Hello peeps and tweeps. Sorry for the loooong time between posts but I have been ever so busy getting a job! Yay! I now work for the National Trust on Morston Quay in North Norfolk, as a visitor reception assistant and it is one of the nicest jobs I have ever had! My 'office' window looks out over stunning saltmarshes and the sandy spit that is Blakeney Point National Nature Reserve.
My main reason for this quick post is just to say that at some point in the near future I will be migrating some of this blog to a new one. As I am no longer in the Bay Islands it seems a bit daft to continue writing to a Bay Islands blog! I would like to carry on blogging my adventures and wildlife exploits though so that is the plan.
To any of you who have not yet discovered the delights of Twitter I can highly recommend it! Check it out at: Twitter.com
And a great way to view and organise your tweets is using the fabulous Tweetdeck, grab that here: Tweetdeck
If already on Twitter and wish to follow my nutty updates, click the 'follow me' link on the right hand side of the page at the bottom of the Twitter Updates section.
Hope everyone is well. Much love to all and I miss everyone back in Honduras, especially the good folk from Cafe Mariposa and WSORC :) Get on Twitter both of you!
smooches
Kim
Tuesday 2 June 2009
Friday 10 April 2009
Bird sounds from Central America
As promised, some of the bird sounds that I have heard both in my recent trip and also from when I was in Costa Rica:
My two favourites first!
Montezuma Oropendola
Slaty-backed Nightingale Thrush (not found in Honduras)
Three-wattled bellbird (heard on Costa Rica, found only in the very southeast of Honduras on the border with Nicaragua)
And here are some of the Honduran birds that I saw:
Great-tailed Grackle
Melodious Blackbird
Black-headed Saltator
Common Bush Tanager
Great Kiskadee
Blue-crowned Motmot
Squirrel Cuckoo
Little Blue Heron
And just because I love monkeys, although I never heard them in Honduras:
Mantled howler monkeys
And HERE are the night sounds of the cloud forest in Costa Rica
My two favourites first!
Montezuma Oropendola
Slaty-backed Nightingale Thrush (not found in Honduras)
Three-wattled bellbird (heard on Costa Rica, found only in the very southeast of Honduras on the border with Nicaragua)
And here are some of the Honduran birds that I saw:
Great-tailed Grackle
Melodious Blackbird
Black-headed Saltator
Common Bush Tanager
Great Kiskadee
Blue-crowned Motmot
Squirrel Cuckoo
Little Blue Heron
And just because I love monkeys, although I never heard them in Honduras:
Mantled howler monkeys
And HERE are the night sounds of the cloud forest in Costa Rica
Home Again
Well folks, this will be the last post for my Honduras Blog. Thank you all for reading it and sharing the adventure with me.
The journey home was certainly eventful. Honduras did beat Mexico in the world cup qualifier! The hotel owners' son was watching the game downstairs with some mates so I joined them, popping out briefly at half-time to grab something to eat. And yes I did eat somewhere different. Next to the Vamos a Ver Cafe there is a restaurant, whose name I have completely forgotten! Anyway I wasn't hugely hungry so I grabbed fried plantain with sour cream and beans. Very nice but very filling! Restaurant was nice, empty due to the match, but nice! Anyway, back to the game, a 2-1 score later and it's time for me to head to bed due to the horribly early start the next day. Of course I had conveniently forgotten how they like to celebrate in Latin America. I struggled to sleep whilst fire-crackers were being let off and taxis were zooming round the streets constantly honking their horns! This probably went on into the wee small hours, but I had luckily finally fallen asleep. Alarm went off at 4.15 am, yuck! Anyway, it was a fairly uneventful journey to San Pedro Sula, I was a bit nervous in case anything went wrong as I had been cutting a bit fine not going the night before, although in hindsight, due to the match I would have had a hard time finding a room. I grab a taxi for the 16km from the bus station to the airport ($15) and arrive only 15 minutes later than the ideal 3 hours before a flight.
Check-in, get rid of heavy bags (yay!), pay airport departure tax (about $35) and go through, relieved to have made it. Boarding time comes and goes and still no one is getting on the plane, then they bring snacks. It's not looking good. Suddenly I hear my surname called. Myself and 5 other people are pulled off the flight because we are not going to make our onward connections. Basically someone had driven the passenger bridge too hard into the side of the plane! (Perhaps due to too much celebrating the night before!) The plane isn't going anywhere soon. Initially there is nothing we can do, they want us to fly the next day. Luckily one of the other refugees is a lawyer who speaks fluent Spanish! Bless him, we spend 5 and a half hours standing at the check-in desk trying to fix things. That is how long it took to get us booked onto a new flight to the States (into New York that evening instead of Miami) and then a British Airways flight leaving early in the morning next day. We would arrive at Heathrow pretty much 12 hours later than planned. In the meantime we were sent to a hotel to have a shower and relax for an hour and a half before we had to be back at the airport. There was one business class seat on the flight to New York and I got lucky! What luxury! Wide seats, loads of leg room, staff waiting on me hand and foot! Was very strange, not being accustomed to such treatment!
In New York we had to wait a few hours before we could check in again, unfortunately no business class this time, but lots of empty seats on the plane so the chance to stretch out and sleep. Whilst we grabbed some breakfast we saw several dogs, in handbags! One Bichon Frise was even wearing a pink sweater! At last we were heading home, there was a great choice of movies, but unfortunately, unlike Virgin, BA had edited a lot of the films for content so I chose not to watch James Bond, Benjamin Button, The Reader or Revolutionary Road because I'd rather see them in their entirety! Instead it was Changeling (very good) and 80% of Bolt! (will be very good when I finish seeing it!).
Heathrow at last, mum waiting, yay! Unfortunately the M25 was a nightmare, cars at a crawl even at 10pm. It took 6 hours to get home! I worked out I had been travelling for 42 hours from getting up in Copan, Honduras to getting into bed in Holt, Norfolk.
The end of an amazing trip, it had it's share of ups and downs, I met some jerks, but also some really wonderful people. A huge hug and thanks go out to Jeff, Terrie and the girls at the Cafe Mariposa for making my stay so memorable, and to Dr Rob Davis and Bryan Becker from the Whale Shark and Oceanic Research Centre for making my dreams come true, and finally to Cesar Flores, my guide at Copan, for giving me a fantastic tour of the ruins and explaining so much about the amazing Mayan civilisation.
