Utila (Honduras)

We spent a week on Utila, one of the Bay Islands off the Honduras coast. What with recent boat trips, we were pleased to discover that this time a reassuringly large boat awaited us. However our hopes of a calm ride were dashed by the speed at which sick bags were handed out. It was another rough ride but fortunately well worth it.

Utila is a very relaxed backpacker island, and with the coral reef extending down from Belize, it offers some great diving. We decided to do our Open Water scuba diving qualification here, which involved four days of classes and practicing various odd manoeuvres underwater. Vania even invented her own one, a ¨backside first emergency ascent¨ - coming to a scuba diving school near you soon! I ended up laughing so much I flooded my mask, but then provided some entertainment of my own with my attempted cross legged controlled hovering ended up looking more like I'd sat on a rocket! The test wasn't particularly difficult although its the first one either of us has sat with dogs chasing chickens around you, sand flies biting chunks out of your legs, heavy construction work next door and a parrot mimicking a baby crying (just in case your powers of concentration could shut out all the rest)! The practical work was much more fun, we saw garden eels, loads of different fish and coral with great visibility and a water temperature of over 80 oF! Thanks in particular to our instructors Kate, Saar and Megan who did a great job preparing us so well. Although we could have done without the emergency boat engine failure drill though! On the way to our second dive, the boat's gear jammed and they couldn't stop it or put it into reverse. So we were left going round and round in circles and trying to avoid crashing into the reef, with Vania and I thinking we must have skipped the part in th course about boat repairs.


Back on land, life on Utila is extremely chilled out and largely untouched by the scourges of modern living - no fast food places, no banks, no cars. The preferred mode of transport is the golf buggy, which was the case in Belize too. I can only assume there is a serious problem with disappearing golf buggies in the US, either that or when some old duffer drives one into a lake it gets deemed unroadworthy and shipped out to Central America to cart tourists around on! A bit like the legendary "chicken buses" (which Vania refered to in an earlier posting), the iconic ex-US bright yellow school buses which get their name from one of their most frequent passengers. Luckily we haven't had to sit next to any chickens yet, and the buses are actually ok. The only disturbing part is that their age is sometimes revealed by the name on the front "Rosewood School Centenary Year - 1958" or something equally reassuring!



We spent several evenings on Utila in the Treetanic bar, which had a series of walkways amongst the trees (perhaps not such a good idea for a bar but it looked great). On our way to Honduras we met the two lively future social anthropologists on the photo, Verena and Muriel. They had plenty of stories from their travels in central America, with which to amuse us in between cocktails! They also suggested us the place where we ended up staing in Utila, a really nice hostel called Ruby's. See, we initially got free accomodation with our dive course, but this proved to be something of a let-down. As I was getting into bed on the first evening, I noticed a dark patch between the sheets, which on closer inspection turned out to be a moving dark patch between the sheets. A large cockroach had beaten us to bed and was scuttling around sandwiched between the sheets! Having removed this one before Vania could pack her bags, and then two more in the bathroom, we decided to check out in the morning and decline the generous offer of this $3 a night accomodation!

Tom
Utila, Honduras


(I have some photos but sadly as yet not an internet cafe where I can upload)