19th of july

friday was the last day in copan and we just had to visit the birds' park because leaving copan without seeing all those parrots and tucans and having them sit on the shoulder was not possible. so, in order to get to the park it was necessary to take a mototaxi, which is this funny combination of a motobike with a roof attached to it. since the roads are all but even in copan it is actually a miracle that these things do not flip over and manage to drive up to 4 passengers with an average speed of some 40 km per hour though. however, even with that speed it seemed like we were going to crash into something because our driver was definately showing us his best driving skills in rainy weather and in his mind he was probably driving at least formula 1 rally. one of the stickers on his front window said "it's better to lose a minute of a life than a life in a minute" in spanish but he absolutely did not follow that smart advice.

all in all however we made it to the birds' park and wondered about there for some 2h watching different birds and eventually getting to hold them and pose for the pictures. i had three parrots sitting on me out of which one was quite determined to tear my hair out with its claws. the pictures turned out lovely though and well, not all of the birds were that ferocious. tucans were really sweet and mainly just wondered about with their huge yellow beaks and curious eyes. friday evening was dedicated to the last-minute shopping for souvenirs and as a result of this last-minute shopping my backpack now seems to weight at least 18 kg instead of its initial weight of some 14 when it left helsinki. and i have been throwing stuff away!it's not only me though, everyone seems to experience the same effect when it comes to their luggage. feeling like a mule is not nice but there is no other option available either.

early start on saturday. bus leaving at 5am from copan!obviously the mototaxi that was supposed to pick us up at our house and take us to the bus station never showed up so marianne and i had to bravely march down the road with all of our stuff virtually in the middle of the night because the sun was not up yet and the clock ticking all that time. we did make it to the bus though, exhausted and wet (it was dripping all the time) without falling even once on that slippery path and got ourselves on the bus. the horror story for me starts after that particular moment. since at 5am no proper breakfast was available marianne and i had a chocolate bar instead. that was a bad idea. i was throwing up for 3h on the bus during its whole journey to san pedro sula because of the motion sickness. the road was uneven and went through the mountains which exacerbated the motion sickness. i did not take a motion sickness pill because i had not eated anything and severely regretted it afterwards. upon arriving in san pedro sula i was feeling mildly put sick. however, there was the next bus waiting for us already to head off to la ceiba. and what is worse after that we still had to get a boat to the island of utila, and the waves at the carribean sea are insane. somehow i still managed the whole trip with switching modes of transportation and plastic bags and making it to utila. once on the boat it was quite clear where we were heading. the boat was packed full with brittish, american and french young tourists all being dressed like wanna-be surfers with tonnes of seashell bracellets and necklaces on them and obviously red like the chili sause so popular in central america. the boat ride was crazy with the boat performing some 45 degree drops and everyone getting a salty water shower in their faces. our luggage was safe though, all piled up in one room isolated from the water. everyone surely was glad about it until the moment it was time to get off that boat on utila. so, a few hundred people get off the boat simultaneously and flock about the pier watching how one guy starts throwing one bag at at time on the ground. naturally the owners of the first bags are somewhere where they can not see the bags and hence the bag pile just keeps growing. that was happening until the captain of the boat actually showed up and proclaimed in his perfectly impossible-to-understand-english " hey, man, what's wrong with ya?cum and get that luggage!" and so the passengers standing next to the pile would start co-operating, lifting people's bags in the air and shouting: "whose baaaaag?!" and in this particularly ineffective way even we managed to obtain our packpacks and start walking down the main street of utila, which naturally was packed with tanned surfer like scuba diver instructors and such all advertising their schools and offering you and only you "the best deal on the island".