Thank you, goodnight and good luck :)
The journey home was certainly eventful. Honduras did beat Mexico in the world cup qualifier! The hotel owners' son was watching the game downstairs with some mates so I joined them, popping out briefly at half-time to grab something to eat. And yes I did eat somewhere different. Next to the Vamos a Ver Cafe there is a restaurant, whose name I have completely forgotten! Anyway I wasn't hugely hungry so I grabbed fried plantain with sour cream and beans. Very nice but very filling! Restaurant was nice, empty due to the match, but nice! Anyway, back to the game, a 2-1 score later and it's time for me to head to bed due to the horribly early start the next day. Of course I had conveniently forgotten how they like to celebrate in Latin America. I struggled to sleep whilst fire-crackers were being let off and taxis were zooming round the streets constantly honking their horns! This probably went on into the wee small hours, but I had luckily finally fallen asleep. Alarm went off at 4.15 am, yuck! Anyway, it was a fairly uneventful journey to San Pedro Sula, I was a bit nervous in case anything went wrong as I had been cutting a bit fine not going the night before, although in hindsight, due to the match I would have had a hard time finding a room. I grab a taxi for the 16km from the bus station to the airport ($15) and arrive only 15 minutes later than the ideal 3 hours before a flight.
Check-in, get rid of heavy bags (yay!), pay airport departure tax (about $35) and go through, relieved to have made it. Boarding time comes and goes and still no one is getting on the plane, then they bring snacks. It's not looking good. Suddenly I hear my surname called. Myself and 5 other people are pulled off the flight because we are not going to make our onward connections. Basically someone had driven the passenger bridge too hard into the side of the plane! (Perhaps due to too much celebrating the night before!) The plane isn't going anywhere soon. Initially there is nothing we can do, they want us to fly the next day. Luckily one of the other refugees is a lawyer who speaks fluent Spanish! Bless him, we spend 5 and a half hours standing at the check-in desk trying to fix things. That is how long it took to get us booked onto a new flight to the States (into New York that evening instead of Miami) and then a British Airways flight leaving early in the morning next day. We would arrive at Heathrow pretty much 12 hours later than planned. In the meantime we were sent to a hotel to have a shower and relax for an hour and a half before we had to be back at the airport. There was one business class seat on the flight to New York and I got lucky! What luxury! Wide seats, loads of leg room, staff waiting on me hand and foot! Was very strange, not being accustomed to such treatment!
In New York we had to wait a few hours before we could check in again, unfortunately no business class this time, but lots of empty seats on the plane so the chance to stretch out and sleep. Whilst we grabbed some breakfast we saw several dogs, in handbags! One Bichon Frise was even wearing a pink sweater! At last we were heading home, there was a great choice of movies, but unfortunately, unlike Virgin, BA had edited a lot of the films for content so I chose not to watch James Bond, Benjamin Button, The Reader or Revolutionary Road because I'd rather see them in their entirety! Instead it was Changeling (very good) and 80% of Bolt! (will be very good when I finish seeing it!).
Heathrow at last, mum waiting, yay! Unfortunately the M25 was a nightmare, cars at a crawl even at 10pm. It took 6 hours to get home! I worked out I had been travelling for 42 hours from getting up in Copan, Honduras to getting into bed in Holt, Norfolk.
The end of an amazing trip, it had it's share of ups and downs, I met some jerks, but also some really wonderful people. A huge hug and thanks go out to Jeff, Terrie and the girls at the Cafe Mariposa for making my stay so memorable, and to Dr Rob Davis and Bryan Becker from the Whale Shark and Oceanic Research Centre for making my dreams come true, and finally to Cesar Flores, my guide at Copan, for giving me a fantastic tour of the ruins and explaining so much about the amazing Mayan civilisation.
Thank you, goodnight and good luck :)
Thursday 2 April 2009
And Now...The End is Near....
Here I am, on my very last night. I'm feeling really rather sad. Now my skin is all healed up I want to carry on travelling, exploring and adventuring. But only if I can dump my dive gear and replace the two pairs of travel trousers that have finally died during this trip! The tropics sure are tough on your clothes!
Yesterday I decided to go back to the ruins. It is such an amazing place and I wanted to walk round more slowly and see things I had missed the day before. It was a lovely peaceful day. I had planned on walking up to the La Sepulturas ruins that are a further 1km away but ended up enjoying the nature trail again. Bird list is now well over 25 just since leaving Utila! I was a complete coward in the evening, looked at a couple of restaurants but the Forest Llama was cheaper so I went back...again! I am definitely going somewhere new tonight, I promise! Nice breakfast yesterday at Vamos A Ver cafe. Prices look a bit high for evening meals but had a decent breakfast for $4 (they make their own bread, it was delicious), the same price as at La Casa de Todo where I had the granola, fruit and yogurt on my first day.
Today I had planned to try and cram in the Butterfly park, the Macaw Mountain bird park, the walk to the bus terminal to buy my ticket for the morning AND getting online to check-in in advance (unfortunately the online check-in didn't work because I have a connecting flight). In the end, after walking to the bus terminal this morning I decided to ditch the butterfly park. Maybe if I am really lucky I'll come back in the not too distant future. I would love to spend at least a couple of months travelling down from Mexico to Panama. Anyway, so after getting my ticket sorted for 5.15am tomorrow (yuck!) I headed back to the central park to grab a motorcycle taxi. When I first heard about these I assumed it was sitting on the back of a bike! Nope! They are tuktuks! So funny to see them outside of Thailand, but what a great idea. I believe there is even one in sunny Sheringham on the North Norfolk coast now. They are spreading! So for a mere $1 (20 lempiras) I get the 10 minute ride up the hill to the bird park which is situated along a ravine. It was beautifully planted with lots of luscious vegetation and tall trees dripping in epiphytes. All the birds there are rescue birds, mostly former pets, birds that have been sick, mistreated, or found having fallen from the nest. None of the birds were caught in the wild and they release any that they can. I liked the place. It is always nicer to see birds flying free rather than in aviaries but still the aviaries were lovely and they all looked healthy and happy. Well maybe not so happy after I sat next to one of the macaw aviaries singing in spanish! Meanwhile in the aviary next door some little parakeets kept calling Hola! and whistling their appreciation for my singing! Well, that is what I am going to tell myself anyway. So, the birds there are mostly native macaws, parrots and parakeets. They also had toucans, aracaris and toucanets (both related to toucans), a couple of owls and a couple of hawks. They put out food for the wild birds too and there were trees filled with oropendolas. A different species from the one with my favourite bird call. I added considerably to my list whilst I was wandering about the beautiful walkways, nature trail and sitting on the bridge cafe. After lunch at the cafe I took a wonderfully refreshing dip in the natural pool they have created in the river. Bliss! I had it all to myself, well there was a dog sharing the steps to start with. A german shepherd, poor thing, can you imagine the heat carrying a coat like that! Then when he left it was just me, and the birds flying overhead, including large flocks of parakeets chattering to each other, and more oropendolas zooming up and down the valley. Another wander round, including a sighting of a wild pygmy owl with a dead lizard in it's claws (the same species of owl that they have in one of the aviaries!) and then I walked the 2.5 km dusty road back to town (downhill! thank goodness!).
