and shared kitchen with a fridge and coffee maker which helped us to save money on breakfasts.
Next day we took fun and adventurous water rafting trip (class ll - lV) with other couple from US and a guy from Germany. The best part of the trip was when our guide Carlos flipped our boat over and we all had to float in this angry and fast mountain river, but everybody was save and we had fun time. At night we found a very cheap deal to get to the public hot springs - $10 per person for transportation and the guide who served us drinks, put on the candles at night and showed us a poisonous neon green and orange frog.
 
Next day we fought the bus to Santa Elena town - the base for the Monteverde national park. We spent two nights in Mar Inn B&B place, for $50 a night. The place was very nice, with the door on the balcony and hot showers. We spent the whole day in the jungle taking 13 zip lines and the last zip line was 1 km long and we had to ride it with Kevin together, that was fun! Then we walked 8 hanging bridges, saw a hauling monkey in the tree and, finally, a quetzal! It's a very beautiful bird!
It was a very beautiful place to stay, but it took us eight hours of driving in four local public buses.
 
From Santa Elena to Tilaran we caught a bus near our hotel, the drive was an adventure itself because the roads in the mountains between pueblitos are just dirt roads. Next we took a taxi to the next stop, Canas, for $2, and then took another bus to a bigger city, Liberia, and finally, the last bus took us to the Playa Coco on the pacific shore. For the two days we stayed in this little, lazy and expensive beach town we met a lot of gringos and locals.

There we attended promotional tour for the extra luxury time share Breeze, and got from them a free laundry (ready in 3 hours!!!), a coupon for the one week stay at their resort in any place of the world and rented a car from them just for $25 a day. And, of course, we did not buy anything from them!
We drove the car to the Playa Tamarindo, and on the way there, while almost lost, we discovered the Monkey Farm, a sustainable living farm with a bunch of young international volunteers working on construction monkeys retreat.
Playa Tamarindo town, trying to be a little Miami beach, has everything: nice beach resorts, expensive luxury condos (we stayed in one of those overnight -  Tamarindo Blue), cheap hostels-surf schools, amazing restaurants and cafes with international food, surf and dive shops and a beautiful and very long beach with strong undertow and high waves. And, we saw the whole monkey family moving from one tree to another right over our condo.
 

Oct. 9 - 15 Nicaragua
Next day we drove back to Playa Coco, returned the car, caught a bus back to Liberia, where we got onto an international TicoBus to Granada. It was very long and tiring day! But we met fellow travelers on this bus and hang out with them later in Granada. Crossing through the Costa Rico - Nicaraguan border was not much existing and nobody experienced any problems. Granada city is a very beautiful colonial city, and also it's the most cleanest of Central American colonial cities. It is situated on the lake Nicaragua, where Chinese decided to build a new canal between Atlantic and Pacific oceans, but we did not notice any construction started. There are a lot of interesting and nice restaurants and cafes serving international food and great Nicaraguan coffee and fresh juices. Restaurants have sittings available outside on right on streets or in their courtyards, and the most fun is at night when a lot of mariachis singing and young hip-hop dancers performing acrobatic stanzas.


After one night in Granada we took a bus to Mariposa Farm, a Spanish school near La Concepcion town. There we had a reservation for one week of classes and volunteering. But, we stayed there only one night because Marina is allergic to the mold, which was everywhere and even mattresses in the rooms. But we had a wonderful horse trip to the "mirador" on the volcano.

Back in Granada we found a nice clean hotel Posada San Juan and stayed there for two nights. We explored this beautiful city in the horse carriage, went on the night trip to see an active volcano Managua and volcanic caves (this is the first time we saw lava in the crater!) and had a fun time in the Mexican traveling circus at the night performance.

It's very hot and humid every day, in about 5 min on the street start sweating profusely and all clothes stink badly, especially after riding in the buses. We left Rio Dulce and went traveling in Central America for the reason to avoid unbearable heat in the boat, but seems the heat just follows us. We are so grateful for the air conditioned rooms in the hotels we pick, even though it cost us twice and we are way over our budget of $100 a day (the most expensive room we had $50/night).
We made it to Leon, our last stop in Nicaragua. Everything we saw here is very unexpected, like, the huge amount of trash in the mercado area (I definitely would not want to walk there because of the danger of getting some strange bacterial disease), the ricksha boys waiting at the bus terminal to take you anywhere on their bizarre bikes, and then, as contradiction to that you very beautiful colonial buildings and churches just newly painted and clean. After civilized, clean and well kept Granada, this town, the place of historical political fights, is a city of sharp contrasts, which is very bizarre, but attractive.
 
