Anyone who knows me, knows how much I love a new adventure for the experience´s sake. Strangely, one thing that was definitely NOT on my list of things to experience in this lifetime was the violent overthrow of a third world country with a front row seat. Yet, here I am, and I´m left wondering if I should begin warning future nations of my impending travel plans as my dear old friend Michael suggests. Last year, we left Thailand only a few days before a massive armed insurrection that closed all the airports for several weeks. This year, a massive earthquake [View Full Entry]

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We haven't done much worth writing about for the past couple of weeks. We're still on Utila and have moved houses from one in the little town to a nicer villa on the South beach for a week. There's snorkeling out our back door and blessed air conditioning. It's a mini vacation from our vacation. We have been diving about once a week, usually on Mondays, and this is where I must add a recommendation for Ecomarine dive center in Utila. It's part of a dive shop called "Gunther's" and is owned and operated by a wonderfully experienced German fellow named [View Full Entry]

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Local legend, as well as an enterprising entrepreneur or two, says that the island of Utila is the place of the fabled Robinson Crusoe, who shipwrecked on a tripical island, met a man he called Friday, and lived for 24 years marooned and seeking rescue. There is even a billboard or two offering Robinson Crusoe "tours" of the island, showing where he supposedly stayed, etc. based on the descriptions in Daniel Defoe's book. For those of us familiar with the literature, it's a key clue to the nature of the people on this island and their willingness to lie, smile, and [View Full Entry]

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Utila is a quiet little island just off the carribean coast of Honduras. It is perfect if you are looking for that undiscovered place that is so cool and off the beaten path before the tourist industry takes control and destroys its charm. Part of what keeps the island so peaceful is the relative difficulty of getting here. It's not an easy, packaged travel plan and requires some real intent, but it's worth it. There are really two options for reaching Utila. You can fly into the capital of Honduras, Tegucigalpa, on any major Airline. Tegucigalpa (don't worry, I can't pronounce [View Full Entry]

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Greetings All! Internet services are finally being restored on the island to the point I can post again. The 7.1 Temblor hit about 2:30 in the morning three nights ago and shook us all awake (yes, we were actually in bed by 3:00!). There is a window right by our bed and the 500 gallon watertank sits on a 10 foot high platform about fifteen feet from the house. Lights from the neighbors make it visible and I was most anxious for which direction it might tumble. Fortunately, only the 5 gallon waterjug sitting on our kitchen counter fell over. The [View Full Entry]

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Welcome once again to our summer travel blog. If you'd like to read about last year's trip to Thailand, you can find that here: Thailand . This year we are venturing through Central America and spending much of our time on the bay island of Utila, though there are sojourns planned to Belize, Roatan, and possibly some ruins on the mainland. Utila is a small island, about 5 miles long and 2 miles wide, with 2,500 or so residents and about half that many visitors at any one time. Virtually all the tourists on the island are here for [View Full Entry]

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Hi All, Thanks for joining us on the trip. Here is a link to Yahoo Videos where we have posted a compendium of our journey, complete with a bit of music to make it bearable ;-) http://video.yahoo.com/watch/3257344/9182035 Hope you enjoy it. Next year, we're looking at Honduras and Central America for our travels, so join us then for a new adventure. Until then, Sawatdee Kap Greg and Tricia [View Full Entry]

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Okay, we've just wrapped up our month in the land of smiles and we hope you've enjoyed the vicarious journey with us. We're headed off for two weeks of festival camping (I'll write a bit about that in a week or so), but for now, here are a few thoughts and observations on Thailand that don't really fit anywhere else. Some of it is a bit crude and adult oriented, but there's just no other way to accurately convey some of this stuff. At any rate, here's the stuff you'll never find in Lonely Planet. Enjoy! Toilets Ther [View Full Entry]

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Khao Sok National Rainforest covers over 750 square kilometers and is surrounded by hundreds more. It is the oldest evergreen virgin rainforest in the world and stepping from the road onto the trails makes this amazingly obvious. This is the world before we knew it. The rainforest is at once beautiful and treacherous. It's the kind of place you want to go with a guide. Always. We took a tube ride down the river, as I mentioned, and I couldn't figure out why our guide kept pushing us along whenever the water would slow down [View Full Entry]

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Just a quick entry here, we're about to climb onto the back of an elephant and go treking into the National Forest. We made it to Khao Sok after a bit of a hassle at the bus depot. It's easy for complacency to set in in places like Pai and Koh Tao where everyone is friendly and noone is out to scam you for your money. It's easy to forget that in any city of size (Bangkok, Chang Mai, Surat Thani) it's another story. We had to pass through Surat Thani to get a van to the rainforest, and a brief [View Full Entry]

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