After a long day by boat, bus and taxi we came to La Ceiba in Honduras, the city where you take the ferry out to Utila, the island we were heading for. Famous for cheap, and great diving. Because we arrived in La Ceiba late at night, the last ferry for the day had already gone, so we had to find somewhere to spend the night. We arrived here when it was semana santa (easter), and La Ceiba seemed like the place to be, because all the hotels were full, except one hostel. We checked in there to a tiny room, with faded wall painting, a broken toilet, a fan and a small tv. After an unpleasant shower we watched Pirates of the Caribbean in spanish and went to sleep. Waking up the next day we found loads of people sleeping at the balkony on mattresses and on the floor, there was vomit everywhere and some people were walking around and it looked like they hadn't gone to sleep yet.. Funny experience!
Arriving at Utila we went into the first Dive Centre we found: Captain Morgan's dive centre. They signed us up for starting at the same day and shipped us out to a little, nice island named Jewel Key. It was so relaxed and nice there. The hotel we stayed at had a sundeck with hammocks right outside, and to walk from one end to the other of the island took us 5 minutes.
Day 1 of the course we had to read a lot and watch some diving movies. Later that night we went to one of four restaurants on the island and had a fishplate for dinner. Day two of our course we learned how to pack and organize the diving equipment, and we did some training in shallow water just next to the sundeck. It was a strange but very cool experience to be able to breathe under water for the first time. Our diveinstuctor was a girl from Spain named Elena, she was a really sweet girl and a good teacher which we had a lot of fun with.
The hotel and the sundeck.
Marthe, Tina and Christopher.
Day 3 and 4 we went out with the diving boat and did some deep water diving, that was awesome!! We saw barracudas, morenes, a turtle, and loads of other amazing aquatic animals and plants. On our last dive we also saw a shipwrek, played with a torpedo and we danced the macarena under water! The whole team of dive instructors were really friendly and cool people. We also got to know a guy who lived on the Island, Cristopher, who sometimes joined as a captain on the diving boat. He was a really nice guy and taught us about the culture in Honduras and about the 7 (?) different churches that was on that little island.
On wednesday 27th of April we had our last day here, and before taking the ferry back to the mainland at 2pm we had two fundives that was included in the course. Since we had a flight from Belize City friday 29th April we didn't have much time to get there. So we took the ferry at 2pm to La Ceiba, hopped on a bus to San Pedro Sula, and another bus to Puerto Cortes where we had to stay for the night, still in Honduras. Here we found a hotel in the middle of nowhere, with no chance of searching for better options. So we took it, got to our room ready for a shower after a long day with dirty and hot busses. A shower however, seemed more dirty than skipping it, after we opened the showercurtains to display a used condom! On top of it all, we only had one pillow and there was a huge hole in the mattress.
The next day we hopped on the bus and got to the border of Guatemala, and took the bus again to Puerto Barrios where we took a boat to Punta Gorda in Belize. From Punta Gorda we had a 6 hour bus trip in the so called chicken bus. The chicken buses are old american school buses, and the reason for the name is that the locals often bring chickens on it, which we didn't experience on this ride. We were thinking of just spending the night at the airport when we arrived to Belize City, to save some money. But since we had been traveling for two days and felt really dirty we decided to spend the night at a hostel. We found a hostel where it was actually cheaper than the one with the condom in the shower, it was breakfast included and our room was clean and looked like a proper hotelroom with a big, nice bathroom. We really appreciated to be able to take a nice and warm shower, and we were ready for California baby! :D
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