La Ceiba + Rafting + Cliff Jumping + Parrots = macanudo! (Part I)

Ah, what a hard day to even start to write about! So much happened- definitely my favorite day of the entire trip... although it didn't start too nicely-

After about, oh 5 hours of sleep, Jeff and I are rudely awaken by the incessant clamouring of my cell phone alarm. It's around 5:30am and it's time to get moving so we can catch our ferry at 6:30 from Utila back to La Ceiba. We still have to pack, having decided it was just too much to do the night before. We flip on the horrendous examining room lights and everything is shocked into florescence. Not what I was needed on too little sleep following an already emotionally charged evening. Nothing is looking nice in this light, especially the prospect of getting on a ferry to go to la ceiba, a huge town, where we might be able to go white water rafting. I bring this up to Jeff- 'what are we rushing out of here for exactly' and he concurs... so we go fetch pete to see if we really should leave. pete's rightfully a bit pissed at us- i mean we are changing plans 30 minutes prior. we decide begrudgingly that we should go to la ceiba, and once we're there we'll play it by ear, but definitely not try anything too aggressive. okay okay.

so around 6:15 we head out on our last walk in utila out to the main dock. we line up at some window and hastily purchase our rather exorbitantly priced 395 lempira ferry tickets (~$20) and are told to hurry up and board. we do and after some deliberation we settle on some backward facing seats.

we take off and it's choppy out there. probably lack of sleep, probably sadness at leaving utila, probably sea sickness- whatever it was, neither jeff nor i were feeling hot. i tried looking straight out at the horizon watching the peak of utila's pumpkin hill slowly disappear for most of the 30-40 minute ferry ride. finally torwards the end i ventured out to the front, which we had avoided since having been fully soaked on the ferry ride over to utila, and it was beautiful- the coast line overpowered by mountains, partially obscured with mist. and the wind- wind at my face like i haven't had since amsterdam, which is ever trying to blow me off my bike (and occasionally succeeding). it was lovely and freeing, although i was glad to arrive, set feet to earth, and move on towards other adventures..

we're in la ceiba then. we jump into a taxi and tell them we want to go rafting and to be taken to a tourism place. amazingly enough, this half-assed request is well received and we are off to 'banana republic' some hostel/rafting organizer in the main town. unfortunately traffic is a bit bad (rush hour I suppose) and then we are further derailed by a mass of marching youngsters who according to their handpainted banners are protesting trees or something. well actually likely deforestation, but the signage wasn't clear so who knows. a few detours around this 20 block long protest (exaggeration, obvi) and we finally arrive at banana republic. i chill with the taxi cab, while jeff and peter go in to inquire. they return 5 minutes later with an affirmative: we are going rafting. and in 10 minutes. good. breakfast.

it's about 8am now, and we need food. we don't have much time (supposedly) so we try to hit up someplace close. even though it's clearly breakfast time, there is a chicken shack open across the street. we go there just to have a look, but it's not appealing and amazingly enough doesn't cater to the vegetarian (go figure). so it's option 2, a little market on the adjacent corner. a quick 5 minute tour of the market yields one major observation: sometimes you really do want prepackaged convenience food. and there is practically zilch. we settle for a combo of mini corn tortillas (still warm), a jar of skippy (legit skippy too), bananas, knock-off fig newtons, and red bulls. we haul this back to the hostel and practically inhale this impromptu breakfast. luckily peanut butter is always a winner in my book, so i'm pretty happy. and especially happy when its' finally time to head out... in a huge 4 x 4. nice.

okay well i'm actually headed out to barcelona tomorrow morning (June 10th in real time) so i'm going to cut this short... but stay tuned because it is an amazing rest of the day!

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