We rocked up to our dive hostel underwater vision and knew we had found a good one. A very sociable hostel shall we say... here, we learnt why you really shouldnt drink and dive. But... when in utila, all sense goes out the window.
Utila is a tiny caribbean style island crammed full of dive resorts, bars and restaurants. There is nothing honduran about it, and every night is party night. We soon noticed everyone sporting the same skid row tshirts, and discovered that to get one, you need complete the guifiti skid row challenge. Guifiti is honduras' own version of moonshine, except I didnt think it was possible to be even more disgusting. It's an odd concoction, and the bottles have what looks like bits of foliage inside, and it just tastes like youre eating twigs. Gross twigs. The challenge involves 3 shots of the stuff, being spun round 20 times, then running round the pool table 10 times, then having another shot. All topless, but I managed to get away with not partaking in the last part! Most people don't remember the rest of the night. I, for some reason, carried on drinking the guifiti. Funnily enough, the end of the evening was a little hazy...
Utila is also known for being a whale shark hot spot. I did 8 dives here, desperate to see some, but alas, to no avail. I did, however, see some other awesome stuff. We got very up close and personal with a sea turtle, a green moray, and a spotted eagle ray, amongst some other awesome marine life. One lucky boat trip, a group of spinner dolphins came up and swam in the surf beside the boat. We jumped in and got to swim with a group of them. It was incredible, and certainly made up for not seeing any whale sharks.
While I was doing my dives, john completed his advanced open water, which isnt quite as fun. One evening, john left me to my own devices whilst he had to do a night dive. Sat on my lonesome, I was quickly invited in to play a drinking game with some of the guys from the hostel. It was pretty easy and just involved remembering a few cards, but I was terrible, and thinking id do better with a partner, played with one of the dive masters, thor. But we got everything wrong, and by the time john came back at 6.30, I was pissed as a fart much to his annoyance. most nights in fact involved me being preeeetty pissed.
We came to spend 4 days in utila, but surprise surprise we stayed a week, ending our trip with an exceedingly messy Tequila Tuesday. No need to go into further details of this night...
Beach paradise in utila
Our next stop was the rio cangrejal, mainland honduras. We wanted to check out some honduran rainforests as we had heard they were beautiful. We were sold by a national park called pico bonito, and embarked on a 2 day hike, shortly after white water rafting down the river. It was described as a beautiful, scenic hike. It was beautiful, but what they didn't tell us was that the walk itself was hell in a nutshell for me.
We started off on fairly easy terrain, and the first day wasn't toooo terrible, until a few little mishaps. Firstly, as the walk started to get increasingly more drastically vertical uphill, it became a bit of a slug in the humidity, to say the least. I was pouring with sweat, and struggling with the mountain. It started to get so steep, that we weren't even scrambling anymore, we were hoisting ourselves up with any foliage we could grab. This included one moment where I started to fall backwards down the incredibly steep hill, and grabbed onto the first thing I could see, a trusty looking vine. Of course, as I held onto it, it started to peel away from the tree it was attached to. Cracking and coming loose, I felt like a drunk monkey. That was my first near miss. Absolutely exhausted from the hike, I started to pay less attention to what I was grabbing onto and where my footing was. My guide told me to never step where I can't see, and never grab anything without looking. I learnt that lesson the hard way, twice. The first time, I heard John yelling from behind me "Justine, you almost just stepped on a snake!". Oblivious, I was like, pfft, no I didn't. Sure enough, the guide took a photo and showed me of the snake my foot was inches from (my shoes were semi open, also...(. The second guide said "oh there's no poisonous snakes here, don't worry", until the second guide came up and said "that snake is very poisonous, if it bites you, you bleed to death from your mucous membranes". We were 4 hours from the bottom of the mountain at this point... Ugh...
