In the middle of Honduras, In Lago Yojoa

going back from the Caribbean coast of Honduras toward Nicaragua, I passed by Lago Yojoa, a lake where I stopped when I was on my way to Utila, but due to very bad weather I didn’t stay and couldn’t see anything there.
this time the weather was much better, and I get to have a pretty good time with some awesome views over the lake.

the place was really cool and people super nice, it gives me a much better idea about what’s Honduras is. and I really like it!

Holding my breath on a small island

In Honduras I had a pretty bad weather for the first few days, so I quickly reach the Caribbean coast. The weather was still pretty bad and forecaster to be like that for few more days. I decided to go to a small island to do some snorkeling until the weather get better to keep on going on my trip. I decided to go on Utila, it is a very small diving island on a huge barrier reef.

On my way across Honduras I met a freediving instructor. We just talk a little bit about freediving, I wasn’t thinking about doing anything like that but it was interesting. Few days later, when I arrived on the island planning to spend longer time there to wait for a better weather, I figured out it would be nice to try it out and see what it’s all about. so I took a beginner course over 2 days and actually really loved it.
The day I was planning to leave the island I went freediving one last time in the morning before going to the ferry and had such a good time going to 30m deep next to a big ship wreck, I felt a bit sad leaving the island. When I reach the ferry terminal ready to buy my ticket I turned around and decided to stay a bit more to keep freediving and take an advanced course to learn more cool technique and get more time to explore that really cool ship wreck.

So in total I stayed a bit more than a week on the island, doing a lot of freediving and snorkeling, and had a really awesome time, I also impressed myself on how long I can hold my breath and how deep I managed to go!!  I went down to 46m on one breath, hold my breath for 5min on static apnea at the surface, and went down exploring inside that big ship wreck 30m deep.
Apparently I was  really good, as usually it take much more time and practice to reach similar depth or static times.

This time on the island was perfect to relax totally before going for the last part of my trip and gave me some very good idea for the future!

Going across honduras

In Honduras I really wanted to see the caribbean coast, which is very famous for diving and snorkeling. for that I had to go all across the country. but I know all the coast and the islands will be quit touristy and probably won’t reflect honduras culture, I decided to make a stop in the middle of the country, next to a big lake to learn more about honduras.
so from San miguel in el salvador I spend the full day going from chicken bus to chicken bus to reach lake yojoa at night.  there is quite a lot of nice things to do there, but I got unlucky with the weather and got just a morning of correct weather, then it was raining non-stop. and it seems that i would keep like that for few days, so I decided to keep going, and maybe make another stop there on my way to Nicaragua if I pass there again.
During the morning with correct weather I got just enough time to visit a really nice water fall. I wanted to do a small hike to get a nice view over the lake, i'll try to do it if I pass by there again.

in Santa Ana and San Miguel

After seeing the beach I went back inland to the second largest town in El Salvador, Santa Ana!
even if it’s the 2nd biggest city, it’s not really big, i find it really enjoyable and interesting to see as they receive very little tourist.

next to the city there is a volcano again, the highest point in El Salvador, the volcano de Santa Ana(2381m),  I decided to get on top of it, unfortunately I got unlucky with the clouds and couldn’t see any of the supposedly really amazing view. but I could see inside the crater with was really cool, with a small lake with amazing color and that was boiling at one spot.

After Santa Ana I decided to keep going toward Honduras, and making a last stop in San Miguel, another city on the other side of the country, I found it a bit similar to Santa Ana, I really like it. again I didn’t really took any photo in here.

Going surfing in el Tunco, in el Salvador!!