Tonight there is a big football match on. Honduras v. Mexico in a world cup round. I'm hoping to find a place to watch it after I've showered and packed, I think they might be setting up a screen in the central park. Watching football in Latin America is always a great experience. They turn it into a big party, even if they lose! I hope they win though, would be a nice touch to the end of my journey.
Well folks. Thank you for reading my ramblings. I hope to post some more photos when I get home, including the pictures from the ruins and from today. I had better get going, I'm hungry and the match starts in an hour and a half! Vamos Honduras!
Adios y suena con los angeles.....goodbye and sleep with the angels (the equivalent of Sweet Dreams!)
Yesterday I decided to go back to the ruins. It is such an amazing place and I wanted to walk round more slowly and see things I had missed the day before. It was a lovely peaceful day. I had planned on walking up to the La Sepulturas ruins that are a further 1km away but ended up enjoying the nature trail again. Bird list is now well over 25 just since leaving Utila! I was a complete coward in the evening, looked at a couple of restaurants but the Forest Llama was cheaper so I went back...again! I am definitely going somewhere new tonight, I promise! Nice breakfast yesterday at Vamos A Ver cafe. Prices look a bit high for evening meals but had a decent breakfast for $4 (they make their own bread, it was delicious), the same price as at La Casa de Todo where I had the granola, fruit and yogurt on my first day.
Today I had planned to try and cram in the Butterfly park, the Macaw Mountain bird park, the walk to the bus terminal to buy my ticket for the morning AND getting online to check-in in advance (unfortunately the online check-in didn't work because I have a connecting flight). In the end, after walking to the bus terminal this morning I decided to ditch the butterfly park. Maybe if I am really lucky I'll come back in the not too distant future. I would love to spend at least a couple of months travelling down from Mexico to Panama. Anyway, so after getting my ticket sorted for 5.15am tomorrow (yuck!) I headed back to the central park to grab a motorcycle taxi. When I first heard about these I assumed it was sitting on the back of a bike! Nope! They are tuktuks! So funny to see them outside of Thailand, but what a great idea. I believe there is even one in sunny Sheringham on the North Norfolk coast now. They are spreading! So for a mere $1 (20 lempiras) I get the 10 minute ride up the hill to the bird park which is situated along a ravine. It was beautifully planted with lots of luscious vegetation and tall trees dripping in epiphytes. All the birds there are rescue birds, mostly former pets, birds that have been sick, mistreated, or found having fallen from the nest. None of the birds were caught in the wild and they release any that they can. I liked the place. It is always nicer to see birds flying free rather than in aviaries but still the aviaries were lovely and they all looked healthy and happy. Well maybe not so happy after I sat next to one of the macaw aviaries singing in spanish! Meanwhile in the aviary next door some little parakeets kept calling Hola! and whistling their appreciation for my singing! Well, that is what I am going to tell myself anyway. So, the birds there are mostly native macaws, parrots and parakeets. They also had toucans, aracaris and toucanets (both related to toucans), a couple of owls and a couple of hawks. They put out food for the wild birds too and there were trees filled with oropendolas. A different species from the one with my favourite bird call. I added considerably to my list whilst I was wandering about the beautiful walkways, nature trail and sitting on the bridge cafe. After lunch at the cafe I took a wonderfully refreshing dip in the natural pool they have created in the river. Bliss! I had it all to myself, well there was a dog sharing the steps to start with. A german shepherd, poor thing, can you imagine the heat carrying a coat like that! Then when he left it was just me, and the birds flying overhead, including large flocks of parakeets chattering to each other, and more oropendolas zooming up and down the valley. Another wander round, including a sighting of a wild pygmy owl with a dead lizard in it's claws (the same species of owl that they have in one of the aviaries!) and then I walked the 2.5 km dusty road back to town (downhill! thank goodness!).
Tonight there is a big football match on. Honduras v. Mexico in a world cup round. I'm hoping to find a place to watch it after I've showered and packed, I think they might be setting up a screen in the central park. Watching football in Latin America is always a great experience. They turn it into a big party, even if they lose! I hope they win though, would be a nice touch to the end of my journey.
Well folks. Thank you for reading my ramblings. I hope to post some more photos when I get home, including the pictures from the ruins and from today. I had better get going, I'm hungry and the match starts in an hour and a half! Vamos Honduras!
Adios y suena con los angeles.....goodbye and sleep with the angels (the equivalent of Sweet Dreams!)
Tuesday 31 March 2009
Copan Ruinas - The Copan Ruins
Well, here I am safely in Copan after one hell of a journey. I was up at 5am yesterday to catch the ferry at 6.20, which arrived in La Ceiba at 7.30, followed by a crazy taxi ride with a driver (who had a serious death wish!) to the bus station. Just in time to catch the 8.30 bus to San Pedro Sula. I managed to stay awake this time, well most of the time. The mountains all along the north coast are simply stunning and densly forested. Then as you move inland and the mountains slink into the distance the land either side of the road is replaced with huge fruit tree and coconut palm plantations. Eventually the roads become dustier although everything is still pretty green. Finally at midday we arrived in San Pedro Sula. There was initially only a one hour wait but this stretched to two, one of which was spent slowly melting in the bus! Eventually, we are off, heading to the very western part of the country, not far from the border with Guatemala. The roads are dusty and the vegetation is getting drier, the dry season is in getting into full swing here. We pass through a river valley and wind around hills for three hours until finally arriving at the town of Copan Ruinas at about 5 pm. Only half an hour earlier than if I had taken the fancy air-conditioned buses! Lesson learnt. Trying to save time doesn't always work out! Still, it was half the price!
I headed straight to the first hotel I had read about, Lauro's Hotel. Trying to drag a bag of dive gear up a steep cobbled street is an adventure in itself! Remind me to leave it behind next time. At last, hot, sweaty and tired I collapse on a wonderfully comfortable bed in a clean, pleasant room. After a refreshingly cool shower (hot is available but seriously not needed at the moment!) I head out to eat and try the recommended Llama Del Bosque. Which should mean, if my spanish is correct, the Forest Llama! Anyway, name aside it certainly lived up to its' reputation. Desperate for some pasta I chose spag bol and it was fantastic! I know I should be adventurous and choose somewhere different tonight but they have Arroz con camarones (rice and shrimp) and I used to love this in Costa Rica so I think I will be heading back! I sat on a beautiful outdoor covered patio and read up about the Mayan Ruins whilst downing a banana milkshake.
