La Isla de Utila

                                          

This crab was really fired up!

The Dang Chanticleer

Mangrove Swamp

                                        

This Conch is coming home with me thank you

                                         

The bridge we were supposed to take!!!!

 

Thursday, March 29 2012

We got up early and drove the 60km to La Cieba to catch the ferry to the island of Utila.  It was lucky we got up early because the drive, which should only take 35 minutes ended up taking about an hour and a half with stops and backed up traffic.  We arrived at the ferry terminal with just enough time to go to the ATM, buy 2 roundtrip tickets (1700L = $80) and register our truck with the parking area.  The ferry was an hour-long trip that left at 9:30am.  This ferry is known as the “Vomit Comet” and I was a little nervous because sometimes I get a little sea sick.  Only 3 middle-aged women ended up getting sick and I even took a nap. 

We arrived around 10:30am, and were immediately bombarded by people trying to get us to stay at their place or scuba dive with them.  We brushed them off and continued walking on one of the two main streets on the island to find someplace to stay.  We walked almost to the end of town looking for a certain place to stay called Ruby’s Inn.  We couldn’t find it even after we asked several people so we tried another place called Caribbean Dreamscapes.  The woman in the office offered us a room with private bath with hot water, fridge & microwave, wifi, cable tv, and AC for $25.  We could have had an apartment for $40 but we declined. We dropped our stuff off, relaxed a little bit and went for a walk to find someplace to rent kayaks the next day.  Upon returning to our room we read our books for a little while until the landlady asked us if our room was ok.  We let her know that the smell that was in the bathroom when we checked in had not gone away as she said it would.  We had been running the AC and the fan since we checked in about three hours before that and the smell had not dissipated.  The landlady didn’t like us using the AC that much so she told us we could have the apartment upstairs for the same price while she figured out where the smell was coming from.  The apartment was an excellent upgrade that we didn’t have to pay for with a kitchen, separate living room, purified water and a back porch.  We decided to cook our meals to save some money and went to the grocery.

At the grocery store we met a girl that went to Coastal Carolina and lived in Goose Creek, SC, which is very near Charleston.  She gave us some tips on things to do on the island.  One of those things was a fresh water cave system.  We walked about 3km outside of the island’s only town to the other side of the island but since Lonely Planet has such a shitty map of the island we were never able to find the caves.  It was a nice walk though and good to get some exercise.  On our walk back to the side of the island that we were staying on we saw 8 teenage girls dressed like they were going to a dance or something, riding on a single 4-wheeler.  We got back to our apartment and called it an early night because we were getting up early to go kayaking.

~Marcie

Friday, March 30 2012

Get up early we did and walked over to Gunther’s Dive Shop to pickup our kayak rental.  When we got there the big Euro white dude, assumedly Gunther, who we talked to yesterday did not remember us.  After I reminded him he says, “Whoa I just had like a flashback!”  He also made some Dungeon’s and Dragons references about falling into quicksand mud pits.  I assume that AC would know what he was talking about.  I’ll have to ask him. 

So away we paddled, Marcie and I in a large double kayak with glass (plastic) bottom sections for viewing under sea stuff.  It was about 8:00 am so it was not yet wicked hot while we paddled east along the harbor for a few hundred meters before beaching the boat on la playa.  We portaged the kayak over the beach and the road behind it into a lagoon.  This saved a mile’s worth of paddling up to the mouth of the lagoon where it opens to the harbor.  The thing is dang heavy to carry but Marcie is very strong so we made it.  Paddling up thru the lagoon we passed some minor shipwrecks and entered a channel in the mangrove swamp that cuts all the way thru to the north side of the island where it comes out on a beach at the Caribbean.  The channel is only about 3 meters wide but it is 3 kilometers long.  It was a nice enclosed sun shaded area.  Muy tranquillo. 

On the north side of Utila we beached the kayak on the strip of white sand immediately to our left.  Looking up and down, east and west along the beach there was no sign of human development (except for trash washed up on the beach) like houses, roads, electric wires or radio towers.  We could not stay long because altho it looked like paradise from a distance when you inspected a little closer the sand fleas went into a feeding frenzy.  I guess its justified on their part.  They probably only get to eat coconut with an occasional washed up rotting fish treat. 

So we got out of there before we contracted malaria (we think) and paddled out to a small rock island offshore.  There we tied up the boat with a made on the spot anchor of stick and coral and used this rock outcropping as a base to do some snorkeling in the adjacent reef.  There were muchos pescados todos.  Britely colored electric blue, shingled purple and black, puffed up puffers and sand shaded camouflage fish.

After that whole excursion was thru and done with I was craving some nachos, obviously.  And after that whole excursion was thru and done with we went back to our flat washed up and crashed out for a little.  That evening the whole town lost power until about 11pm.  I bought a candle and a book of matches and we read our books with our headlamps. 

~Jon