This is my third Christmas in a row to be celebrated away from home.

Like South America, the locals treat Christmas Eve as the main celebration. Shops including restaurants close late afternoon. For families it was time to gather and meet and at midnight it is their main feast coupled with fireworks. By then I was well asleep and slept through the noise.

For us, thanks to Bec she arranged for nibbles collected on route since Copan. What was interesting is that we were the only guests in the hotel and literally had the run of the place all to ourselves. That meant Bec, Fran and Wayne could prepare the food in their kitchen, we could put our drinks brought from the supermarkets etc into the bar fridge to cool down, use their ice and glasses and the hotel staff helped us as well to celebrate Christmas Eve.

A Christmas toast, finger food, egg nog, Christmas cake and then time for us to have this rather drawn out encounter with the Santa Claus pinata. Poor Santa. Do come back next year.