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Published: September 11th 2005
Garifuna boy on bicycle
We met this cute little Garifuna boy in La Ensenada, near TelaHey all,
The final country on my Central America adventure, is the fascinating country of Honduras.
And it was the beginning of Honduras started with the end of my trip with Dad. This was not before though a ramshackle of an entry across the Belizean border.
I hate to say it, but the boat from Placencia to Puerto Cortes is an absolute shambles. $50 dollars was a steep price to pay for half a seat, then an hour standing in a rickety boat which we then all waited an hour and a half at the border crossing for nothing to happen, and for the attendant to insist handling passport details inside the crammed boat rather than in the space of the dock. 3 hours later we stretched our legs finally and waiting another half hour for them to go through every single passport..then call us up individually. In 30 degree heat, it was painstakingly slow.
Ah well, whos to complain, its all part of the travelling experience i guess! Once us group of gringos had got our new stamp, four english (me, Dad, Richard and Matt), two Dutch (Inges and Evelyn), an American (Yokey) and a French
Pick up truck fun
Dutch girls Inges and Evelyn can´t contain their excitement at the prospect of 5 hours in the back of a pick up truck! girl (Stephanie), negotiated with a innocent old couple a ride to Tela, and La Ceiba via San Pedro Sula airport for just 15 US dollars each. Our ride was not in the back of a bus, nor nestled in the the front with Honduran radio = but the 8 of us perched on the back of a pickup truck!!
It was a remarkable way to begin the new country, as we chundered along at a ridiculously slow pace. Trucks stormed pass us and honked the horns, whilst we played Reggae and The Beatles out of our portable speakers, singing along to a beautiful mountainous countryside backdrop and laughing at the insanity of it all.
About 5 bum uncomfy hours later, Dad and I had arrived at our destination, the small town of Tela. After our pick up truck collided with a gutterhole and pushing the battered pick up truck back up onto the road, we checked in and felt relieved we had finally made it.
Tela was a pleasant and enjoyable little town. The first night we avoided the touristy nightlife area and instead opted into the Iguana nightclub, with around 7 tourist police guarding the door
Divebuddies
From left to right - Bastian (my German dive buddy), Eric (our Canadian dive instructor) and Lucian (some English guy) and inside of the club..with huge M16 guns of course, naturally.
We made a new friend with a journalist called Jose, and he invited his ´services as a tour guide´ the next morning to take us round the area, but we declined. Instead mine and Dad´s last day together meant we explored a beautiful and tranquil Garifuna village called La Ensenada. Dining on a local fresh fish lunch and wading in clear waters next to cliffside jungle, its was a great end to a fantastic partnership of travellers.
We changed hotel for the LP recommended splurge of Maya Vista Hotel, which boasted stunning views of the Tela town with very comfortable spacious rooms. The only thing left now was to go out with a bang, and we ensured this by many a cervezas and cocktails with more dancing with Honduran ladies who were clearly fascinated or suprised by the sight of two slightly inebriated gringos strutting their stuff to Spanish salsa!
The next day we knew we had to depart each other and so after a hasty taxi ride, similar to a scene out of a Hollywood movie, we hugged quickly as my bus honked the horn
Sunset at the dock
Stunning sunset at the dive centre´s dock at the side of the dusty road, and with that I boarded and waved. Now I was on my own.
The first few minutes on my own was strange. After three weeks being with someone close every day, to suddenly be on your own surrounded by Spanish speakers, with the bus conductor not quite understanding you and not able to give change, it was a little daunting at first to say the least. But once I had checked into the Hotel Caribe at La Ceiba (Im sure the Lonely Planet was on crack when he recommended this place though, I laid in my bed and I was ready for more adventure.
La Ceiba on a Sunday is pretty uneventful. All the shops are closed and the main attraction of the parque central was very quiet indeed. I tried to find the cinema but soon realised it was now closed, so after an early night, I packed for the Bay Island of Utila the next morning.
Luckily, I quickly made companions with a Spanish couple to share a taxi and catch the boat to Utila. I chatted on the boat with the guy from Barcelona, mainly about
Diving
Hand signal for "I´M OK!", before the descent anyway... football again, and also befriended a German guy called Bastian. We discovered that we had both come to Utila for the advanced diving course, so after the barrage of leaflets at the dock, we left our backpacks at Captain Morgans Dive Centre (very handy to use) and ventured to find the best dive shop and deal.
3 hours of sticky heat and plenty of questions posed later, we had come to a decision of Underwater Vision, which had its own dock for divers, 2 nights accommodation free AND 2 fun dives free. Bastian and I were to share a room also and we reunited with my friends from the pick up truck episode, including Matt the English guy who we were in the same tour group in Tikal also.
Bastian and I hit it off straight away. I thought he was a really interesting guy who had just come off the back of 4 months working as a firefighter paramedic in Costa Rica. Obviously he had some brilliant stories and we both seem to find each others company well and I was quite pleased I was able to share the diving with someone and found a new diving
Are you talking to me?
