Beach Bums

So many cities, so little time. Actually that's a lie - we have nothing but time, heaps of it, but unfortunately most of it is wasted on the actual "travelling" part of travelling. Case in point: We have been waiting for over three days now to get to Belize. You might think there would be regular traffic between Honduras and Belize but we have discovered, much to our chagrin, that almost none exists. We left La Ceiba and spent a day in Tela, proclaimed to have "the best beach in Cental America." Well, I guess if you consider trash on the beach, open sewers emptying into the water, and robberies at night by machete as unpleasant than you might disagree, but we found it quite nice actually. From Tela we went to the second largest city in the country, San Pedro Sula. For a big city it was quite nice, modern and lively, and we were able to find Chinese food and a movie in English. At this point we were ready to head to Belize, but it was just Saturday and the one boat in the country leaves on Mondays only. We considered heading back into Guatemala and finding a boat there but that involved a whole day of busses, so we decided to wait it out in Omoa, a tiny, pleasant beach town. We hiked in the jungle up a river to a waterfall, hung out at the beach, and spent the majority of the time in our room, since it poured rain almost unceasingly. Both of our guide books had led us to believe that this was the dry season, but not so, the crafty Dutch provider of our hotel informed us (she charged us a combined $18 USD for laundry!).
Okay, so finally, this morning (Monday), we braved the rain and set out for the port city of Puerto Cortes. We arrive around 8 and found the one and only boat to Belize under a bridge and paid a lot of money for a ticket. Then they shuttled all of us over to immigrations to get our passports stamped, but immigrations said no, the weather is too bad for you to go. So we went back to the boat, waited for some sun, and returned to immigrations (this time with eleven of us in the back of a Toyota pick-up, a common sight here but for which we nonetheless got pulled over by the police and ticketed/bribed). We got our stamps and then returned to the boat to wait a few more hours, and finally a little after noon, they told us that we would not be going after all. Apparently despite the now sunny sky we were not allowed to leave the port. Tomorrow morning, weather permitting. Fine, so we'll just go through Guatemala and find a boat there. Oops, too late, the immigration people took our passports and left with them before we knew the situation, so we're in this until the end. Perhaps the only bright point to this woeful tale was that they said we could sleep on the boat. Immediately afterwards we met a member from the local church, which we had tracked down on Sunday, and over lunch he lent us a nearby unoccupied house of his. It's filty, and there's no furniture or sheets on the soiled mattress, but it's free! Really a small miracle. So yes, despite the arduors of travelling, we pass through yet another storm victorious. And God willing, we'll make it to Belize tomorrow!