This morning I was up early searching for breakfast before heading to the ruins. I ended up at La Casa de Todo (the house of everything!) a well-named place where you can do laundry, use the internet, and there is a cafe, shop and book exchange. I'm bound to have missed something out! So, yogurt topped with granola, honey and fruit with an iced tea set me up for the day. I set off for the ruins, 1km from the town, a nice 15 minute walk which passed several statues (called stelae) on the way. My first ever sighting of Mayan sculptures. I was so excited for what was about to come. Turning into the ruins I was welcomed by friendly guides who pointed me in the direction of the ticket office where I bought a ticket to the ruins and the museum of sculture. There are also tunnels that cost a lot more and I gave those a miss. I had planned to wander round myself. I had a little guidebook and a basic map, but after entering the main area and seeing all these incredible stelae and stepped structures I realised I would only get the most out of it if there was someone to tell me what it all meant! On the way back to the guide office to grab a guide it was whip the binoculars out time when a Montezuma's oropendula flew passed. It has the most amazing call, there is a site of bird calls from Costa Rica, when I get back home I will post a link to the call. It's seriously impressive I promise! Yes, yes I realise I am turning into a birding geek. But it is the easiest wildlife to see when travelling, relatively speaking.
Back to the ruins, my guide was wonderful. But I am turning into my grandfather and I am embarassed to say I can't remember his name! I know it began with a 'C' and no it wasn't Carlos! Anyway he was brilliant, he took me all around the sight, explained about Mayan history and the importance of Copan. I took a zillion photos, unfortunately my camera has had one of its glitches again and although the pictures look amazing on the camera when I transfered them to my usb stick it is if someone suddenly turned off the flash. I'm so annoyed. I am hoping I can repair them at home. I could go back again tomorrow and take them all again but who is to say the camera won't do exactly the same thing again. So all the cool pictures I was hoping to upload tonight will have to wait I'm afraid. If you are interested at all you could stick Copan ruins in google, I'm sure some good images would come up.
The tour took a good couple of hours, and the ruins really did blow me away. Imagining that incredibly advnaced civilisation walking, living and dying in and under those very same stones that I was looking at or standing on was quite overwhelming. Interestingly enough, they believe that it was over-population (due to the huge success of the Mayans) and consequently the over-use of resources and deforestation etc. which caused droughts and climate change amongst other things that eventually resulted in their downfall. For those of you that don't know, pretty much everything that the Mayans ever predicted has come true. They also predict that the end of the current life cycle on this planet will end on 23rd December 2012. I think that is the right date! I will check when I get back to my room. I didn't read it to mean the end of the earth, more like the death of one life cycle followed by a rebirth.
It's is a little frightening that the downfall of such an advanced culture was caused by more or less exactly the same issues that we are facing now. Maybe we should learn from their lessons before it is too late!
Ok enough preaching for now! I spent the rest of the afternoon on the nature trail, spotting wonderful birds and trying to identify trees and remember their names. When I was in Costa Rica studying the monkeys I used to be able to identify 25-30 tree species in this tropical dry forest (incidentally it is the most endangered forest type in the world, only 5% left). I know I have rabbited on long enough and you are all asleep now so I'm going to let you doze and go grab my rice and shrimp.
Tomorrow the plan is to go to the Macaw Mountain Bird Reserve. Yes, more birds! A rough idea for Wednesday is a visit to the Mariposaria (butterfly park) in the morning and possibly a trip to the hot springs in the afternoon. Not that you need hot springs here it is soooo hot now. Thursday is another very early start, 4.30 or earlier to catch a bus at 5.15am back to San Pedro Sula, then a taxi to the airport, a flight to Miami and another flight to London. I'm telling you all this now in case I don't get online again!
Take care all, and if I don't speak to you before I'll catch up as soon as I'm back home!
Adios amigos!
p.s. edit: His name was Cesar!
I headed straight to the first hotel I had read about, Lauro's Hotel. Trying to drag a bag of dive gear up a steep cobbled street is an adventure in itself! Remind me to leave it behind next time. At last, hot, sweaty and tired I collapse on a wonderfully comfortable bed in a clean, pleasant room. After a refreshingly cool shower (hot is available but seriously not needed at the moment!) I head out to eat and try the recommended Llama Del Bosque. Which should mean, if my spanish is correct, the Forest Llama! Anyway, name aside it certainly lived up to its' reputation. Desperate for some pasta I chose spag bol and it was fantastic! I know I should be adventurous and choose somewhere different tonight but they have Arroz con camarones (rice and shrimp) and I used to love this in Costa Rica so I think I will be heading back! I sat on a beautiful outdoor covered patio and read up about the Mayan Ruins whilst downing a banana milkshake.
This morning I was up early searching for breakfast before heading to the ruins. I ended up at La Casa de Todo (the house of everything!) a well-named place where you can do laundry, use the internet, and there is a cafe, shop and book exchange. I'm bound to have missed something out! So, yogurt topped with granola, honey and fruit with an iced tea set me up for the day. I set off for the ruins, 1km from the town, a nice 15 minute walk which passed several statues (called stelae) on the way. My first ever sighting of Mayan sculptures. I was so excited for what was about to come. Turning into the ruins I was welcomed by friendly guides who pointed me in the direction of the ticket office where I bought a ticket to the ruins and the museum of sculture. There are also tunnels that cost a lot more and I gave those a miss. I had planned to wander round myself. I had a little guidebook and a basic map, but after entering the main area and seeing all these incredible stelae and stepped structures I realised I would only get the most out of it if there was someone to tell me what it all meant! On the way back to the guide office to grab a guide it was whip the binoculars out time when a Montezuma's oropendula flew passed. It has the most amazing call, there is a site of bird calls from Costa Rica, when I get back home I will post a link to the call. It's seriously impressive I promise! Yes, yes I realise I am turning into a birding geek. But it is the easiest wildlife to see when travelling, relatively speaking.
Back to the ruins, my guide was wonderful. But I am turning into my grandfather and I am embarassed to say I can't remember his name! I know it began with a 'C' and no it wasn't Carlos! Anyway he was brilliant, he took me all around the sight, explained about Mayan history and the importance of Copan. I took a zillion photos, unfortunately my camera has had one of its glitches again and although the pictures look amazing on the camera when I transfered them to my usb stick it is if someone suddenly turned off the flash. I'm so annoyed. I am hoping I can repair them at home. I could go back again tomorrow and take them all again but who is to say the camera won't do exactly the same thing again. So all the cool pictures I was hoping to upload tonight will have to wait I'm afraid. If you are interested at all you could stick Copan ruins in google, I'm sure some good images would come up.