I met this curious crab scuttling along the main street in Utila ´buddy´ and a new amigo buddy!
Our dive instructor was a cool young Canadian guy called Eric. We got to work straight away, with PADI videos and back to school with our first set of homework (!). I hadnt dived for over a year and so had to take up a refresher course just to remind myself of the maneouvers if god forbid I was to run out of air. etc. This was all well and good...UNTIL...i got out of the water just at sunset. Me and Refresher course instructor Chris, were just cleaning our diving equipment when I took the top half of my wetsuit off to cool off. Big mistake.
It was not attack of the bastard ants this times. It was attack of the bastard sunflies and mosquitos!! They feasted on my back, constantly slapping and cleaning my equipment as fast as I could, I got back to the room only for Bastian to laugh at the sheer dot to dot formation that had formed on me. I had over 50 bites!!! It was sheer agony! So dam itchy!! This was not the best introduction to Utila, and I wasnt in my best mood. Still,
Coco Loco´s
Fire dancing at the popular Coco Loco´s bar, one of only three bars on the island we were to dive tomorrow....
Waking up for 6.30am scrounging my poor back constantly, we got ready and onto the boat for our first Advanced course dive. Despite all the unattractive bites on me, once I got underwater and descended, everything else went out of place, I was in underwater diving heaven.
Utila maintains the end of the massive Barrier Reef off Belize. The sheer abundance of beautiful tropical fish and coral gardens means its world renowned for diving. I picked up my buoyancy suprisingly quickly, as we learnt about Multilevel diving, and naturalist diving with fish identification. We identified all sorts of spectacular schools of fish, yellow jacks, french angelfish, groupers, my favourite parrotfish, shrimps and crustaceans. Diving in such a awesome experience to go through to be underwater in a whole new world, Finding Nemo´s world!
Fresh off the boat with adrenaline, I perked myself even more by buying anti itch cream which was my saviour. Annoyingly my Cirrus bank card doesnt work at the banks here so I have to ensure I survive on just travellers cheques. Just a tip for travellers to Utila..only VISA works on the island!
Bastian and I had
Nandito the fisherman
Nothing like having a good civilised chat with one of the locals!! to do some more homework as we gradually began to chat continually and we had a great evening. The next morning we were up bright and early again for our next two dives, the biggie, the 30 metre deep wreck dive, and the navigation dive.
Wow, the 30 metre wreck dive was definitely a highlight of all the dives I have had. We dived on the Halliburton II wreck, bizarrely donated by Dick Cheney of all people (must be some economic advantage for him somewhere). The wreck was beautiful. I felt like I was exploring a mini Titanic, as the instructor Eric played on the abandoned bicycles and spread out his arms at the front of the boat, just like Kate Winslet and Leonardo Di Caprio!!
The strangest but funniest thing about this dive, was the nitrogen narcosis test. At 30 metres, your body reacts slightly differently than normal under the increased pressure, and so divers often experience the slight feeling of being drunk underwater and europhic or confused. We had a fun egg test where the yolk was supposed to remain in tact at the pressure as we played with it giggling with our regulator. My egg
Backpack on
After nearly two weeks on Utila, it was time to catch the boat to start the journey home in fact burst into pieces so I found it all the more funnier as the feeling of a few beers was definitely there, although of course I still felt in control!
It was a fantastic dive, and we finished off the day with a navigation test with a compass, which is harder than you think when you looking at a compass, counting your kick cycles and trying to see some fish at the same time! Still the best thing about this dive was that we saw a beautiful dancing Seahorse!!
As the days went on in Utila, the dive centre dock proved a popular hang out to meet lots of other travellers, including Irish girls, Americans and Ben, an English guy who was unfortunate enough to come all the way to Honduras for her divemaster girlfriend, only for it not to work out by the second day!
Me and Bastian got on swimmingly (haha), and we went to three of the three bars on the island, Bar on the Bush (a bar literally in the bush but no one there in midweek), Tranquilos (atmosphere is in its name) and Coco Locos (which bizarrely had a big hole
Tongue Twister Tegucigalpa
The cathedral at the bustling parque central in Honduras´ capital, my final destination in Central America in the middle of the pier where Im certain drunken people have fallen down there!).
The last day of diving after learning all the theory and how to use the dive wheel, we did a Night Dive with the Irish girls. I had already done one in Australia, so was not quite as scared as the others, but still we went in in choppy waters and it was pitch black apart from the torch, so most of us all stuck close together. Despite being a bit scarier, it was brilliant. The seabed is a whole different scene at night, as different colours emerge with different fish and creatures also as we saw lobsters, crustaceans and a brilliant blue octopus also!
When we ascended we were declared certified Advanced Divers!!
The next day I was able to do my fun dives, where I could just sit back and enjoy the gorgeous aquatic life, as we went to the North side of the Island and had a great fish burger on Pidgeon Cay.