After seeing lot of archeological site and jungle in chiapas and flores, then some huge volcanoes in Antigua and Atitlan, I thought it was a good idea to go a bit to the beach. for that I decided to go directly in El salvador and see what the beach look like over there!

i decided to go to the tiny surf town El tunco, there is just two street next to a beach with mostly rocks and some small part with very nice black sand. It is a very popular surfing destination with pretty huge waves,  so I decided to give it a go and spend a day surfing (until my board broke in half which cost me more than what I was planning on spending in all el salvador).
until this small incident I had a really great time, and really like the place. I didn’t really took any picture so here is the only one I took here ;)

Around lake atitlan, In san Pedro la laguna

After Antigua, I went around a really beautiful lake, Lake Atitlan, I went across the lake on a small boat to reach the tiny town of San Pedro, which is just next to a big volcano.  the town itself is really nice, with one side very touristy and one side very quiet and everything is half the price from the touristy side.

seeing the big volcano (volcan San pedro 3020m) I couldn't resist but climbing on top of it. at this time of the year, the weather is usually clear very early in the morning but get cloudy very fast. so I decided to get up super early to try to catch the sunrise from the top. I started walking from my hotel at 4AM, and arrived on top around 6:15AM, just a bit after the sunrise, to a really amazing view !!

Shortly after I arrived the clouds got away, for a pretty awesome view over the whole lake and the Volcan Atitlan. just enough time for me to take few pictures and some clouds started to appear in front of the volcano blocking the view again.

it was again a really amazing trip, and it felt a bit weird to be back in town at 10:30AM, having already climb a pretty huge mountain. and still having the whole day ahead of me.

in Antigua, Guatemala

Antigua was the capital of Guatemala, but a huge earthquake destroy the city in 1773 and they decided to build a new city to be the new capital, the actual Guatemala city.
there is still quite a lot of ruins from this earthquake that have been kept like that, mixed with some really nice street with very nice colonial buildings.

around the city there is few volcano, I get up two of them. Pacaya which is one of the most active volcano in Guatemala, I was a bit disappointed, we can’t really get close to it, and the view I got wasn’t really nice.

The other one I climb was volcan Acatenango (3980m)  a really big one, and just next to another very active volcano (volcan de fuego). I did it over two days, spending the night a bit under the summit, just in front of the volcan de fuego. and it was just legandary, the volcano was in eruption pretty strong all night long to give us an amazing show all night long!
to add a bit more to the amazing view there was also a huge thunderstorm during the evening.

the next morning we got up super early to got to the summit for the sunrise which was again amazing.

This was definitely one of the highlight of this trip !!

In the beautiful town of Flores in Guatemala!

I arrived here a bit randomly as it was the only destination i could go from the border, so I didn’t know what to expect, and when I arrived I found out what was special about it.

it is a tiny island in a middle of a big lake, with just a bridge to get in and out of the town.the town is really nice with tiny old streets, but I couldn’t take a picture that show correctly what it looks like so I stole the picture above from internet.

It is the base town to visit the most visited site in Guatemala, the ruins of Tikal. it was once the capital of the mayan civilization, there was no tree at the time, but now it is in the middle of a big rain forest all the buildings were covered by grass and tree and now they are restoring everything one stone at a time. The amount of work needed to restore everything would be incredible.
visiting the whole site was really great, and I got super lucky that there wasn’t many people, most of the time I was just by myself. there is a lot of building that are not restored at all or just partly restored which give a good idea of how the found the site.

There is also some pretty big pyramid that rise above the trees which gives an awesome view
aside from all the ruins, as it is in the middle of the jungle there is an incredible wild life, I have seen many animals and amazing birds.  I really love visiting Tikal, it got everything and it’s not crowded.

Passing the border to Guatemala… already ??

When I was in "la selva Lacandona" I was very close to Guatemala, and after thinking a lot about it, I decided to cross the border here and skip the Yucatan peninsula and Belize.  I’m in mexico since quite a long time already and have already seen many amazing things there, and I think the Yucatan peninsula will be much more touristy so I decided to skip that part to have more time in other country like Guatemala, Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua. So here I am crossing the border here in direction of Flores in Guatemala!!

since I said I want to visit mexico, I had so many people telling me I should not, that it is very dangerous, but being there I didn’t have that feeling at all. in fact most of the time I felt much safer than in France or in the US for example!!.

The difference in the country between north and south is huge!!, all the north is very modern and feel really rich but the more south I went the more it change, and went I arrived in chiapas I felt like I was in a different country, the south is definitely very poor compared to the north. both are very interesting to visit and globally it give mexico more interest and more things to see!! it would be easy to spend a full year visiting the country and still haven't seen everything.  so I had to choose few part to visit in the 6 weeks I spent there and now it’s time to move on to other countries :)