To stay within our budget we extensively use public bus system. It's very cheap (from $0.50 to $1.50 for couple hours of drive), but most of the time is not comfortable. Couple times we got even air conditioning buses, which is not common. Usually you squished in the sit with other passengers who requires double or even triple sitting place (majority of the Latino women are short and very over sized in the middle), and because of the heat and sun become sweaty and stinky, interesting fact is that the locals don't sweat in this condition even wearing jeans.







 In Leon we stayed in hotel Lebon (I guess it's short for Lebanon), just across the street from Best Westin. We made good friends with the owner of restaurant Il Capriccio, the Italian food there was very delicious, especially ricotta and spinach ravioli (it's impossible to buy spinach and ricotta in any store in Leon!). Next day in the morning we took an adventure tour to the volcano Cerro Negro. This adventure was exceptional! First we hiked to the top of the volcano for about an hour while carrying our slides with us, then we took cool pictures at the rim of the active volcano, and finally slid the volcano on our special sleds. There are no words to describe this sliding adventure because so far it's one of the kind! We had to wear total body overalls, goggles, gloves and bandanna covering our faces. That was a very interesting experience, to slide down a volcano.

Oct. 16- 24 Honduras
Using public bus system we successfully crosses border of Honduras and made it to Tegucigalpa, the capital city of Honduras. Bus trip was long and eventful, couple kids on the bus through up and Kevin helped to clean up a girl because her mom (mother of 4) would not help her daughter at all (alternative parenting method?). After arrival in capital city we took a taxi to the public bus terminal to catch a bus to La Esperanza. We stayed in this sleepy Lencas Indian town just for one night and the next day took a bus to Gracias. Our hotel was very nice and we loved to eat on the street stands at night, near the central square. Food was great! In the center of the central park there is a nice coffee house with bearable internet.

Next we made it to Copan Ruins City where we took Spanish classes for a week. I felt like I finally start progressing in Spanish, especially with a lot of opportunities to use language on the streets.
Afternoons after the classes we visited ruins and got disappointed. The price for visiting all the ruins is about $55 per person! And the sites are not worth it,  unless you are a specialist in the Mayan culture in the late classic period.
At Copan Ruins City we visited almost all touristic places suggested in the travel guide: Macau birds refugee and Tee and Chocolate Place (the owner, Carolina, is trying to grow forest again on her land and harvesting cocoa, caucuses, noni and other plants from which they make different tees. We had a chance to see how they roast and then ground cocoa beans manually).

To get back to our boat in Rio Dulce we had to take first a truck through the border to El Florido, then a little Litegua bus to Chicimula, then another one to Rio Dulce. It was a long trip and we almost had to return back to El Florido to get a check in to Guatemala, because we did not check the passports and thought we did not get a stamps while crossing a border.
 

Mexico Trip by the train Chepe

Mexico City and Chepe train travel

Sep.16 - 19 Mexico City
Leaving Rio Dulce again. First easy 6 hours drive via Letigua bus to Guatemala City, then 3 hours flight to Mexico City, and around 9 pm we finally managed to the apartment we rented on airbnb. We stayed for 3 nights in a very nice modern apartment complex right in the historical center, near Alameda park and all museums, just in 10 min walking distance. Our hosts, Rosa, her daughter and their  friendly dog Pendragon, were very nice to us and our room in their apartment was very clean and comfortable. Mexico City was such a surprise for us! It's a huge, civilized,  and beautiful city. We spent 2 days there and still were not able to visit all tourist attractions. The whole day trip on the TuriBus was very helpful, this way we were able to see different districts of the city. In Zona Rosa we saw modern crazy tall buildings, in Codesa we had our delicious lunch in one of the thousand "nature" restaurants, in Perisur mall, the biggest and hippest, we bought the new phone for me; but the most strange thing we saw was an abundance of Starbucks in Mexico City - we counted 18 while traveling through the city! So far my favorite building was Bella Artes Center right in the Alameda park - a true monument to the Art Deco.

Sep.19-23
Unforgettable stop at Los Mochis. Just one night here, but we were so ready to leave this gods abundant place! Hotel "St.Cruz" was ok, $30 a night, hot water, clean and a big flat screen TV. But the people on the streets were not much friendly, there are a lot of dilapidated and once prosperous businesses and buildings, strip bars with closed doors, military men with seriously huge guns on the street and non smiling women around. And, it was very hot and humid on the streets. We had tacos for lunch, bad Chinese food for dinner and warm rum and coke in our hotel room.
Next morning we woke up at 4:30 to drive to the Chepe train stations by taxi. We successfully made it out from Los Mochis at 6 am.