After my fun dives, something extremely random happened. Lying on a hammock at the dive centre, Ben introduced me to Vicky, a English girl, only for
Breezy journey
Dad on the pick up truck enjoying the breeze amidst the gorgeous scenery of Honduras her to recognise me and we worked out that she is one of my university best friend´s ex-girlfriend!! Its a small bloody world I tell you!
It was cool to meet someone else from Cardiff as we talked about home and laughed at the randomness of meeting only once in the Talybont Social, to meeting a second time on a hammock on a Carribbean Island! We went to the beach for the first time which was really nice after all the knackering diving I had been doing. Bastian continued diving on his Rescue Diver course but it didnt stop us from a big night of dancing, drinking and partying at the Bar on Bush to celebrate our new certifications!
Over the next week as everyone got on with their other diving courses, I did the best thing anyone can do on a holiday..relax. Long lie ins, sunbathing on the dock, snorkelling, tasty lobster burgers, finishing my book and soaking in island life was on the menu all day, every day. Bastian and I continued to thrive on each others company as inevitably the joke insults of 'we won the war´continually came out as we often joked about the
Maya Vista balcony view
The spectacular view from our hotel, the Maya Vista in Tela amusing divemasters there and interesting local islanders.
Utilians speak a language which I can only describe as cockney Spanglish. Its a bizarre mix of Rastafarian English, Creole, Spanish and cockney slang as phrases such as ´Que yoo dowin tooday mate?´. It was often a struggle to understand what they were´goin on aboot´. One thing that I found a little frustrating on the island was that the actual existence of colonianal Spanish was next to none. It appears the overwhelming of American and European dive schools have transcended the Utilian language into predominately English with almost all the signs, menus and shops in completely English lingo. Desperate to practice my Spanish, I would ask something like ´Quiero una cerveza por favor´..to be responded, ´which beer do you want mate?´! One particular Utilian who we met at Tranquilo bar, was Nandito, a local fisherman, who was born and bred Utilian. In an attempt at conversation responding in a rum-fuelled mumbled drunken slur, we discovered he even hated ´Spainards´ and proclaimed that English should definitely be spoken everywhere...ahem...as he steadily sunk another shot of rum down his throat...
Still, I throughourly enjoyed the art of being lazy on the island, and
La Ensenada
Me on the beautiful shores of a local Garifuna village had more trips to the beach where I befriended a local Utilan lad who I taught the finer arts of Ultimate Frisbee and eventually gave him my frisbee as Im sure he would have better use for it than I have had on this trip.
It is great fun on Utila. If you have the money you can do even more exciting things such as trips to Cays, Spanish schools, fishing .etc. But for a budgeted backpacker like me with only travellers cheques I opted for the nada option for most of the time.
One of the most enjoyable aspects though was the interaction with other travellers. Bastian and I met lots of different people, and we had a good laugh with a cool Dutch guy called Timo and his English lawyer companion, Andy, as well as a air-con affionado Israeli guy called Yonathan. Towards the end of our stay at Utila, we all got a big watermelon and filled it with a tasty concuction of rum and peach juice which served as a treat as we all eagerly shared it through straws in true Carribbean flavour.
Soon enough though everyone had to go their separate ways.
Tela sunset
Another stunning sunset in Honduras After saying goodbye to my new found good friend Bastian two days ago, Vicky and I took the boat yesterday to La Ceiba where we stayed a night before catching a knackering but air conditioned comfortable bus to Tegucigalpa, Honduras´capital. Vicky went onwards to San Salvador, and now I am left back on my own, but enjoying the last few days abroad.
Tegucigalpa is a noisy and crazy city bundled in a valley with stunning mountain ranges surrounding crowded settlements. Ive booked into a $4 hostel with an enthustiastic American owner, who thinks most Americans after Hurricane Katrina are greedy and taking the piss out of the government, (whom he also describes Mr. George Bush as ´the biggest ´turd´ in the planet´).
Ive walked round town and the bustling parque central. I also trekked up the hilly Parque La Paz for a great overall view of the city. Its low season now in Honduras too, so being near the only foreigner strolling the streetsmç, I have had plenty of ´ hey gringo!´ shout outs, but on the whole everyone has been friendly and I am able to practise my Spanish one last time.
After grabbing a bottle
Cheers to armed bouncers
Smiling as I´m safe - notice the guy with a huge gun, casually chatting at the bar! of local rum and finishing my blog, im now finalising my plans for New York flight tomorrow, then after a night in the Big Apple Ill finally be heading home!! Looking forward to going home and back to university for my final year , but thats suffice to say I have a had a most excellent time in Central America and I hope those who have read and seen the blogs have somewhat enjoyed it as much as I have! I certainly will return to visit more of Guatemala, Nicuaragua and El Salvador, but from me on this trip, is coming to a farewell and ´ádios´!!
Always good to hear from people and what they think of the trip and if its ínspired´them somewhat. I hope you like the photos,
Hasta lluego,
Lucian xxxxx
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dad
non-member comment
they think it's all over....it is now
Great last entry Lucian - I'm glad you met some nice people and finished our trip on a high. Well done for gaining your advanced diving certificate. Big Love Dad x