Before I left, I said that if it went more than one week without any signs of life, you could assume that one of three things had happened. It's now been five weeks since my last post, by I have not been kidnapped, nor have I've been killed. It has been a combination of the other two, being too busy having fun and having bad internet. I'm sorry it took so long, but now I'm back! (with a very long post)
After I came back from Cuba, I spent a few days travelling down to Utila, an island off Honduras' carribbean coast. The first leg of the journey, from Cancun down to Chetumal and through Belize to Flores (Guatemala), went fine. The second, not so much. I spent 26 hours and seven different buses to get to La Ceiba. And finding these buses wasn't too easy either. People told me all kinds of different things, and I spent a LOT of time walking back and forth, waiting for buses that never came. And when I finally got a bus, the bus brought me to a different border crossing than I had planned, and I just wanted to pack up and go home. Travelling is awesome most of the time, but sometimes it sucks. And when it sucks, it really sucks, 'cause you're stranded in the middle of nowhere on the other side of the world with the closest friend a thousand miles away - if not more. But then you find a place to sleep , and the next day it's so much better. And I'm very glad I stayed, because the next afternoon, I made it to lovely Utila.
Utila is a tiny island at the edge of the Caribbean ocean. For tourists and short time visitors the town basically consists of one street. I had planned on staying there for one, maybe two weeks. I ended up staying there for five.
The reason I came to Utila was the same as everyone else - diving. Ever since I was a kid, I've spent more time under water than on the surface, and I have always wanted to learn how to dive properly. My plan was to take the PADI Open Water, the basic diving course. This is a four or five day course consisting of theory, classromteaching, videos, quizzes, shallow water practice, and then some proper dives. When you complete this course, you can dive anywhere in the world, and you are licensed to go down to 18meters /60feet. This wasn't quite enough, so I decided to to advanced as well, to be able to descend to 30meters. After this, I got infected, so I ended up doing wreck-, deep- and nitrox specialties, as well as rescue diver. Wreck enables you to enter wrecks (very, very cool), deep enables you to go down to 40meters, the deepest that's allowed for recreational diving, and nitrox allows you to use a special gas blend so you can stay underwater for longer. Rescue diver is basically an underwater lifeguard/first aid-course. You learn how to recognize and treat diving-related illnesses (which is quite a few) , how to surface with and treat unconscious divers and what to do if various situations occur, such as if your buddy runs out of air. The whole course ends in "the dive from hell" where everything goes wrong. Your instructors panics and tries to remove your regulator (mouthpiece) or other gear, acts crazy as if in narcosis and every other possible thing. The course is very fun, but also quite challenging and tiring, so I was glad when it was over.
Diving itself is awesome, and I love it. It's so fun to swim around, go up and down and float around. You see all kids of cool things, pretty corals, beautiful fish, turtles, dolphins, eagle rays, squids - the list is endless. And when you don't see anything but sand, it's enough just to swim around in the calm, silent sea. If this bores you, you can just fool around - do gymnastics, go for a moon run, skate or whatever. It's simply amazing !
When I wasn't diving, I spent the time relaxing, eating and hanging out. As I said, Utila is a small place - the guy you meet at the beach at noon is the same guy who will bring you dinner at Foo King at six and drinks in Tranquila at midnight. There's so many amazing people there, and you get to know them so well, especially when you're there for over a month. The staff and divemasters at Parrots, my diveshop, were especially friendly, and after a while, I got included in some of the staff activities, such as dinner at Alfred and Tatianas place (the owners) and staff dive at Honeycomb. For this I'm very grateful, and I miss Parrots and Utila already....
But even though I loved Utila, I wanted to get back on the road. So Thursday morning I left , exactly five weeks after I first came. I joined forces with four friendly Irish guys, Mark, Gary, Ken and Jack, and made my way down to Lake Yajao. Here I'm staying at a local brewery for a few days. The beer is so-so, but the location and surrounding area is beautiful. The hostel is in the middle of the forest, and all around are lovely tracks and paths, and of course, the lake. They also have hot water here, and today I had my first hot shower in six weeks - it was awesome!
Another thing, I have now booked tickets home. I will leave central-America on may 26th. From there I will go to New York where I will stay until June 3rd when I finally will go home to Norway. So, my friends in NYC and you back home, it's just to mark the dates in your calendars! It's going to be sad to leave, but it will also be very nice to come home.
As out can see, I've uploaded a bunch of pictures. For some reason, I can't add text to the pictures, but they are all from Utila. The order is messed up, but amongst them is a turtle, squids, a parrot fish, two normal parrots, a spotted eagle-ray, dolphins and a bunch of people. Enjoy!