The tour took a good couple of hours, and the ruins really did blow me away. Imagining that incredibly advnaced civilisation walking, living and dying in and under those very same stones that I was looking at or standing on was quite overwhelming. Interestingly enough, they believe that it was over-population (due to the huge success of the Mayans) and consequently the over-use of resources and deforestation etc. which caused droughts and climate change amongst other things that eventually resulted in their downfall. For those of you that don't know, pretty much everything that the Mayans ever predicted has come true. They also predict that the end of the current life cycle on this planet will end on 23rd December 2012. I think that is the right date! I will check when I get back to my room. I didn't read it to mean the end of the earth, more like the death of one life cycle followed by a rebirth.
It's is a little frightening that the downfall of such an advanced culture was caused by more or less exactly the same issues that we are facing now. Maybe we should learn from their lessons before it is too late!
Ok enough preaching for now! I spent the rest of the afternoon on the nature trail, spotting wonderful birds and trying to identify trees and remember their names. When I was in Costa Rica studying the monkeys I used to be able to identify 25-30 tree species in this tropical dry forest (incidentally it is the most endangered forest type in the world, only 5% left). I know I have rabbited on long enough and you are all asleep now so I'm going to let you doze and go grab my rice and shrimp.
Tomorrow the plan is to go to the Macaw Mountain Bird Reserve. Yes, more birds! A rough idea for Wednesday is a visit to the Mariposaria (butterfly park) in the morning and possibly a trip to the hot springs in the afternoon. Not that you need hot springs here it is soooo hot now. Thursday is another very early start, 4.30 or earlier to catch a bus at 5.15am back to San Pedro Sula, then a taxi to the airport, a flight to Miami and another flight to London. I'm telling you all this now in case I don't get online again!
Take care all, and if I don't speak to you before I'll catch up as soon as I'm back home!
Adios amigos!
p.s. edit: His name was Cesar!
Wednesday 25 March 2009
The final week :(
Wow, how quickly does time fly? I can´t believe I am writing this with just 3 days left here on the island before I head off to visit the Mayan ruins at Copan.
I´m still recovering mentally from my amazing whale shark encounter last week. For days after I kept waking up at night and had to look at the images on the camera to remind myself it was real. On Friday Terrie and I spent the afternoon cleaning and organising the laboratory at the Whale Shark Research Centre. Terrie is going to carry on after I leave, cataloguing (spelling?!) and helping them stock up with what they need. Friday night I played cards with Jeff and Terrie, then Terrie and I hit the clubs! In other words we went to the infamous Bar In The Bush! It was a good laugh and we danced like mad for a couple of hours. I decided to call it a night at about 1.30am (sign of old age!) as my knees were starting to hurt and a man with a beer belly had just tried to rub his groin against me! Bless him this act was made somewhat more difficult by the size of his stomach. I´m sure he was a very sweet guy but I really wasn´t in the mood for a grope and figured it was high time I made a hasty exit!
The weekend was pretty dull, it rained most of the time so I was confined to quarters again. Not least recovering from the dancing of the night before! Although Sunday night on the way home from getting some dinner I did see a tarantula not far from the house! Luckily I like them! Monday was lovely though which allowed me a day on the beach. Yesterday I went diving with Bay Islands College of Diving. It was wonderful. Two lovely dive sites, although there were a lot more fish at the second one, and a hawksbill turtle who swam alongside us for a while, happily pausing to feed so clearly not bothered by our presence! I have uploaded some of the better photos I took.
This afternoon I am going on my last whale shark trip, followed by a night dive. Then day time diving again tomorrow, and laundry in the afternoon! Friday I am hoping to hike to Pumpkin Hill, there highest point on the island. There are bat caves there and a small beach on the far side. Saturday will be for packing and hopefully some final beach time before a very early departure on Sunday. Copan is supposed to be a lovely town and I am looking forward to seeing the ruins. There should be internet access there so I will hopefully be able to upload some pics for you.
That´s all the news for now folks. I will try and get online before I leave Utila.
Love and hugs to all :)
P.s. I wanted to add here as I didn't make a post about it that we did see whale sharks again on my last trip, but nowhere near as good as the week before. My last day diving was ruined by a jerk of an instructor called Clayton, who decided it would be good sport to make fun of me in front of 4 other people for being safety-concious and carrying a surface marker buoy (in Egypt I believe it is a requirement for at least one person in every dive group to carry one since several people got swept away from their dive boat by freak currents and weren't found for 3 days) which is quite ironic coming from an instructor who should be carrying one himself! Then after our first dive he loudly snapped at me for setting up my equipment in the wrong place! I admit I was tired and not thinking straight but still, hardly good customer service! Oh well, says a lot more about him than it does me. Luckily I wasn't actually diving in his group, I was with a very nice Australian instructor called Rob along with a couple of his advanced open water students who were very nice. So just to slightly amend my view of Bay Islands College of Diving, the majority of them were really great, really welcoming and good fun to dive with! I didn't make it to Pumpkin Hill either as I was sick on the Friday :( but I did spend my last day chilling out on the beach, things got a bit tearful in the evening when I had my last meal at Cafe Mariposa and they insisted it was on the house! Such seriously nice people. I'll miss them :)
I´m still recovering mentally from my amazing whale shark encounter last week. For days after I kept waking up at night and had to look at the images on the camera to remind myself it was real. On Friday Terrie and I spent the afternoon cleaning and organising the laboratory at the Whale Shark Research Centre. Terrie is going to carry on after I leave, cataloguing (spelling?!) and helping them stock up with what they need. Friday night I played cards with Jeff and Terrie, then Terrie and I hit the clubs! In other words we went to the infamous Bar In The Bush! It was a good laugh and we danced like mad for a couple of hours. I decided to call it a night at about 1.30am (sign of old age!) as my knees were starting to hurt and a man with a beer belly had just tried to rub his groin against me! Bless him this act was made somewhat more difficult by the size of his stomach. I´m sure he was a very sweet guy but I really wasn´t in the mood for a grope and figured it was high time I made a hasty exit!
The weekend was pretty dull, it rained most of the time so I was confined to quarters again. Not least recovering from the dancing of the night before! Although Sunday night on the way home from getting some dinner I did see a tarantula not far from the house! Luckily I like them! Monday was lovely though which allowed me a day on the beach. Yesterday I went diving with Bay Islands College of Diving. It was wonderful. Two lovely dive sites, although there were a lot more fish at the second one, and a hawksbill turtle who swam alongside us for a while, happily pausing to feed so clearly not bothered by our presence! I have uploaded some of the better photos I took.
