Last Day in Central America

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OK, so I know that I have been a slacker when it comes to updating this lately...and by lately, I mean the past 34 days, but there has been so much going on, it was hard to find the time.

When I last wrote, I was in Nicaragua, finishing up my fun travels before coming here to Utila for my course to become a SCUBA instructor. I left Leon, Nicaragua on a bus at around 6 am, bound for San Pedro Sula in Honduras. As always seems to happen, I met two people on the bus who were also planning on coming out to Utila - one to finish her dive master course, the other to do a few days of fun diving. We ended up becoming very close very fast, because the only place to stay that we could find was a tiny room with one double bed and a bunk bed...which we had to pay extra if we wanted to use both bunks. So needless to say, we piled into the little space that we could afford. The next day, on the way to La Ceiba where you get the ferry to Utila, I saw a girl wearing a Pace University shirt, so I had to ask if she went there, and as it turns out she was there with her family who all live in Pleasantville, and one of the daughters goes to school with my cousin...weird, and this was just the first incident of Utila being the smallest place in the world. So the bus arrives in Ceiba, with my backpack full of SCUBA textbooks, but minus my other backpack...the one with my clothes and my dive gear. After a tiny meltdown, and many assurances from the bus company that it would be put on the next ferry out to Utila, the next day (thank goodness I went with the "nice" company), I got onto the ferry out to Utila. On the boat ride out, I overheard someone talking about Miami, and with my new, outgoing and nosy personality, I just had to strike up a conversation. Small world incident #2: One of the daughters from that family was in 6th grade at my school, and would have been in my class this year, but they just moved out to the Beach, but she had heard of Ms. Trotta - I didn´t want to know what she had heard, so I didn´t ask.

The ferry ride was long, and I got soaked in the one set of clothes that I had with me, so when I finally arrived, I was not a happy camper, and then I had to go through the gauntlet - every dive shop on the sends its divemasters and instructors to greet the ferry and shepherd poor backpackers to their shop - I got caught in it last year, and was so happy that I already had my destination planned out. I stayed at the Mango Inn, and within a few minutes of getting there, wondering what I was doing, I met Skye, an Australian girl who was doing the course as well. Meeting her was awesome timing because she brought me to dinner at the house of another girl from the class, Veronica from Argentina, and made my first night a pretty easy transition. I spent the next day getting settled, and doing homework, and worrying about my bags. Thankfully, it arrived on the evening ferry - I was so happy that I hugged the mate who found it for me - it was a long tense wait, watching all of the other bags come off before mine, but it was there, and i was happy, and CLEAN!!

I promise to update more when I get home!

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