New Year in Honduras

Leaving Guatemala was a pain in the ass. It took me about 10 hours to get to the border of Honduras, everyone tried to rip me off, and I still wasn't feeling too well from the party the night before. To make it even better, for the entire van ride back to the capital a Spanish woman and her son were sitting next to me who both suffered from terrible motion sickness - they consistently puked every ten minutes for the entire trip. It was horrible.

By the time I got to the border it had already closed for the day, so I was forced to stay in some run down ladino town about an hour away. Bright and early the next morning I once again avoided getting ripped off by the van drivers trying to charge me the gringo price, and I got to the border unscathed - just in time to be forced to pay more bribe money to the immigration agents both leaving Guatemala and entering Honduras.

My first stop in the new country was a town called Copán Ruinas - the location of another famous Mayan ruins site. The vibe in this small, colorful mountain town was very relaxed - lots of pleasant people going about their business without too much concern for time or urgency. It was a much welcomed break from the previous two days of hellish travel. I hiked down a cobblestone road from the town to the ruins, taking in the tranquil mountain scenery. I wasn't too happy about paying the ridiculously high entrance fee, but I justified it by convincing myself that, as the country's main tourist attraction, it was a justified contribution as a tourist to Honduran infrastructure and development (or so I like to think...).

When I got to the ticket check, I was greeted by a flock of macaws. I have never seen wild macaws before - it was very cool. They were tame enough to let me walk right up to them and take pictures though, so I have a feeling they were domseticated for the tourists. Either way, they weren't in a cage and the could have flown off into the jungle if they had wanted to, so I'll keep believing that I ran into a flock of wild macaws. There were also a bunch of strange guinea pig things running around.

The ruins were very cool - nowhere near as amazing as Tikal - but interesting enough to spend the afternoon wandering around admiring the ancient architecture. The main attraction was the array of stelae - amazingly well preserved carvings that were scattered throughout the complex.

I spent the night at a bustling backpacker hostel in the center of town and caught the 6am bus the next day to start my journey up to the Bay Islands to do some Caribbean relaxing for New Year. 11 hours, two buses, a shared taxi, and a ferry later, I arrived on the island of Utila - known to be the least expensive and most backpackery of all the Bay Islands, so I figured I'd meet a good crowd to spend the holiday with.

I was expecting something Thailand-like with tons of cheap hostels, seaside restaurants and cafes, beautiful white sand beaches, etc... It wasn't like that - definitely not Thailand, not really Honduras, not really Caribbean - I'm not sure what I'd call it. There aren't great beaches here, and the sandflies are too vicious to allow you to relax anyway. I walked into a bunch of hotels looking for a room, but half of them were full, and the rest were either too expensive or no one was around to ask about prices or availability. Frustratedly, I gave in and went back to the main dock where everyone was hawking their hotels and dive packages. One guy handed me a flyer and sold me on his hotel - $250 for an advanced scuba certification course including free housing and two extra free dives. That was the cheapest dive certification I've ever seen, so I signed up. (The last time I dove was in Thailand over a year ago, so I've been getting a little rusty.)

I settled into the dorms and put down my bags after the long day of travel. No one I ran into at the hostel seemed too friendly, so I wandered off on my own to find dinner. (I later found out it was just beause they were all hung over from too much partying. They were actually very friendly.)

Bright and early the next morning, I set off for my first dive. The weather sucked above water (rainy season here), but I was gonna get wet either way so it didn't matter too much. I did my first dive to 100 feet, which was very cool - we explored a huge reef wall, which was pleasant but nothing extraordinary. We did a few tests to see the effects of nitrogen narcosis, but I wasn't affected by it... Apparently when you dive past 30 to 40 meters, the nitrogen in your blood concentrates to the point that it effectively gets you high. Lots of fun, but it can be dangerous when your life depends on being in control and aware of your oxyen level and surroundings. For lunch we went to a tiny island off the coast where the locals cooked up some delicious fish burgers. We asked what kind of fish was used, and the answer was, "multifish." Whatever that is, it was fantastic. The second dive was mostly meant to teach us about underwater navigation techniques.

The next day we did some of the best diving I've ever experienced. First, we did a wreck dive - about 15 minutes off shore there was a huge cargo tanker that had sunk to about 100 feet. Coral had taken over and converted the ship into a new reef. I have never felt such adrenaline on a dive before - it was awesome! We swam through the cargo hold and the wheel house, confusing the grouper and snapper as we invaded their territory. As we swam around the outside of the ship, my instructor stood on the bow and did a Titanic-esque pose with his arms extended and then slowly fell forward into the depths below. I think I'm hooked on wrecks now - it was really great.

For the second dive we went to a huge sand patch where we did a bunch of bouyancy excercises - swimming through hoops without touching the sides, obstacle courses, flipperless running sprints across the bottom, ultimate frisby, matrix style sword fighting with out fins. Basically we just spent an hour playing. Awesome.