This afternoon I am going on my last whale shark trip, followed by a night dive. Then day time diving again tomorrow, and laundry in the afternoon! Friday I am hoping to hike to Pumpkin Hill, there highest point on the island. There are bat caves there and a small beach on the far side. Saturday will be for packing and hopefully some final beach time before a very early departure on Sunday. Copan is supposed to be a lovely town and I am looking forward to seeing the ruins. There should be internet access there so I will hopefully be able to upload some pics for you.
That´s all the news for now folks. I will try and get online before I leave Utila.
Love and hugs to all :)
P.s. I wanted to add here as I didn't make a post about it that we did see whale sharks again on my last trip, but nowhere near as good as the week before. My last day diving was ruined by a jerk of an instructor called Clayton, who decided it would be good sport to make fun of me in front of 4 other people for being safety-concious and carrying a surface marker buoy (in Egypt I believe it is a requirement for at least one person in every dive group to carry one since several people got swept away from their dive boat by freak currents and weren't found for 3 days) which is quite ironic coming from an instructor who should be carrying one himself! Then after our first dive he loudly snapped at me for setting up my equipment in the wrong place! I admit I was tired and not thinking straight but still, hardly good customer service! Oh well, says a lot more about him than it does me. Luckily I wasn't actually diving in his group, I was with a very nice Australian instructor called Rob along with a couple of his advanced open water students who were very nice. So just to slightly amend my view of Bay Islands College of Diving, the majority of them were really great, really welcoming and good fun to dive with! I didn't make it to Pumpkin Hill either as I was sick on the Friday :( but I did spend my last day chilling out on the beach, things got a bit tearful in the evening when I had my last meal at Cafe Mariposa and they insisted it was on the house! Such seriously nice people. I'll miss them :)
Thursday 19 March 2009
YESSSSSSSSS!
Whale Sharks! Whale Sharks! Whale Sharks!
What a day yesterday...so amazing I don't even know where to begin and I'm finding it hard to remember the actual details! We headed off at lunchtime as normal, the sea was particularly calm which was a good sign. Captain Willy and Dr Rob were in charge. We headed southeast, went up the east coast then began searching the ocean almost directly north of Pumpkin Hill. We saw a few mini boils but they kept disappearing, apparently there wasn´t much food in the water. You could tell because the water was so clear! And you need the plankton to attract the small fish which attract the larger ones!
We find a decent boil, get ready at the back of the boat and suddenly the shark is there. We slide in and no kidding was he there! He was mere feet away! This vast gentle giant, upside down right under the boat. A huge male about 35 feet in length. He may have thought the boat was a sexy female shark! It certainly seemed that way as he was so close to it, even being vertical in the water his mouth practically touching the propeller. Eventually he turned himself the right way up, swam around us and then began to dive. I remember grinning so hard that water started to leak into my mask, and back on the boat I was almost in tears. It was the most amazing thing I have ever seen. Dr Rob was very excited about the behaviour witnessed too. Best of all I managed to get some fairly decent photos. This is amazing because I couldn´t see the lcd screen at all so was just pointing, shooting and hoping for the best! I am going to try and set up a separate slideshow for the whale shark pics, and maybe add all wildlife-related pics there.
We stay in the same general location in relation to the island but head further north out to sea. We see sharks at the surface a couple of times and the second group even gets in at one point but the shark dived almost instantly. Eventually we take a break and a few of us, me included, slip off the boat for a little blue water snorkelling and a pee break! Barely off the boat Captain Willy yells that a shark is there, I turn around and sure enough there is another (or maybe the same) huge whale shark. We swim towards him and watch him for a few minutes before he slowly dives out of sight. I hadn't taken my camera. Let's face it, it's not normally required when going for a pee! Going to the toilet will never be the same again!
We spend the rest of the afternoon chasing boils that disappear almost as soon as we reach them, until we find one last large boil and smack bang in the middle is a whale shark, perpendicular in the water, mouth at the surface feeding. The second group jump in and get some amazing views of him feeding and then slowly swimming under the boat before diving out of view.
We all gave our photos to Dr Rob and he has promised that we can get a set of everyone's pictures!
Back on the boat heading home I felt such a huge sense of peace and calm. Having seen and achieved something that I have longed for for many a year. What an amazing animal, talk about evolutionary perfection! I really hope that was not the last time I get to experience their grace and beauty.
What a day yesterday...so amazing I don't even know where to begin and I'm finding it hard to remember the actual details! We headed off at lunchtime as normal, the sea was particularly calm which was a good sign. Captain Willy and Dr Rob were in charge. We headed southeast, went up the east coast then began searching the ocean almost directly north of Pumpkin Hill. We saw a few mini boils but they kept disappearing, apparently there wasn´t much food in the water. You could tell because the water was so clear! And you need the plankton to attract the small fish which attract the larger ones!
We find a decent boil, get ready at the back of the boat and suddenly the shark is there. We slide in and no kidding was he there! He was mere feet away! This vast gentle giant, upside down right under the boat. A huge male about 35 feet in length. He may have thought the boat was a sexy female shark! It certainly seemed that way as he was so close to it, even being vertical in the water his mouth practically touching the propeller. Eventually he turned himself the right way up, swam around us and then began to dive. I remember grinning so hard that water started to leak into my mask, and back on the boat I was almost in tears. It was the most amazing thing I have ever seen. Dr Rob was very excited about the behaviour witnessed too. Best of all I managed to get some fairly decent photos. This is amazing because I couldn´t see the lcd screen at all so was just pointing, shooting and hoping for the best! I am going to try and set up a separate slideshow for the whale shark pics, and maybe add all wildlife-related pics there.
We stay in the same general location in relation to the island but head further north out to sea. We see sharks at the surface a couple of times and the second group even gets in at one point but the shark dived almost instantly. Eventually we take a break and a few of us, me included, slip off the boat for a little blue water snorkelling and a pee break! Barely off the boat Captain Willy yells that a shark is there, I turn around and sure enough there is another (or maybe the same) huge whale shark. We swim towards him and watch him for a few minutes before he slowly dives out of sight. I hadn't taken my camera. Let's face it, it's not normally required when going for a pee! Going to the toilet will never be the same again!
We spend the rest of the afternoon chasing boils that disappear almost as soon as we reach them, until we find one last large boil and smack bang in the middle is a whale shark, perpendicular in the water, mouth at the surface feeding. The second group jump in and get some amazing views of him feeding and then slowly swimming under the boat before diving out of view.
We all gave our photos to Dr Rob and he has promised that we can get a set of everyone's pictures!
Back on the boat heading home I felt such a huge sense of peace and calm. Having seen and achieved something that I have longed for for many a year. What an amazing animal, talk about evolutionary perfection! I really hope that was not the last time I get to experience their grace and beauty.
Wednesday 18 March 2009
Thank you!
