The Life Aquatic

So, it´s been a while since I updated, and I apologize for that. First off, let me assure you that the rumors flying around are completely inaccurate, and I am not in fact dead or destitute. I assure you there is a good reason for my "going dark" the last couple of weeks, a reason which will be explained in due time.

First things first, let me pick up where I last left off. After leaving Copan, I decided to travel with my new friend Bryce in the direction of La Cieba, Honduras. I had originally planned to go hiking in the cloud forest at the national park near Gracias, but my travel book didn´t seem to mention there being any guided tours in the park. I´m not very good with direction, and since the climb to the highest peak in the park takes more than a day I felt it would be foolish to attempt it alone.

However, Joyce and Sofi, two girls who were traveling with Bryce suggested I check out the Jungle Tours tour agency in La Cieba for an overnight excursion. So we all hopped on the next bus headed northward, and seven hours later arrived in La Cieba.

Most people use La Cieba as a travel hub, either to get to the Bay Islands, or to get to the jungle tours I mentioned above. Besides these two things all that La Cieba really has going for it is a two story shopping mall with an Applebee´s inside it. Delightful, and as you can imagine, just my kind of thing. That´s why I came to Honduras after all, to eat at Applebee´s, and watch Snakes on a Plane with Spanish sub-titltes.

I set about right away trying to get information on the jungle tours, but my efforts were rather fruitless. My guidebook sent me to the Amsterdam 2000 guesthouse for information, where the surley Dutch owner shouted at me from the couch, "The book is lies, it´s all lies!"

I made a quick decision that since the rest of my group was headed towards the island of Utilla, I´d go and chill out there for a couple of days before heading back to La Cieba to do my trekking. Little did I know, the island of Utilla is like a black hole. Once one enters into it´s grasp, it is almost impossible to escape.

Utilla the Hunn
When I first arrived in Utilla, I almost immediately regretted having gone there. It was pissing rain, and there aren´t really any good beaches there. I managed to buy a copy of the Hound of the Baskervilles, and spent my first day on the island sitting on the porch of my guesthouse, clothes soaked, staring at the rain, and reading Arthur Conan Doyle. In between stormy fits I managed to drop off some laundry and get a little bit of information about the island. For instance, I learned that the beach was full of sandflies, and that unless you plan on scuba diving, there´s nothing to really do there. Regrets, I´ve had a few. It was like Ko Tao all over again. Miserable weather and nothing to do. Or so I thought. And then there was the situation with the internet.

Here´s a against government regualtion if I´ve ever heard one. There is currently almost no internet access on Utilla. Why might you ask? While, apparently voice over IP services like Skype were eating into the governments telephone monopoly. So they simply shut it down. Armed guards came and tare apart the servers that provided internet to the island. Only two places on the island had internet at all. Both were a single 56k connection spread across multiple computers, and both were expensive as hell.

Cooper´s Crew
Bryce and I stayed at a wonderful, locally owned guesthouse called Cooper´s. It was quiet, cheap, and had a kitchen, as well as a large front porch which served as a common area. Our first day we made friends with two Canadian couples: Wes and Julie and Jed and Leah. They´d all been traveliong together for a week or two, and after consuming copius amounts of rum together, we became fast friends.

The weather cleared up the next day and we all went swimming together, which was nice. The next day we rented kayaks, which we tied up to buoys and then snorkeled. After a couple of days I began becoming more confident in my swimming abilities, and flirted with the idea of scuba diving. I´d always regretted not diving in Ko Thao while I was there. How could I do this to myself again? How could I spend time in one of the worlds best places to go diving, and sit on the sidelines? I should at least try, shouldn´t I? What´s the worst that could happen?

To Be Continued...