De vuelta al Caribe
21/04/2006
We hadn’t been to the Caribbean coast since we left Bocas del Toro (Panama) and we started to miss its vibe. We thus quickly went through our Lonely Planet and we bumped into the “Islas de la Bahía”, a group of tiny islands which apparently are the best place in the world to scuba dive. What could be better than that?
We were so impatient to be there that we bravely decided to face a twelve-hour long journey across the whole of Honduras. Nevertheless, once on the bus, we realized that it was impossible to make it only in one day and hence we thought to stop for a night in La Ceiba.
“Anyhow, this place is on the Caribbean coast –we told ourselves– it must be beautiful!”.
Moreover, we chose to stay in a place called “Hotel Caribe”… “It sounds wonderful!”.
However, once in La Ceiba we found out that this “marvellous Caribbean town” is actually a dirty and busy industrial port; nonetheless we stayed positive and hoped that our Hotel Caribe would be somewhere on the beach far from the centre. Anyway, our taxi finally left us in the crappiest lane of that town and even crappier was the hotel: definitely the dirtiest we’ve seen so far.
Even if exhausted and “slightly” disappointed, we weren’t ready to give up and decided to have supper at Alfredo’s, which is quoted in the Lonely Planet as “…one of the finest restaurants in Northern Honduras”. White wine was warm and our lobsters (it was the first time we had found them!) were floating in a mysterious and quite revolting soup.
Thank you Lonely Planet!
Ogigia is hard to leave
22/04/2006
Finally the Bay Islands were even better than we expected them to be: they are the typical Caribbean paradise which is in everybody’s fantasies. Besides, this group of islands is even more interesting because unexpectedly it doesn’t look like Latin America at all. In fact, owing to its past as a British colony, locals there speak a weird mixture of English and Creole. In addition to that, its community is extremely various: one can easily see black people as well as typical Latinos and even blond-haired and blue-eyed guys.
In this beautiful and chaotic melting-pot a thin girl was calmly pushing her bike which had a flat tire: Tatiana would end up to be Francesco’s diving instructor for the next ten days.
During that period it was easy for us to realize that she is just as surprising as the island she lives on: her dad is from Ecuador, her mum is from Brazil and she grew up in many different countries amongst which France and even Italy. She eventually came to Utila for a week end and six years later she hasn’t yet left. Tatiana could have impressed us because of the five languages she speaks fluently or maybe because of her perfect manners, but the passion she puts in all of the things she does is definitely her most outstanding feature.
We had planned to spend in Utila only a few days, but finally our Calypso kept us there a little bit longer…
Vite parallele
26/04/2006
Francesco was enthusiastic because in Utila he could finally become a certified scuba diver as he had been dreaming about for ages, while Joska, after a brief diving experience in Brazil, knew that this sport definitely wasn’t his cup of tea. Therefore, it happened that on the island they had two slightly different life-styles:
06:00 am: Francesco wakes up and has a rich breakfast in view of his morning dive.
Joska comes back after a crazy night.
07:00 am: Francesco leaves the island by boat.
Joska is falling asleep.
10:00 am: Francesco comes back to refill the tanks for another dive.
Joska is in his R.E.M. phase.
12:00 am: Francesco is finally back.
Joska is waking up.
01:00 pm: Lunch together: Francesco has an energetic bar.
Joska eats half a chicken trying to recover from the night before.
02:00 pm: Francesco is studying his diving books for his following lesson.
Joska is swimming and basking in the sun.
03:00 pm: Francesco is attending his theory class
Joska is playing domino with locals (the island’s second activity).
05:00 pm: Francesco is 100 feet / 33 meters under water.
Joska is in a bookshop picking something to read.
07:00 pm: Francesco is back from his dive.
Joska is having a nap in order to face the night properly.
08:00 pm: Supper together: Francesco chats with all the divers.
Joska says hi to every single domino player.
09:00 pm: Francesco goes to sleep with all of his muscles aching.
Joska is partying again.
Bottles and Battles
28/04/2006
During the relatively brief period that we spent in Utila, we were lucky enough to take part to the celebration of three guys who had finished a two month long course and had thus become “dive masters”. In this occasion, our dive centre organized a huge barbeque followed by the loudest music ever and by countless barrels of rum. Anyhow, the main attraction of the party was the initiation ritual that the new dive masters had to pass: they were forced to wear a mask filled with beer, but what was worse, the diving instructors poured litres of rum in their snorkels.
