Utila : Not Really Honduras ... but so much fun !

I can`t believe that in approximately ten days I am leaving the magical world of Latin America and returning to cold , grey England. Time has flown by. Which is why I had a welcomed two weeks in the pirate infested island of Utila. Though the inhabitants no longer practice the sea faring, blood thirsty career of their ancestors, a few of them still walk around with parrots on their shoulder and they would probably make you walk the plank if you crossed them. As far as being forced off a boat into treacherous open seas is concerned, it is the cheapest place on Earth ( so they said ) where you can get your open water diving certificate. And that is exactly what I did.

The island itself is a tropical dream ( see my previous entries for an adequate description of what this entails). There is definitely nothing remotely latin about the place as the inhabitants speak an  americanised patois dialect and people come in all sorts of colours, from red heads to afros. If you don´t speak Spanish and really aren´t interested in anything to do with my beloved adopted continent then forget Honduras and go straight to the island ( but shame on you if you do ). My impression of the place is that you have to go there with the sole intention to dive and / party. We did a bit of both and even though I have just made the rather negative statement above, I actually had a really good time and I was quite sad to leave.

The idea of scuba diving was nothing that I had really considered before. I was never really a fan of jumping off boats with a huge heavy apparatus strapped to your back and sinking to the bottom of the ocean. After some persuasion by Feddy , I decided to try it out and see how it went. Needless to say that I completed the course and managed to see some of the most colourful fish, sea horses, sting rays and other rainbow assorted fish. In a labrynth of coral where sea creatures play you realise that what you are doing is one of the most amazing things you could ever do. It is almost like something that you shouldn`t be doing because it is so unhuman. When you look up from the sea floor and see the surface of the water from below and the sun´s rays like streams of liquid gold piercing through the depths, it feels so surreal. I felt like I was in a huge aquarium but I am not sure whether the fish were the most interesting element or my feeling of weightlessness.

I did my diving with Utila Dive Centre which I would highly recommend as the instructors were really friendly and they have a barbecue every Thursday night with an all you can drink bar. I will make no further comment.

We also went to Water Cays which is a minuscule dot of green off the shore of the island. There are dozens of them and we were told that we could rent an island for about eight dollars a night. We didn´t do that but I wish we had.

Unfortunately we were too lazy to see anything else in Honduras after our whirlwind tour of Guatamala. In fact, I was so lazy that I didn`t even take any photos. We left Honduras for Costa RIca this morning and I have no idea why but Copa Airlines upgraded me to first class , admittedly only for a one hour flight but it is the only time ever that this has happened to me and I think it had something to do with the fact that the check in desk boy thought that I was related to Nicki Santoro from Casino, the film ( because we have the same surname). I obviously didn´t tell him that he is a fictitious character and that I am not.

The only really really really evil and annoying thing about Utila are the hordes of biting insects of every variety. Sand flies in particular just can`t get enough of your blood- I actually love mosquitoes now because they are not nearly as itchy as sand flies bites !!!! Be warned if you are thinking of going, that you will  scratch like a junkie going cold turkey.

Tomorrow I am off to Cuba with Sarah and I can´t wait !