  We mostly slept on the train for the first couple hours. The second class cars exceeded our expectations, especially considering the price of the tickets, which are half price of the first class.
In about 6 hours we arrived at Bahochivos, where we joined the tourists trap and agreed to travel by the track to the nearby quaint little town Cerocahui. We stayed at the Posada Jade owned by former Mexican-new-Yorker  Him and his wife were very accommodating.  They have lived there for 5 years and built Jade hotel/restaurant and own a ranch with cattle.  He kept some of his New York ways and charged a lot for everything and tried to get us to pay for his gas so him and his wife could go visit their kids in Chihuahua.  We opted to not do that.  Instead he dropped us off at the rim of Urique canyon and we walked down.  But first we visited a waterfall and church and met Juan who has 2 horses which he wanted to use to take us somewhere.  The one horse was named Piqueña.

Next day after breakfast our new-Yorker host drove us to the rim of Urique canyon, on the way there we picked up one lady tarahumarian (local Indians) who became our companion in the exhausting 3.5 hours walk down in the canyon. Unfortunately the road was closed because of the rain damage and there were not any tracks to give us a ride down. And here we are, walking with our heavy backpacks in the heat. On the way down our Indian friend disappeared couple times taking shortcuts through the cliffs but I guess they like to keep these shortcuts in the secret from gringos. We picked up and ate some cactus fruits - tunas, and Kevin got couple thorns in his tongue, that was funny for us and painful for Kevin.

When our stamina warned out, we got lucky and hitch hiked the only passing truck on the road which drove us some distance further to the point where bulldozer was working on the road. From there we finally made it to the town Urique and got nice room with with AC!

Stay in Urique was much uneventful - old little sleepy town with one street and two restaurants. One of them, Restaurant Plaza, belongs to the owner of our hotel (Estrella on Rio) and his wife fed us "chicken cordon blu" Mexican style, so to say. We were happy to leave this town next morning, especially knowing that there is not other transportation the whole day because of the work on the road.
The bus dropped us off in Bahuchivo near the Chepe train station, and we had to wait about 3 hours for the train. Walked on the street trying to find some decent food we met some gringos from Missouri who told us be careful on the streets and better stay at the train station, and we followed their advice - to many armed national guards on the streets. We made it safe to the next stop - Posada Barrancas, totally safe and very expansive tourists place!


Sep.23 - 26
We got on the bus with the stream of rich Mexican tourists and were delivered in Posada Barranca Mirador. Amazing hotel! We got the best (and very expansive room -  $190 per night) with a breathtaking view on the all three canyons. We really enjoyed staying there, the food was ok - similarly to the all-inclusive hotels, but they had wine - a big plus!

The view from our balcony on the canyons during sunrise was spectaculars and worth any penny spent there. We took an hour walk around in the morning and then joined the tourists army in the tour bus to the adventure park. That park has everything: zip lines, repelling, climbing, cable car. Just pay money! We had a trip on the cable car and the excursion to the best viewing points - that was great. Afternoon we (and our new friends tourists) took the train the next station - Creel.

Many years ago mayans were living in the caves, we visited one of such caves...



The last stop on this trip is Chichuahua, the capital of the state Chichuachua. We had three days to explore this modern and westernized city. It's too close to the Texas border and almost everybody is speaking English and has one or two relatives in US. We found on the airbnb a place to stay for three nights in very safe area walking distance to the city center. We were amazed by the number of the Starbuks cafes here.

Rio Dulce, Guatemala

June 9 - June 13 Texas Bay, Rio Dulce in Guatemala

It took us about 18 hours to get from Utila to Livingston where we checked in with Raul, pretty painless procedure. We decided not to stay overnight in Livingston because of security issues near this little Garifunas town. It took us 2 hours to motor from Livingston to Texas Bay, about half way from the destination to Rio Dolce town (called La Frontera), where marinas are situated. We enjoyed our stay at this beautiful tranquil bay for four days. We swam in the Rio (that was so weird to swim in the fresh water!), took dinghy trips to the "black" lake nearby to watch different kind of birds and plants. There were not any tiendas nearby, but the local boats sold us some veggies and fruits, as well as self-made weaving baskets. Couple little villages are situated nearby, but it was very safe to stay in the bay, even though local indigenous people live very poor. A lot of expats own vast and beautiful properties on the Rio, and we met with some of them. These people are actively participating in the local social life and education, and help a lot indians with the charities, funds and teaching. 

