Honduras-Nicaragua Journey

We started our Honduras-Nicaragua journey with the Copan ruins. Our first impression of these Mayan ruins was from the admission booth; $7 to see the museum, US$15 to see the ruins plus another $15 if we wanted to see 2 tunnels. These are the most expensive entrance fees to visit ruins we have seen in Latin America. We chose not to pay for the tunnels; which was a good decision, we found out that one was not supervised and we visited it for free. In general, Copan ruins are impressive, but I still prefer Yaxchilan in the Chiapas (I am biased; I love the Chiapas).
We visited one National Park in Honduras, Azul Meanbar. We stayed at Los Pinos, a quiet campground with electricity and free Wi-Fi Internet. We took a 4 hour trail in an amazing rain forest with orchids, crystal clear waterfalls, giant ferns, birds, etc. It cost us less than $20 for the campground and dinner for 2 at the Park restaurant. Also included in the price was the security guard who stood at the gate all night with his shot gun. That’s the way it is in these countries, every gas station, every big store, every tourist attraction has an armed guard standing by, even the Coca Cola truck has one.
In fact, since we entered Central America, every night we sleep behind closed gates, most of the time, we can see the armed guard from our campground. We feel secure and we sleep well despite the constant barking from dogs and early roosters’ “song”.
We enjoyed the lake Yojoa area; we wished we had a canoe to go along the lake shores, which are covered with thousands of wild birds. In Honduras, we also went to 3 colonial towns recommended in the tourist brochures. Unfortunately, these towns, Comayagua, Valle de Angeles and Danli, failed to seduce us.
We are now in Granada, Nicaragua, a very charming city. We continue to experience a trip without bad luck and with relatively easy border crossings. So far, I prefer Nicaragua to Honduras and Guatemala to Nicaragua.
Today, we will enter Costa Rica. Our plan is to leave the VW in Liberia for one month. I will spend March in the Bahamas, while Thomas is flying to California and then to Germany. We will be back in Costa Rica early April and start to drive back north.

Sign at the entrance to a public swimming pool!