This was just the beginning of the evening and after that our memories become a little bit blurry… Fortunately we took some pictures of the party (take a look at the pics’ section) that give us an idea of what happened that night!
Albánia, Albánia
30/04/2006
Once Francesco had become a certified diver, we had no more excuses to stay in Utila and thus decided to start travelling again. We had been told that there was a faster and cheaper way to leave the island rather than the ferry that we had taken to get there: Gunther’s boat. In truth, somebody had tried to warn us by saying that the ride was a little bit rough, but we both have plenty of experience on boats and therefore we thought that it wasn’t going to be a problem.
The day after we finally showed up at Gunther’s deck and, after having been rapidly asked our names, ages and nationalities, we boarded on what looked like an off-shore with two gigantic engines and thirty people who were already wearing their life-jackets.
The “captain” immediately gave us an idea of how he would drive the boat: in despite of every navigation law, he left the deck at top speed. As soon as we exited the bay (30 seconds later), we bitterly regretted not having given enough credit to those who had tried to warn us: the boat was literally flying (at least 40 knots) over the waves which were about 3-4 meters tall. When we say “flying”, you mustn’t think to a graceful little bird, but rather to a fat turkey: after every jump, we landed so violently that Francesco abruptly asked Joska: “Am I the only one who is smashing his balls?”.
During the first ten minutes, maybe because of the adrenaline, one could hear people laughing and shouting gaily; nevertheless, after a particularly rough landing that almost broke our backs, the only noise around us was people’s prayers.
After 30 Km of pure terror, we finally arrived and, once on the deck, we realized how terrible our conditions were: a girl, for no reason at all, jumped into the water of the port; Joska, trying to grab her, felt his back falling into pieces; Francesco was stuttering something like “Je-ca, je-ca” which apparently meant “I can’t stand on my legs”.
The consequences of Gunther’s treatment would last for days and when we visited a stunning Mayan archaeological site, Francesco’s legs were so sore (maybe because of his age!) that he couldn’t climb on the pyramid.
21/04/2006
We hadn’t been to the Caribbean coast since we left Bocas del Toro (Panama) and we started to miss its vibe. We thus quickly went through our Lonely Planet and we bumped into the “Islas de la Bahía”, a group of tiny islands which apparently are the best place in the world to scuba dive. What could be better than that?
We were so impatient to be there that we bravely decided to face a twelve-hour long journey across the whole of Honduras. Nevertheless, once on the bus, we realized that it was impossible to make it only in one day and hence we thought to stop for a night in La Ceiba.
“Anyhow, this place is on the Caribbean coast –we told ourselves– it must be beautiful!”.
Moreover, we chose to stay in a place called “Hotel Caribe”… “It sounds wonderful!”.
However, once in La Ceiba we found out that this “marvellous Caribbean town” is actually a dirty and busy industrial port; nonetheless we stayed positive and hoped that our Hotel Caribe would be somewhere on the beach far from the centre. Anyway, our taxi finally left us in the crappiest lane of that town and even crappier was the hotel: definitely the dirtiest we’ve seen so far.
Even if exhausted and “slightly” disappointed, we weren’t ready to give up and decided to have supper at Alfredo’s, which is quoted in the Lonely Planet as “…one of the finest restaurants in Northern Honduras”. White wine was warm and our lobsters (it was the first time we had found them!) were floating in a mysterious and quite revolting soup.
Thank you Lonely Planet!
Ogigia is hard to leave
22/04/2006
Finally the Bay Islands were even better than we expected them to be: they are the typical Caribbean paradise which is in everybody’s fantasies. Besides, this group of islands is even more interesting because unexpectedly it doesn’t look like Latin America at all. In fact, owing to its past as a British colony, locals there speak a weird mixture of English and Creole. In addition to that, its community is extremely various: one can easily see black people as well as typical Latinos and even blond-haired and blue-eyed guys.
In this beautiful and chaotic melting-pot a thin girl was calmly pushing her bike which had a flat tire: Tatiana would end up to be Francesco’s diving instructor for the next ten days.