Just wanted to post a quick thank you for the comments people have been leaving. I'm glad you are enjoying reading about my adventures! I'm certainly enjoying having them. Although I am looking forward to some of the comforts of home when I get back, like a hot bath and seeing my dog!
An update on the dolphin encounter of two days ago. It turns out they were not bottle-nosed dolphins after all. some zoologist huh! but hey I have spent most of my time studying primates! Apparently they were rough-toothed dolphins. Not one I have heard of before but I have a dolphin book back home so can look them up when I get back.
Also we are wondering whether, despite his playful behaviour, he might have been distracting us from the main group which contained some youngsters. It is a pretty good theory. A long time ago a small boy fell into the gorilla enclosure at Jersey Zoo. The famous silverback of the group, Jambo, went over and appeared (to the onlooking crowd) to be protecting the boy from the rest of the group. Richard Johnston-Scott, the long-time keeper-scientist with the gorillas at Jersey wrote a book about Jambo and in it he describes how he thinks it was more likely that Jambo was in fact protecting his group from the strange creature that had fallen into their territory.
I went snorkelling around the Cafe Mariposa again yesterday afternoon and took a bunch of photos. They won't look very good because they need messing with when I get back home but I will put them online anyway. Picked up another 6 plastic cups and a plastic plate. God I hate plastic! Great snorkelling though. Saw a big fish, maybe a foot and a half to two feet long. Looked it up and it was called a Permit! They do give fish some strange names!
Oh I forgot to say, in case you haven't discovered it yet, if you click on the pictures in the slideshow it will take you to the online album where the pics are bigger and I've managed to stick in some basic captions. If I am repeating myself I do apologise! Well I'd better go and start uploading the 90 odd pics I had on my camera, then I'm off to the boat. Fingers crossed for another amazing trip!
Adios!
An update on the dolphin encounter of two days ago. It turns out they were not bottle-nosed dolphins after all. some zoologist huh! but hey I have spent most of my time studying primates! Apparently they were rough-toothed dolphins. Not one I have heard of before but I have a dolphin book back home so can look them up when I get back.
Also we are wondering whether, despite his playful behaviour, he might have been distracting us from the main group which contained some youngsters. It is a pretty good theory. A long time ago a small boy fell into the gorilla enclosure at Jersey Zoo. The famous silverback of the group, Jambo, went over and appeared (to the onlooking crowd) to be protecting the boy from the rest of the group. Richard Johnston-Scott, the long-time keeper-scientist with the gorillas at Jersey wrote a book about Jambo and in it he describes how he thinks it was more likely that Jambo was in fact protecting his group from the strange creature that had fallen into their territory.
I went snorkelling around the Cafe Mariposa again yesterday afternoon and took a bunch of photos. They won't look very good because they need messing with when I get back home but I will put them online anyway. Picked up another 6 plastic cups and a plastic plate. God I hate plastic! Great snorkelling though. Saw a big fish, maybe a foot and a half to two feet long. Looked it up and it was called a Permit! They do give fish some strange names!
Oh I forgot to say, in case you haven't discovered it yet, if you click on the pictures in the slideshow it will take you to the online album where the pics are bigger and I've managed to stick in some basic captions. If I am repeating myself I do apologise! Well I'd better go and start uploading the 90 odd pics I had on my camera, then I'm off to the boat. Fingers crossed for another amazing trip!
Adios!
Tuesday 17 March 2009
WooooooHooooo!
Wow! What a day yesterday. 3rd trip out searching for whale sharks. 3rd time lucky? That is what I was hoping for!
So of we go, nice group of people on the boat, heading towards the cayes off the southwest of the island first as this where sharks had been seen all week. I spot the first boil thanks to my trusty binoculars and a good bit of luck! Boils are what they call baitballs here. You may have seen them on wildlife programs on the tv, where small fish gather together in tight fast-moving masses. When they hit the surface or larger fish start to attack them they and the predators break the surface causing it to look like its boiling! You can actually hear it! Anyway, these are where the whale sharks come to feed.
So there we are at the first boil, it's not very big, but we get ready, sitting at the back of the boat, mask and fins on ready to slip into the water if teh captain gives the go-ahead. But nothing. No sightings of sharks, nothing but birds and fish. After a while we give up and try in another direction. Nothing there. So we head back to the first boil to see if it is still going and maybe if it has lured in a shark. Nope! I'm starting to feel a little flat now. Three trips and so far no luck, although it was exciting to see the boils it was more about the promise of what they might bring. Of we go again, moving eastwards along the north coast of the island. We spot dolphins but the soon disappear.
Then just when I have given up the trip as a lost cause I see a tern flying in the distance. I grab the binoculars again and follow it (hard to do in a boat that is rocking making the horizon zoom up and down!) sure enough I see it dive into the see. I point it out to the captain and he sees fish jumping! Yay! Another boil and this time a big one! Excitement ripples throughout the boat, it looks like this time we are going to get lucky. Back to the end of the boat, waiting waiting...can't see the boil, can't see anything as mask fogging up by now. Suddenly shouts of Shark! and...Go! Go! Swim to the front of the boat! There was a couple in front of me and a lady beside me. I dip my fins in trying not to splash and I'm in the water, finning as hard as possible whilst trying not to splash is damn hard! Unfortunately all I could see was the lady in front who was kicking up a storm of bubbles. I catch up with the couple who hug me saying Wasn't that amazing! I have to confess that I saw nothing! Apparently there was a manta ray too. Another animal near the top of my must-see list. I was devastated. Even though they only saw the shark very briefly before it dived, clearly not wanting company. I wasn't the only one who didn't see it. Two more people in the group that got in the water didn't see it. The second group who were waiting on the boat for their turn did see it at the surface. I almost wish I had stayed on the boat. The deep blue water was incredible though and what an adrenalin rush. My fins, I am discovering, might be fantastic for scuba but are not helpful when trying to snorkel silently!
I get back on the boat, trying not to feel resentful of the lady and all her bubble-kicking that had so obscured my view, especially when she starts giving me tips on what to do next time! Of we go again, I'm back to thinking that is the end of our adventure that day. How wrong I was. As we were coming round the east side of the island Captain Willy shouts Dolphins! And sure enough there are bottle-nosed dolphins all over the place. We watch them from the boat for about 5 minutes before we are asked if we want to try swimming with them. Are they kidding?! I was ready at the end of the boat before they had even finished asking. I didn't take my camera as I thought that might jinx my luck! Then we were in the water and I see dolphins swimming past me in every direction. We follow them and oh wow it was so amazing I can hardly believe it happened. First there were a lot of them, then it went down to one or two, but these two wanted to play with us! Now these are not some semi-tame Florida dolphins that are accustomed to daily human encounters, this isn't Flipper we are talking about here. These were truly wild dolphins, and they wanted to hang out with us! They kept checking each person out, swimming so close, within feet of us. If someone did a skin dive, or flipped upside down, so did the dolphins. I never wanted it to end! I'm not sure how long the encounter lasted, it might have been minutes although it was more like 5 to 10 minutes. The speed of the dolphins was incredible. No one managed to get pictures and what a shame it would have been to have spent all my time trying to get a picture instead of experiencing it. Something I have learnt from going to gigs!