The second time I learnt that lesson, I lost my balance once again climbing the steep mountain, and grabbed the nearest tree trunk I saw. Of course, it was covered in razor sharp thorns. My hand started bleeding pretty ferociously, and I was squealing like a girl. I left a nifty trail of blood for some pumas to come and hunt me down in the night
We started off on fairly easy terrain, and the first day wasn't toooo terrible, until a few little mishaps. Firstly, as the walk started to get increasingly more drastically vertical uphill, it became a bit of a slug in the humidity, to say the least. I was pouring with sweat, and struggling with the mountain. It started to get so steep, that we weren't even scrambling anymore, we were hoisting ourselves up with any foliage we could grab. This included one moment where I started to fall backwards down the incredibly steep hill, and grabbed onto the first thing I could see, a trusty looking vine. Of course, as I held onto it, it started to peel away from the tree it was attached to. Cracking and coming loose, I felt like a drunk monkey. That was my first near miss. Absolutely exhausted from the hike, I started to pay less attention to what I was grabbing onto and where my footing was. My guide told me to never step where I can't see, and never grab anything without looking. I learnt that lesson the hard way, twice. The first time, I heard John yelling from behind me "Justine, you almost just stepped on a snake!". Oblivious, I was like, pfft, no I didn't. Sure enough, the guide took a photo and showed me of the snake my foot was inches from (my shoes were semi open, also...(. The second guide said "oh there's no poisonous snakes here, don't worry", until the second guide came up and said "that snake is very poisonous, if it bites you, you bleed to death from your mucous membranes". We were 4 hours from the bottom of the mountain at this point... Ugh...
The second time I learnt that lesson, I lost my balance once again climbing the steep mountain, and grabbed the nearest tree trunk I saw. Of course, it was covered in razor sharp thorns. My hand started bleeding pretty ferociously, and I was squealing like a girl. I left a nifty trail of blood for some pumas to come and hunt me down in the night
Always look before you grab
We carried on hiking, and reached our destination. The campsite was beautiful. We were looking over the entire valley, right next to a waterfall. It was incredible, and well worth the sweat and tears. We set up our tents, made a campfire, and settled down for the night.
The view from our tent, lit up by a full moon.
The next morning, the real adventure started. I said that I didn't just want to climb down the same way we came as it was so steep. So our guide said an alternative would be to cut us a new virgin trail through the rainforest. We thought AWESOME!. So off we went, with our guides and their machetes. Even the guides 10 year old son had one, which made me feel a little uneasy. But we encountered some problems... The clouds came in suddenly and very low, engulfing the rainforest/
The misty forest
The guide could no longer see the valley, and couldn't orientate himself. He was lost. He just kept saying " from here, there is no mercy. If we have to camp with no food and no water, then that is what we do:". I'm sure you can imagine my face right now... True horror. I was exhausted. The guide kept cutting the trail, hoping to find any reference point, but pretty much going blind. It was going to be dark in less than 3 hours. Shit./
Our guide cutting a new trail
Eventually, our guide found an old path. I was pretty upset and tired by this point, but glad to think it was almost over. Oh no. The path down was pracitically vertical again, and due to the rain, it was ridiculously slippery and muddy. I spent most of the next 3 hours on my arse. At one stage, we were walking along the mountain ridge, with a sheer drop next to us. We came to a point where a tree was blocking our way. Our only way to cross was to hug the tree, and inch round it, our feet basically dangling over the ridge. Once again, can you imagine my face?! Justine was not a happy bunny.
But we made it. And you know what, it was worth it, purely to witness views like this
Ahhh... scenery.
Beautiful waterfalls.
I'll never forget this horrible walk, but hey, not many people can say they walked through a brand new path in a rainforest!
Our next stop was El Salvador. I haven't many stories from here, except our epic christmas dinner of a whole red snapper, 4 lobsters, 4 pounds of barracuda and 2 pounds of prawns. Had on the beach, watching the sunset. We spent 9 days here, hoping to visit several places, but never managing to leave the beautiful beach town of El Tunco, where we spent our days sunning, surfing, and drinking rum. On our way out, I also managed to somehow get interviewed for an el salvadorian news channel, still drunk from the night before. That was very interesting. I hope I can see this on you tube one day...
Until next time!
