Utila diving dreams

A lot of people told us it was stupid to go to Honduras. The drug war was too fierce, the peace corp had just been pulled out because someone got shot etc. etc. We met so many people who were fine we decided to go for it. After a surprisingly relaxing boarder crossing involving changing boats in the middle of a river, having the boat stop and demand money before letting us onto the shore, we were over. Honduras is like Guatemala but hotter, muggier and a bit cleaner.

A typical honduras street modelled by Jade

We got to Utila straight away where we would spend the next week diving. Utila is a small gringo town on the Bay Islands where the ‘national language’ is English. 

Loving the beach again

The only hazard on this island, other than the tourists, is the crabs. These guys are the goats of the place. I left some underwear to try on the balcony and it was missing later that night. I searched and it was gone. The next day I noticed the hundreds of holes with crabs ranging from my pinkie to dinner plates. In their holes I found everything from small fire trucks a pair of shoes, shirts and a razor! No underwear, a sacrifice to utila crabs.  

Damn crabs

Our dive school was the most relaxed place ever, ecomarine gunthers dive shop, a place of stilts on the ocean with numerous hammocks overlooking the water for relaxing and a dock with the clearest water. Jade and Nick were doing their open water and I decided to do my advanced to re-skill after my little incident in Belize.

What a yappie

It was an awesome week, diving on the second largest reef in the world. The stand out dives included the full-moon dive in the black velvety water, spotting crayfish, shrimp and eels, and the wreck dive in the multi-storey ship. At the bottom was a shrine saying ‘Jesus was a pirate, leave an offering to the sea’. I left a bobby pin then got tangled in some electrical cords and managed to cut my wrist on the rusty door trying to get out. Lucky there were no sharks around.

When night diving one must watch out for were-dolphins

Our greek dive instructor Thanasis

My dive buddy Olivia

I had a few days to chill while Nico and jade finished their course. These days mainly involved lying in a hammock or drinking iced coffees at rio beans, the coolest cafe ever. Picture a tiny little coffee stand by a shaded dock with the clearest blue water to float in and the best high altitude coffee.

The most perfect cafe in the world

Utila had some crazy night life. Treetanic was a crazy alice in wonderland where someone who loves collages had tripped out and gone crazy. 

Collaging on acid

Bottle collages, bridges, caves and arches made this place. We spent an hour just exploring the different levels and ended up on a tower  on the roof overlooking the full moon and the island-very cool. I also got to go to my first full moon party which, of course, was crazy, on a dock with swimming, drinking and salsa.

Full moon drinkies

Nico and Jade loved diving and are now proudly proficient divers. Their last dive must have been the best dive n history: caves, turtles, eagle rays and so much more! They're already planning the next dive trip to Indonesia!

It was sad to leave this relaxed, chilled out place. Especially when we realised it was 2 days of travel and we’d have to spend a night in one of the highest murder rate cities in the world. Tegucigarpa is  dangerous and dirty city. The most dangerous area, where it is advised not to walk around day or night, is closest to the bus stop and so it was here we booked a room. It was probably one of the most tense places I’ve been, everyone has a gun! We took a few stupid risks walking with a lot of money to the bus terminal but we survived and actually had a good time. 

We stayed in a dodgy hotel with a TV and hung around watching sex and the city in Spanish. We darted across the road to a dodgy, cheap comida for a feed and the food was really decent. Every 10 minutes walk-in musicians would come and serenade us- Que Bueno! It was a good way to bond, being forced to hangout, and it was actually an awesome way to see out the dangerous and unstable Honduras.

Our awesome little dive shop