During that period it was easy for us to realize that she is just as surprising as the island she lives on: her dad is from Ecuador, her mum is from Brazil and she grew up in many different countries amongst which France and even Italy. She eventually came to Utila for a week end and six years later she hasn’t yet left. Tatiana could have impressed us because of the five languages she speaks fluently or maybe because of her perfect manners, but the passion she puts in all of the things she does is definitely her most outstanding feature.
We had planned to spend in Utila only a few days, but finally our Calypso kept us there a little bit longer…
Vite parallele
26/04/2006
Francesco was enthusiastic because in Utila he could finally become a certified scuba diver as he had been dreaming about for ages, while Joska, after a brief diving experience in Brazil, knew that this sport definitely wasn’t his cup of tea. Therefore, it happened that on the island they had two slightly different life-styles:
06:00 am: Francesco wakes up and has a rich breakfast in view of his morning dive.
Joska comes back after a crazy night.
07:00 am: Francesco leaves the island by boat.
Joska is falling asleep.
10:00 am: Francesco comes back to refill the tanks for another dive.
Joska is in his R.E.M. phase.
12:00 am: Francesco is finally back.
Joska is waking up.
01:00 pm: Lunch together: Francesco has an energetic bar.
Joska eats half a chicken trying to recover from the night before.
02:00 pm: Francesco is studying his diving books for his following lesson.
Joska is swimming and basking in the sun.
03:00 pm: Francesco is attending his theory class
Joska is playing domino with locals (the island’s second activity).
05:00 pm: Francesco is 100 feet / 33 meters under water.
Joska is in a bookshop picking something to read.
07:00 pm: Francesco is back from his dive.
Joska is having a nap in order to face the night properly.
08:00 pm: Supper together: Francesco chats with all the divers.
Joska says hi to every single domino player.
09:00 pm: Francesco goes to sleep with all of his muscles aching.
Joska is partying again.
Bottles and Battles
28/04/2006
During the relatively brief period that we spent in Utila, we were lucky enough to take part to the celebration of three guys who had finished a two month long course and had thus become “dive masters”. In this occasion, our dive centre organized a huge barbeque followed by the loudest music ever and by countless barrels of rum. Anyhow, the main attraction of the party was the initiation ritual that the new dive masters had to pass: they were forced to wear a mask filled with beer, but what was worse, the diving instructors poured litres of rum in their snorkels.
This was just the beginning of the evening and after that our memories become a little bit blurry… Fortunately we took some pictures of the party (take a look at the pics’ section) that give us an idea of what happened that night!
Albánia, Albánia
30/04/2006
Once Francesco had become a certified diver, we had no more excuses to stay in Utila and thus decided to start travelling again. We had been told that there was a faster and cheaper way to leave the island rather than the ferry that we had taken to get there: Gunther’s boat. In truth, somebody had tried to warn us by saying that the ride was a little bit rough, but we both have plenty of experience on boats and therefore we thought that it wasn’t going to be a problem.
The day after we finally showed up at Gunther’s deck and, after having been rapidly asked our names, ages and nationalities, we boarded on what looked like an off-shore with two gigantic engines and thirty people who were already wearing their life-jackets.
The “captain” immediately gave us an idea of how he would drive the boat: in despite of every navigation law, he left the deck at top speed. As soon as we exited the bay (30 seconds later), we bitterly regretted not having given enough credit to those who had tried to warn us: the boat was literally flying (at least 40 knots) over the waves which were about 3-4 meters tall. When we say “flying”, you mustn’t think to a graceful little bird, but rather to a fat turkey: after every jump, we landed so violently that Francesco abruptly asked Joska: “Am I the only one who is smashing his balls?”.
During the first ten minutes, maybe because of the adrenaline, one could hear people laughing and shouting gaily; nevertheless, after a particularly rough landing that almost broke our backs, the only noise around us was people’s prayers.
After 30 Km of pure terror, we finally arrived and, once on the deck, we realized how terrible our conditions were: a girl, for no reason at all, jumped into the water of the port; Joska, trying to grab her, felt his back falling into pieces; Francesco was stuttering something like “Je-ca, je-ca” which apparently meant “I can’t stand on my legs”.
The consequences of Gunther’s treatment would last for days and when we visited a stunning Mayan archaeological site, Francesco’s legs were so sore (maybe because of his age!) that he couldn’t climb on the pyramid.
