Honduras in a Nutshell

I debated whether or not to post anything on Honduras besides the trip to Copan.  The truth is, it's been kind of a mess.  We spent a four-day whirlwind traveling and dealing with misinformation and constantly changing plans.  It's a long story, but I'll try to break it down.  Here's the salient points:

1. Most people fly into the Bay Islands.  Being RPCV's without much money to our names, we decided to bus. Flying is logistically much easier because you avoid a bunch of transfers and various modes of transport.
2. To get to the Bay Islands from Copan, you have to take a bus to San Pedro Sula, hop on another bus to La Cieba, and then take a short, but pricey ferry to the islands.  The bus to San Pedro Sula may not be direct on some days, which means a long, slow ride to La Entrada, and then on to SPS.  You guessed it.  We had to take the smaller bus to La Entrada, which was so slow it had locals complaining.
3. The ferries to the Bay Islands only leave twice a day.  If you leave from Copan in the morning by bus, you won't make it.  The shuttle is almost the same cost it turns out, and about half the time.  No matter what someone says, the bus from San Pedro Sula to La Cieba (and the return) is 4-5 hours, not 3.

Here's more information on getting to Belize as it plays into how long to stay on Utila, one of the Bay Islands.

1. The only option to go directly from Honduras to Belize is by ferry, which you can only take from Puerto Cortes.
2. Ferries from Puerto Cortes only leave Mondays.  If a Honduran tells you otherwise, they don't know what they are talking about.  If someone says there is a Wednesday ferry, don't plan your trip to the Bay Islands around it.  If you read that the ferry leaves Tuesday from a travel magazine created by Honduras' tourism board, they also don't know what they're talking about.  If you visit the website for the ferry company and it says Tuesday, they too don't know what they're talking about, even though it's their own ferry.

OK.  If you've followed along thus far, you're a geography and transportation expert!

So that brings us to the Utila.  We were planning on staying a few days, but it was dependent on the ferry from Honduras to Belize, which I talked about above.  Unfortunately, our transport from Antigua, Guatemala to Copan, Honduras was full so we had to wait a day to get to Honduras.  This also cut into our Bay Island time.

When we arrived to Utila, it was a little disappointing.  I think it would be fine if the weather were better, if there had been more people, if it were a little cheaper, if we didn't have our Belize exit strategy looming over us, if we hadn't been spoiled by quick access to Bocas in Panama, if transport had been quicker, if people hadn't given us bad information.  

After spending way too much money and time to get there, we decided to cut our losses and catch the Tuesday ferry (remember above about Tuesday ferries) from Puerto Cortes.  We arrived Monday afternoon only to find out that yes, the only ferry leaves Monday, and that we had already missed it....  And that's Honduras in a nutshell.