UTILA...Dive dive dive!!!

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Finally my time had come to get on a bus and get me some Caribbean sun! We booked our supposedly direct bus from our hostel in Flores to La Ceiba which is the jumping off point for Utila by boat... The deal was obviously too good to be true.

We got in the taxi to the "air conditioned bus" as we had been promised at 5am and headed for the station. Safe to say the air conditioning was basic at best - sliding windows is, in my opinion, NOT air conditioning. It was ok though - at least the bus was fairly large rather than an overcrowded minibus! The trip was long but pretty much entirely uneventful except for the couple who brought their box of chickens on to the bus which constantly tried to escape (right next to us!). We crossed the Rio Dulce and headed for the Honduran border. Before the border we switched to the A/C bus we had been promised to cross the border. This then stopped for a full tyre refit which the grotesquely fat sweaty driver helped with...builders bum took on a new meaning that day...


The crossing was swift and the land quickly changed once we crossed the border from jungle and mountains to banana plants...kilometre after kilometre of the things occasionally interplanted with palms used for Palm oil (safe to say the US has ensured that the original banana republic is firmly under control and continues to keep those bananas growing!). We pulled in to San Pedro Sula (which I would rather not have returned to later on our travel if I could have helped it!) and got on the next bus to La Ceiba with our tickets...except our tickets apparently did not cover this leg of the trip and we had to pay again. Fortuantely the 3.5 hour trip only cost 3 dollars but its the principle right?

We stayed in a basic hostel in La Ceiba for the ferry in the morning to Utila - we went out and experienced our first Honduran food - the Baleada...basically a large tortilla filled with eggs, frioles, cheese, ham or whatever you want - for about 20p each. Delicious!

The ferry was ok (A/C was a life saver as La Ceiba was about 35 degrees!). As we disembarked from the ferry we were greeted with a beautiful eagle ray swimming in the bay and SO MANY people from the dive shops hawking for our business. We had been recommended a place called Alton's Dive Centre and the guys that approached us from there were the least pushy of all and we decided to check it out... It was the best decision of our trip so far.

Alton's Dive Centre was my Mecca for 2 weeks. Our room was free with our dive course and the door opened directly over the Caribbean Sea. The Jetty strutted out into the sea with a 2 floor gazebo style structure at the end full of hammocks and seating - from there it was straight into the sea and what a sea... the temperature never dropped below 29 degrees whilst we were there... even at 40m below the surface. It was like jumping into a hot bath... none of that brace yourself and sharp intake of breath English style water for me. We dumped our bags, changed for the water and ran up the stairs, straight off the top deck into the water - it was stupendous (no words can really do it justice!) My first dip in the sea exceeded my expectations tenfold and Utila continued to do so for 2 weeks (we were supposed to stay for 4 days...).

Utila is by far the most chilled out place I have ever been. 1 main road rammed full of dive centres and eateries and bars and about 20 cars on the Island. However, there are MILLIONS OF GOLF CARTS, MOTORBIKES, QUADS and absolutely no code of practice for driving/riding to speak of!

When we decided which course we were going to do we were expecting to start at some normal time like 9am...not 3 in the afternoon with a beer in hand. Natan our swiss instructor was fantastic. After we had dispensed with the over sales focused PADI course videos (which took 4 boring hours) we had some more beers and chilled some more. The next day we were in the water. This is shallow water training which is usually done next to the dive centre but the water was really quite murky that day so we got to go out on the dive boat to a real dive site and do it there. It was beautiful. The clearest water I've ever been in, fish, coral, sunshine, 30 degree water that day etc etc,,,I could go on.

Safe to say I enjoyed it from the outset. Sarah wasnt such a big fan at first but she soon came round, enough so to move straight onto our advanced course! The wildlife on our fun dives was fantastic - Barracuda, Moray eels, King Crabs, so many other fish and EAGLE RAYS!

We decided to stay and do our advanced course that qualifies us to dive to 40m (120ft). As part of this course we also got to do a night dive - cue octopus, MASSIVE lobsters, and black water that glowed like the night sky with bioluminesence...tiny strings of glowing greenish blue pearls and millions of tiny red glowing eyes out of the corner of your own eyes. Turning out the torches and wafting your arms gently through the water is like turning on and off millions of stars at a whim and was truly breathtaking. There is something about night diving that is so relaxing and comforting - its just you and your torchlight and the inky black water all around. When we surfaced, as it was the new moon and consequently completely pitch black in the sky, it was hard to differentiate between sky and sea. We were also treated to an electrical storm (which was almost a nightly feature - lightning on the mainland casting out to us) which just made the whole thing that little bit more magical.

We met so many great people during our time on Utila including famous polo playing fiddlers and TV producersfrom New York...I now have New York on my next years Itinerary! Another treat for us was our friends that we met in Lanquin, Guatemala had arrived which made the whole experience more fun!

Renting a golf cart for $5 per hour was so much fun - we went and found some caves, saw the north side of the Island and generally drove around as fast as possible avoiding people, other golf carts, pot holes, Iguanas and other general hazards. It was hilarious.

I was so sad to leave and was contemplating staying and doing my Dive Master Training but money constraints and the distance we have left to travel won out and we packed to leave.

We headed to the ferry with our gear on the hottest day since we had been there to find that it wasn't going that day due to engine problems. Fortunately Rosie, a local Utilian knew a fisherman that would take us. An hour later we were on a 12 seater open topped fishing boat in open water - it was cheaper than the ferry and way more fun so all in all it worked out quite well in the end. The worst part was that the delay meant that we could not get down to Nicaragua that night and had to stay in San Pedro Sula (as aforementioned). We stayed in a nasty roach hotel after being screwed by some taxi drivers...this is not uncommon but is highly irritating... the only positive was that we were leaving at 3.30am to get the bus to Managua/Granada the following morning.

We got up and headed for the station. Thank god for A/C and a comfortable bus because a 12 hour journey became a 17 hour journey after sitting in a traffic jam for over 4 hours without moving more than a few hundred meters. Fortunately, the bus was showing really terrible yet hilarious films and a series of 80s music videos that helped us while away the time.

As it was so late when we got to Leon (1hr from Managua) and we could therefore not get a bus to Granada that night, we stayed in Leon in a really cool hostel and ended up staying for 2 nights to rest and recouperate after our 2.5 days living off crisps and not much else. We ate well and drank plenty of Flor de Cana rum which was a welcome break from so many buses.

We're in Granada now which is the oldest colonial town in Nicaragua and is spectacularly beautiful with old grand hotels and some really cool places to visit. Its time to explore!

Ometepe Island next on lake Nicaragua (which is MASSIVE - 177km long and 85km wide...8600 square km!) for some back to basics living...

Will try and update more regularly from now on. Pictures are still incredibly difficult to upload in these countries.

Love to all

xxx

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