June 14 - July  Rio Dulce, Guatemala

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Well, all our friends already situated in the marinas in Rio Dulce for this hurricane season. And it's time for us to join them. We got a place in Nanajuana Marina and Resort, where Miss Molly, Garua, Jade, Walking on Water and others are staying for the season. We gladly joined our cruiser buddies, and met with some new people. Most of the cruisers here speak English and it makes much easier to communicate and have fun, but not as much good for the learning Spanish. Nearby town, La Frontera Rio Dulce, is always very busy, dirty and stinky. It's built on the busy road and it's not possible to walk around the passing cars without walking right in the middle of the heavy traffic (mainly transferring a lot of cattle in over sized tracks). The crowd is very vibrant and colorful, mostly mayan Indians (not sure which kind of tribe out of 50). Women are wearing traditional outfits composed of the long pleated full skirt and over sized blouse from nylon lace, and guys are wearing cowboy boots and hats. The fruits and vegetables are very cheap and fresh on the street stands, also there are chicken sold just of the street, Sarita ice-cream shops, fish stands (not sure I want to eat the fish from this river where all sewage from the town and marinas goes), ferraterias, but nothing can beat the amount of shoes and cloth sold here. 

Every day we some different little projects on the boat, and then in the evening all cruisers join for a happy hour or other activities. Here, in Nanajuana in Rio Dulce, we have more socializing than last season in Grenada in Prickly Bay! In the morning Marina is teaching yoga in Palapa, of Michelle leads aqua aerobics, twice a week we have Mexican Train (domino game) - ladies only, on Sundays we have potluck BBQ and Fridays happy hours. Uhh, there is no time to do anything else!

It's very hot and humid on the river and a lot of bugs, and it's raining almost every day.
This is Freddy, the rescued hog by the organization Freddy's Friends, who help abused and sick animals in Rio Dulce. The founder is Pat, a texan lady who loves horses, and she offers very cheap horse rides ($13/h).

July 5 - July 9 Guatemala City and La Antigua

We "escaped" our marina for 5 days and travelled to Guatemala City to visit Dermatologist (there are none near our town, not even in Morales), and then stayed in Antigua for two nights. The Guatemala City is a huge city, with different districts and practically there is not much to do in the this city. But there is a Walmart here! That is such attraction for us! We bought a large floor fan for our boat. The artisan market in the historical center is worth to visit if you are looking for cheaper mayan textile (and I bought quiet a lot). The city is not secure, you cannot walk on the streets after 7 pm and we were strictly advised to not to use red town bus, publicos, white taxis and "chicken" bus (the old yellow school buses tricked and repainted in the gangster style monsters). We took one of those chicken buses to Antiqua (it's about 1 hour drive on the scenic road in the mountains). We liked this tranquil and beautiful colonial town, which was restored couple times after volcano explosions and then earthquakes. Antigua used to be a capital city of Guatemala, but government moved to Guatemala City just to be sure not to deal with destroyed city time to time. The city is surrounded by three huge volcanoes, one of them is still active, and the view on the mountains from the streets is amazing. There are plenty of restaurants offering quality international cousins, as well as cheap local cafes. The coffee there is the best! A lot of coffee houses serving also crapes and pastries. Antiqua is known for the plentiful of Spanish Lanquage schools (I guess, more than 20), generally $6-8 per hour of the one-on-one instructions. We visited many of such schools for the information and decided to come back for at least a week of studies in September. I loved this town a lot and would be glad to be back! We stayed cheap in one of the hopidajes - $23 a night with the private bathroom, it's a deal!

On the way back we took a chicken bus again, got in the rush hour on the streets of Guate, and our driver decided to detour through the narrow and windy little roads of the poor neighbourhood. That was adventure itself: passengers were cheering a driver on extremely sharp turns of the steep little roads, and we thought that bus will flip over... but it did not, and we safely got out of the bus near first Walmart. I was a bit disappointed that Guate's Walmart is not so abundantly stuffed with goodies as our US one, and we did not find some things we wanted to bring back to the boat. But oh well, for a moment I felt like back home. 