I spent the rest of the day relaxing in the sun and meeting the rest of the people at my hostel. There were three Canadian guys from Vancouver, a kid from Maine, two Australian girls, and a Dutch kid who was staying in my dorm room with me. They're all a little nuts, but definitely fun.

Then as the sun began to set, we loaded up our gear and hopped back on the dive boat for my first night dive. It was very strange at first - descending into complete darkness with only a flashlight lighting up the plankton in the water immediately around you. Once we reached the bottom, everyone's flashlights collectively illuminated an entirely alien landscape. The reef at night is completely different. The colors are much more vivid with flashlights because during the day a lot of the sunlight is filtered out and all you can see are greens and blues - not so at night. The reds and oranges come alive. The coral also animates at night to feed. What normally just look like stony skeletons and bare branches during the day explode into fluffy, flowering tentacles. The shrimp, crabs, and lobsters scower the bottom for food. Octopus hide among the rocks and coral and hunt down unsuspecting fish - changing colors and patterns as they move between backdrops. It was absolutely fascinating.

The island, as I said, is a unique mix of cultures and people. The local population is made up of black Caribbeans, ladino Honduran immigrants, and white settlers who have been here for hundreds of years. Spanish is spoken and understood by most everyone, but the main language is an English Creole that sounds similar to that of Belize or Jamaica but has an odd Scottish twang. The strangest part about this mix is that the English and Scottish settlers who came centuries ago are completely integrated into local life. Imagine a young girl with blonde hair and blue eyes running around screaming profanities in Jamaican Creole. It's very hard to get used to.
New Year's Eve was a very relaxing, sunny day. The hostel we were staying at held a potluck barbecue for dinner - everyone brings some kind of meat - so we all ate delicious food and then set off tons of cheap fireworks before heading up to a bar called Treetanic to start the festivities. What a cool bar! It was designed like a nautical treehouse set back in the forested hills outside town. Afterwards we went to another more popular bar downtown, where we did the countdown and danced the night away. I met some Honduran girls, and we went back to their house to party local-style. It started raining so I camped out under a balony with a group of Dutch friends, who got a big kick out of teaching us Dutch profanities (neuken in de geuken). I ended the night eating fresh avocados with some friends back at my hostel. The door to our dorm room sealed itself shut because of the humidity and no one could pry it open, so Jasen the kid from Maine, Thijs the Dutch guy, and I were all locked out. We ended up just crashing in another empty room until the morning when we were finally able to get in.

New Year's day was easily the best day so far this year :) We all woke up late and lounged around the hostel drinking out of gallon-bottles of water and piecing together the stories of the previous night. Everyone was planning to go on a dive during the afternoon, but I tried signing up too late - they ran out of room. I went and hung out by the boat anyway, just in case someone else was too hung over to go and decided to cancel (very likely). I ended up getting a spot! We drove around to the northeast side of the island, which they rarely visit, and which is also close to the spot where they occasionally catch a glipse of the famously elusive whale sharks that spend their winters feeding in the area. I had my fingers crossed - it's always been a dream of mine to swim with a whale shark.

The first dive was fun - we mostly just fooled around while hovering over the reef. Half way through the dive I started feeling the effects of the night before, and I decided I would sit the next dive out. Jasen and two other divers agreed. The other 10 divers did the second dive while we waited on the boat.

Just after they had all descended, our captain spotted a very agitated school of tuna a few hundred meters away, and he pulled the boat around to check if it might be because a whale shark was feeding. The four of us that were still on the boat put on our masks and fins and sat on the bow just in case we spotted one. Sure enough, as we were looking down into the water just below us, an enormous spotted shark ascended at our feet. Too excited to think, the captain had to remind us -- "jump in!!!" We hopped in right on top of it and a swam like maniacs to keep up. I swam right over it for a while, close enough to reach down and feel its rubbery skin. It smacked me with its tail accidentally, so I backed off a little. Still, I was so exited that after a solid minute of swimming alongside the gigantic 30-foot fish, I completely forgot that I had been holding my breath underwater - no snorkel. We were blessed with about 15 minutes of its attention - longer than most people get to enjoy - before it swam back down to deeper water.

When everyone else got back on board we joked with them and said "Did you guys see anything interesting down there? We saw a big tuna or something.. we're not sure what it was, but we have a picture. You think you could tell us what it is?" The Spanish guy showed them his pictures, and everyone got incredibly jealous. But then only a few minutes later we spotted it again and they all got a chance to swim with it for a few more seconds before it disappeared once again.

What a way to start off the new year!!! I have never had such an exciting dive trip in my six years of diving. 2009, day one - I got to check another item off my "things-to-do-before-I-die" list :)

That night, we went back to the hostel and grilled wahoo steaks on the barbecue and went to sleep early to catch our 6am ferry the next morning back to the mainland.