It's proving tricky to even remember which country I'm in lately, so I'll bundle a few of the last places I've stopped in to one blog update to make it easier to read and follow.

From Útila, Jorden, Victoria and I took a ferry and a couple of buses, making our way to San Pedro Sula, Hondruas. We were aware that San Pedro Sula is regarded as one of the most violent places in the world, having recorded 187 homicides per 100,000 residents in 2013, yet, we still felt (relatively) safe as we walked around the city during the night to find a cheap hostel and dinner.

Having survived San Pedro Sula (one night was enough), we made our way by bus back in to Guatemala and stopped at Flores for a couple of nights, where we could unpack our bags and even spend a day checking out the Mayan ruins of Tikal. Whilst mainly a place to base your visit to Tikal from, Flores was a nice little town where you could also enjoy a nice meal and enjoy a beautiful sunset over the lake.

Then, it was another border crossing, into another new country - Belize. Having both passed our Advanced Open Water courses in Útila, mine and Jorden's main reason for entering Belize was to visit Caye Caulker and tick off one of the scuba diving world's most talked about (many say it's overhyped) dives - The Blue Hole.

The Blue Hole (image stolen shamelessly from Google)

The Blue Hole is a large sinkhole off the coast of Belize. Circular in shape, it is over 300m wide and 124m deep, with many fish, sharks, corals, and stalactite formations. Even having our Advanced license, we were still technically only certified to dive a maximum depth of 30m. However, as is common with many dive shops around Central America, they'll take you further than you're supposed to go. We were taken down to a maximum depth of 46m, where for many divers, narcosis is known to set in (narcosis is an alteration in consciousness that occurs while diving at depth. It is caused by the anaesthetic effect of certain gases at high pressure).

The stalactite formations are found at around 42m, which means the total time you can actually spend at that depth is quite small - between 5 - 10 minutes. Yet it was incredible. It was probably the narcosis, but it felt like a dream. We stayed close to the stalactites, giving us a natural reference of where we were (when you look away from the stalactites you can't see anything - just blue ... and sharks), so you get this sense of impending doom is just around the corner, and it's easy to understand why there have been many deaths at The Blue Hole due to diver incompetence. I surfaced with more sinus problems (and blood), but with another bucket list experience ticket off the list, I'm now glad to take a break from diving for a while to let it recover.

Jorden, Victoria and I went out for dinner for our final night together and splurged on a huge, delicious, yet way overpriced (as is the norm for Caye Caulker) pizza, then parted ways - Jorden and V heading back up to Mexico, whilst I head back down through Central America and into El Salvador.