July 13 - 17 Flores, Tikal ruins, Lanquin - Semuc Champay

We went on the trip to Tikal ruins with "Miss Molly". The drive was just about 4.5 hours from Rio Dulce, and we took 1st class bus of Fuerte del Norte company to San Helena city. We stayed in Flores (a little town on a little island in the lake) at Green World hostel for GTQ 175 a room with private bus. It was ok, but very hot at night, even with a fan. Next day we got in the tour mini-van to Tikal. This is a very scenic archaeological site. It was very hot, but luckily the trails to the attractions are hidden in the jungle. We spent another night in Flores, and next day left to Semuc Champay. So far, it's the most beautiful place in Guatemala for us. We stayed in Oasis Hostel Lodge for 2 nights. The place is very nice and relaxing, everything is done for the comfort of backpackers, even camping with your own tent is allowed between newly built bungalows. Staff is very friendly, fun and helpful. They have a magic journal where they record all your charges and then at the checkout present you a final bill. With this method seems you spend more money than you planned too! 

We hiked to Mirador, where we saw a breath taking view of the cascade of the natural pools in the woods. Then we enjoyed swimming in the blue and very clear water of these pools. Afternoon we had very exiting, adventurous and fun trip to the caves - we called it Extreme Survival trek because this trip in the caves is not for everybody. Swimming, crawling, jumping from the cliff, waterfall repelling, diving and all that while preserving a flame of the candle in one of you hands! Tough! And it's very very cold in the water.. But that was a great adventure.

Continuing...Bay Islands, Honduras

May 11 - 28  Isla Roatan and La Ceiba, Honduras

Together with "Miss Molly2" and Oceanis I" we sailed to the next Bay Island, Roatan. We arrived in early afternoon and were lucky to have the sky clear off clouds, because the French Harbour Bay entrance has reefs on both sides and requires good eye navigation. As we learned later, this year couple boats ended up on the entrance reefs. The bottom of this harbour is not even, from 10 up to 44 feet, and in the strong wind couple boats start drugging. Luckily the harbour hosts couple marinas to hide from the high winds. After couple days on the anchor we moved to "Fantasy Island" marina, when the wind prediction was up to 40 k/h. This marina is very small, run down, with very limited amenities and impossibly lots of sand flies and mosquitos, but very socially active. The manager, Aussie Pit, who lives there on his sailboat, conducts "happy hour" from 4-7 pm every day, with very cheap drinks and a very loud music from sixties-eighties. We quickly became part of the "family", but having parties every night became kind of burdensome. On one Sunday night Dominic (local gringo married hondurian and has a little girl) took us for a ride around the island on his pick-up track, and we ended up at the north side of island, Gorda point, in the Garifunas village watching black ladies and young girls competing in their local dance under the african drums beat. The 6 drums were played by the young local boys, for hours without stop! Their band team also had a boy playing on the conch shell - that was very impressive!. At 5pm the armed police and military arrived and ordered to close all bars around - no more drinks are allowed to sell after 5pm on Sunday.
To get around the island we used the local buses (L25-30), and taxis (about the same price). We spent a day at the West End Village and checked out the West End Bay anchorage - very beautiful and very calm, can dive to explore the reefs right from your boat.
On May 21, Friday we took a ferry to the mainland city La Ceiba. It's the third largest city in Honduras, though it looked more like rundown provincial town to us. The ferry tickets aren't cheap, $25/person one way, but the trip there was very comfortable and short, just 1.5 hours. We stayed in the Hotel de Espana for two nights, cituated in the mercado area and close to the main avenue, where the main parade for the anual Carnival in La Ceiba happened. Hondurans boasting that La Ceiba Carnival is the second after Rio de Jeneiro carnival, but we were a bit disappointed, especially after participating in Grenada's and Baranquilla's carnivals. We were happy to find comfortable shady table in the little cafe to watch Carnival's parade. After parade there were parties on each street corner with bands playing reggaeton and latino music, people dancing on the streets. The next day we got a taxi to go the Punto Bonito Resort for lunch, the food was exceptionally good and surroundings are amazing, but it's very pricey place. The late afternoon we took the ferry back to Roatan, which was not very pleasant trip because of the very stormy weather.
We spent another week at the Fantasy Island marina, having parties every night at the Aussie Pit "serve yourself" bar. A lot of dancing, drinking and laughing with new friends, Argentinians Silvia and Jorge from "Garua". What a great chance for us to practice our Spanish, especially Castiliano Spanish.

