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Published: August 9th 2012
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View from my hotel room
... walking distance to everything So here I am on Utila, which is an Island about an hour's ferry ride off the Honduran coast. I got here and immediately felt like I was home. There is something about this place that reminds me of Anna Maria Island when I was a child. It's mainly untouched, but getting close to being overrun in the next couple of years by people who want to make a lot of money off the beach front property. Everything is relaxed and unhurried here. You can wait an hour for your dinner at a restaurant and no one seems to care except the person who is withering away at the dining table. You can hear so many different languages around you and every accent of English there is and EVERYONE calls everyone else sweetie, darling, and love. I've learned to refrain from saying "y'all" for fear of getting teased.
I found a cute little hotel right on the water and it's sweet. Only $16 a night with a private bathroom. There's no air conditioning, but the sea breeze is so strong you don't need it. I wake up to the sound of water lapping at the dock.
So I was
View from my hotel room
$16/night private room with bath right on the water... actually right over the water. It was lovely. wrong about the type of people who live here. The Garifuna live a little to the north. The Islanders here are white and the speak an unintelligible form of Carribean English. I would be better off with Spanish for all I can understand them. They are the decendents of 400 years of inhabitation on this Island - pirates, British, Spanish, and I wouldn't be surprised if some shipwrecked Garifuna snuck in there.
I just finished my Scuba Diving open water certification yesterday. Wow! It's amazing what's under just a few feet of water! There are wonderful coral reefs here which is why so many people come from all over the world to dive here (that and this is currently one of the cheapest places in the world to get a scuba diving certification.) The first day in the water I got so nauseous that I had to lean over the boat a bit and feed the fish --- so to speak. In the past four days, I haven't quite gotten over it and at this point this computer keyboard feels like it's floating up and down. The idea of getting on the ferry is not one I cherish at
After the dive
This picture seems dark when it uploads on the internet, but I'm smiling. The views below were spectacular.
If I ever find the CD of underwater scuba pictures, I'll post them. this point. Still it was worth it. I saw the most amazing fish... moray eels, clown fish, huge hermit crabs in conch shells and so much more. Diving has a dreamlike quality to it because it seems strange to me to be breathing and seeing underwater. I'm hoping I get to do it again sometime in the near future. I was hoping to get a lot of pictures myself to send but a photographer wound up taking a lot of wonderful photos and I bought the CD. Even with the nausea, I'd do it all over again, no question. I wish I could have stayed longer. It was all so beautiful.
Well, much to my dismay, I leave tomorrow to head back to Guatemala City. I fly home on Aug 1, and I want to be closer to the plane than I am now. I'll probably write one last time on my way home.
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