Advertisement
Published: March 1st 2011
This morning we got up & walked into town to buy a cooler for the rest of our trip. We've been lugging around food & drinks & have talked about a better way to carry things. So, we found ourselves a nice little Coleman (Geoff named him Gary) & we are set. Of course, we had to stop at the Baleada stand & get one for breakfast. Sooo yummy! I am hooked.
Back at the hotel we made a plan with everyone else about our travel day. Peter shared his fav breakfast of Club Social crackers with peanut butter & bananas. Pretty tasty.
We all packed up & headed into town to catch a cab to the highway for our bus to La Ceiba. After wheeling & dealing a bit, & turning the first cab driver down because he wouldn't budge on price, we crammed the five of us & all our junk into one cab. We made it to the highway just as the bus was pulling away from the curb. Geoff jumped out of the cab & the cab driver was honking to get the drivers attention & he stopped & waited for us. Love the bus
Baleada.
Yummmyyy!!system when it works in your favor! We still have incredible bus catching luck!
Onto our big comfy & mostly direct bus & away we go! It's a beautiful, hot & sunny day today. We are excited to get out to the Island & play. The drive was uneventful just the way we like it. We arrived in La Ceiba & immediately had a guy grabbing our bags & throwing them into the back of a cab. Ok. I talked him down a smidge on the price at least. We headed to the boat terminal in the marina. The marina is really basic. Just a couple places to eat & the waiting area for the ferries. We arrived about 3 hours too early. It's better safe than sorry. There's only two ferries a day to Utila & you really never know how long a 2 hour bus ride will take you so we went the cautious route & left early. So we all sat & read our books & napped on the benches. Liz & Mike played their ongoing rummy game. First one to 5000 buys the other a hammock. 😊 We all ate some fried chicken & had
Passing the hours at
the La Ceiba Ferry Terminal. a Mirinda (like Fanta, but not as good). As we waited we watched the people arrive to take the ferry. The usual group of backpacking suspects from all over the world with tattoos, sunburns, bags of food, dirty backpacks, etc.
Our ferry finally arrived & we loaded up. The ferry looks like it was a catamaran that was converted into a passenger boat & without the sail. We started on our way & this local guy next to me told me that pretty soon they'd be handing out the plastic bags because everyone would be puking. Great! Sadly, he was not fibbing at all. The ride was one of the roughest, rocky, seasicky boat rides I've ever been on. The waves were soooo big out in the open ocean & this boat should probably be on a peaceful & calm lake, not the ocean. It would almost turn us on our side & then plop back down. Wow. Within a few minutes the first of the pukers began. Poor things. It's an hour boat ride at least.... I had to stand the entire ride in order to look out the window & watch the horizon. I was really green
Our ferry to Utila.
Little did we know what we were in for. a couple times & felt a little clammy. I actually took a bag at one point just in case.... It was a very unpleasant ferry ride. I've been on a lot of ferries & this one took the prize for worst ever. Ugh. I felt seasick most of the rest of the night. We guess at least 5-7 of the 40 people on board got sick. Yikes, bad odds. When we got to the dock & stepped off I still felt like I was on a rocky boat. Not excited about the return ride. May have to buy some good dramamine or a plane ticket.
We all headed over to Captain Morgan's Dive Center
http://www.divingutila.com/start.html to see if they had room for all of us. They did! So, we filled out our medical release forms & our applications for our Advanced Open Water Dive Certification. Liz & Mike are going to get theirs also, so that will be fun. We get to do a wreck dive, a night dive & three other training dives plus two free fun dives & our lodging is free! Awesome! Although since we arrived on Utila at 5pm they don't have a boat to
I'm feeling good here.
We haven't left the dock yet... take us out to the hotel so we are staying on Utila tonight. Captain Morgan's hotel is located on Jewel Caye which is just off the west end of Utila Island & sounds a bit more isolated than Utila.
Tonight we stayed at a dirty stinky hostel & shared a room with Peter. At least it only cost us $10 but I didn't want to touch anything, even the sheets. Oh well, I had to sleep. Ick. It's called Bavaria Hotel & I don't recommend it to anyone. Ewww it stunk like pee.
We all headed out to town to find some dinner. It's funny to travel with other people. It takes more talking & figuring things out to do something simple like find a place we are all happy to eat at. We ended up at a little family run place that had their menu handwritten on boards & attached to a tree. Usually the best food comes from these places & it's cheap. We all had pasta with fish or pasta with shrimp (for Geoff of course!). Our dinner was $8. It was yummy & took the edge off the seasick feeling away. We shared a few beers & just talked & laughed a lot. We came up with the combo walking stick/weapon/rain stick after seeing a group of hippies walking the street with a very tall stick. And we laughed a lot about Snack Packs & how much Mike & Liz love them.
There was a lot of people watching to do. The town has basically one main street & several little side streets. The main street is really maybe 300 yards long & EVERYONE owns a motorcycle or quad to make the long journey. It was nuts. Sitting there during dinner was so noisy. And walking around town was kinda scary because they drive on every single little street & it's up to you to move out of their way. A little nervewracking & super noisy. And kinda funny. At dinner I counted 6 times that these two young girls drove by on their quad. Cruising on Utila!
After dinner back to our stinky room to do some studying for diving tomorrow. We had to complete a couple of chapters in the book & write out our answers. The absolute last thing we wanted to do but safety first. Then off to attempt sleeping just so that we can get out of this room!
The roof is metal & there's some sort of fruit tree next to the house so every time a fruit drops on the roof it sounds like a bomb went off. Not the best nights sleep, but oh well at least it's only one.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.08s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 14; qc: 28; dbt: 0.036s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Lisa otness
non-member comment
cute pic!
Love the ferry pic :). I see that you didn't post a pic after the ferry headed out ;) I just love reading up on everything that you two are doing!! Miss you guys TONS!!! lots of love, Lees :)