May 29 - June 1  Cochinos, Bay Islands, Honduras

Just a short sail to the next stop - beautiful and quite Cochinos Cays. We anchored at the Grande Cochino bay, even though we tried really hard to find promised moorings (none of the moorings had the surface line attached any more). These little islands compose the National Park, and some of the islands are prohibited to access by tourists. The Pequeno Cochino is the islands where Survival TV show is filmed, but too bad we could not land on it. There are some private houses built on the Grande Cochino (strangely, all owners are gringos!), one Dive Resort, Turtle Bay, and Garifuna fishing village on the north side. We explored a lot of the reefs around that island - they are just amazing! Saw tons of the miniature jelly fish and huge parrot fish. There were hundreds of the different types of corrals and all of them very alive and vivid colors. We also visited another Garifuna fishing village on the nearby little cay and had very tasty lunch at Faust's cantina.


June 2 - June 7   Utila, Bay Islands, Honduras

The weather started changing, and we have to go to hide from the stronger winds. There was no wind at all and we had to motor all the day to Utila island. What an island! So far, the most interesting island in Bay Islands with its own "hippy" character. To bad we did not stay there longer, just couple days. But I would definitely return there and spent at least couple weeks in this little world of expats, great restaurants, abandancy of the cheap diver shops (the cheapest diver certification you can find in Carribean), and couple of the "free dive" shops. Kevin took 3 days classes of the free diving and "graduated" with honer, Even though he did not reach depth of the 71 feet on the last day, the 41 feet free dive (just mask and fins) is more than sufficient! This magic island has a Yoga studio where they have some Ashtanga classes, but I did not have chance to attend, because we left the island so soon.
In our opinion, the best food (indian and vegetarian) is served in Jade Seahorse Utila restaurant and hostel. The curries there are the there! There decor of Jade Seahorse is very unusual, everything is made of or decorated with recycling materials, like glass bottles, old computer motherboards, pieces of the old tiles, woods, etc. Amazing place!

Gauanaja Bay Islands, Honduras

 May 5 - May 11 Bay Islands, Guanaja, Honduras

The overnight trip was pleasant with the very light wind, so we had to start engines in order to make it to Guanaja before the sunset. The last 4 hours the wind picked up - up to 27 m/h, very unexpected, we barely had time to reef the jib and the main sails. This time seems that charts were more in sync with the reality and we made it fine to Guanaja island. The anchorage near this town is not very pleasant since you find yourself parked in the middle of the water traffic. We stayed on this uncomfortable anchorage for two night because we had some little trouble to check-in (we lost our original renewed boat registration), and we waited for the "fruit" boat from mainland (from La Ceiba) to show up on Thursday to fill up our provision.The quality of the produce was much better than in Kuna Land!
The people on the island speak both English and Spanish, and unfortunately, are not so much nice as Colombians in Providence. Everybody tries to get money from us, gringos, and we ended up paying to many people just for asking and help to take us to the restaurants or stores. Definitely, we did not like that. One local guy, named Red, shows up at the boats and falsely pretends to be an official from the immigration, then takes cruisers to the offices and copier tienda, requesting payment at least 3 time more than it should be. We paid for the customs and immigration $26 when it should be just $2.50! Paid for documents copies $1 per piece when next day at the other store we paid just one Lempira (2 cents)!

The town in Manaki (The Cay, as locals call it) seems very overpopulated, there are no cars or motobikes around, because the streets are very narrow, barely fitting couple people, houses don't have any space between each other, but streets are clean and you don't see much trash around. In the middle of the day it's practically impossible to walk in this town - very very hot!
Most of the time we spent anchoring near Manati restaurant, further away from the busy town. The restaurant Manati is the place to meet expatriats and cruisers. The food is very delicious - the native shwabish german Annete with her husband Claus are serving freshly homemade shpetzle, shnitzels, sourcrout, homebacked bread, fish, and, of course, the best german potato salad. The drinks are not cheap, but you got a good size of the draft german bier. We spent at this place almost every night, zerh gemutlich! We met there a lot of US couples who moved to Guanaja and some started their businesses. We met there a couple from Austin, TX who opened "G&G restaurant and resort".
The other restaurant we loved was "Mi Casa Too". It's a bit of a hike up to the hill to get to this place, but the view, very delicious local food and cheap drinks are worth it!
One of the days we dinghy through the cut in the island to the west side, much calmer with beautiful white sandy beaches and hikes to the waterfalls and in jungle. We saw the best corral reefs so far - very alive, with a lot of different fish and different types of corrals. There are not so many human beings around here on this side, so, not so many objects to ruin the reefs.
We really loved this place, the live here is relatively cheap and you still can buy land for $20K with the beautiful view and close to the shore.