Eventually our playmates left us and disappeared off into the blue. Back on the boat, everyone was so elated, high-fiving. I couldn't stop punching the air! I believe I even declared deepest love to the captain! I may have missed the whale shark, but the dolphins will live with me forever. I keep seeing them flashing just inches past my face, and I don't even need to close my eyes!
I had a great chat with Dr Rob too. I am hoping to help him out with a few things before I leave. And I have to give him my CV as there is a possibility that there may be some jobs there in the near future. I'm trying not to get my hopes up too much though as you never know.
But still, what an awesome awesome day! I'm going out with them again tomorrow so keep your fingers crossed for a whale shark this time! Preferably one who feels like hanging out at the surface for a bit!
Hasta la proxima, until next time....
So of we go, nice group of people on the boat, heading towards the cayes off the southwest of the island first as this where sharks had been seen all week. I spot the first boil thanks to my trusty binoculars and a good bit of luck! Boils are what they call baitballs here. You may have seen them on wildlife programs on the tv, where small fish gather together in tight fast-moving masses. When they hit the surface or larger fish start to attack them they and the predators break the surface causing it to look like its boiling! You can actually hear it! Anyway, these are where the whale sharks come to feed.
So there we are at the first boil, it's not very big, but we get ready, sitting at the back of the boat, mask and fins on ready to slip into the water if teh captain gives the go-ahead. But nothing. No sightings of sharks, nothing but birds and fish. After a while we give up and try in another direction. Nothing there. So we head back to the first boil to see if it is still going and maybe if it has lured in a shark. Nope! I'm starting to feel a little flat now. Three trips and so far no luck, although it was exciting to see the boils it was more about the promise of what they might bring. Of we go again, moving eastwards along the north coast of the island. We spot dolphins but the soon disappear.
Then just when I have given up the trip as a lost cause I see a tern flying in the distance. I grab the binoculars again and follow it (hard to do in a boat that is rocking making the horizon zoom up and down!) sure enough I see it dive into the see. I point it out to the captain and he sees fish jumping! Yay! Another boil and this time a big one! Excitement ripples throughout the boat, it looks like this time we are going to get lucky. Back to the end of the boat, waiting waiting...can't see the boil, can't see anything as mask fogging up by now. Suddenly shouts of Shark! and...Go! Go! Swim to the front of the boat! There was a couple in front of me and a lady beside me. I dip my fins in trying not to splash and I'm in the water, finning as hard as possible whilst trying not to splash is damn hard! Unfortunately all I could see was the lady in front who was kicking up a storm of bubbles. I catch up with the couple who hug me saying Wasn't that amazing! I have to confess that I saw nothing! Apparently there was a manta ray too. Another animal near the top of my must-see list. I was devastated. Even though they only saw the shark very briefly before it dived, clearly not wanting company. I wasn't the only one who didn't see it. Two more people in the group that got in the water didn't see it. The second group who were waiting on the boat for their turn did see it at the surface. I almost wish I had stayed on the boat. The deep blue water was incredible though and what an adrenalin rush. My fins, I am discovering, might be fantastic for scuba but are not helpful when trying to snorkel silently!
I get back on the boat, trying not to feel resentful of the lady and all her bubble-kicking that had so obscured my view, especially when she starts giving me tips on what to do next time! Of we go again, I'm back to thinking that is the end of our adventure that day. How wrong I was. As we were coming round the east side of the island Captain Willy shouts Dolphins! And sure enough there are bottle-nosed dolphins all over the place. We watch them from the boat for about 5 minutes before we are asked if we want to try swimming with them. Are they kidding?! I was ready at the end of the boat before they had even finished asking. I didn't take my camera as I thought that might jinx my luck! Then we were in the water and I see dolphins swimming past me in every direction. We follow them and oh wow it was so amazing I can hardly believe it happened. First there were a lot of them, then it went down to one or two, but these two wanted to play with us! Now these are not some semi-tame Florida dolphins that are accustomed to daily human encounters, this isn't Flipper we are talking about here. These were truly wild dolphins, and they wanted to hang out with us! They kept checking each person out, swimming so close, within feet of us. If someone did a skin dive, or flipped upside down, so did the dolphins. I never wanted it to end! I'm not sure how long the encounter lasted, it might have been minutes although it was more like 5 to 10 minutes. The speed of the dolphins was incredible. No one managed to get pictures and what a shame it would have been to have spent all my time trying to get a picture instead of experiencing it. Something I have learnt from going to gigs!
Eventually our playmates left us and disappeared off into the blue. Back on the boat, everyone was so elated, high-fiving. I couldn't stop punching the air! I believe I even declared deepest love to the captain! I may have missed the whale shark, but the dolphins will live with me forever. I keep seeing them flashing just inches past my face, and I don't even need to close my eyes!
I had a great chat with Dr Rob too. I am hoping to help him out with a few things before I leave. And I have to give him my CV as there is a possibility that there may be some jobs there in the near future. I'm trying not to get my hopes up too much though as you never know.
But still, what an awesome awesome day! I'm going out with them again tomorrow so keep your fingers crossed for a whale shark this time! Preferably one who feels like hanging out at the surface for a bit!
Hasta la proxima, until next time....
Sunday 15 March 2009
Only 2 weeks left! Oh No!
See this is why I hate going anywhere for less than a month. It has taken me three weeks to grow into this place and now I don't want to go home, and of course the days have started to rush past.
What a brilliant week I've had. Firstly it hasn't rained all week, YAY! Was getting very tired of being confined to my room. There's only so many episodes of CSI you can watch before wanting to murder someone yourself! On Monday I went diving for the first time, with a company called Cross Creek. Bobby Dan was my dive buddy. We went to the north side first to a site called CJ's Drop-off. So named because it is a wall dive. It was wonderful to be diving again but that first dive was mostly taken up with me relaxing into my stride (or even fin-stroke!). The second dive was at a place called Labyrinth. I really enjoyed this one, was very relaxed, there were a lot more fish to see. It's not like the Red Sea in the number of fish seen, but then I have heard people talking about over-fishing. I don't know how much of an issue it really is. But I guess with more and more tourists coming to the island wanting to eat lovely fresh local fish there may well be more pressure being put on the reefs. The other main difference with the Red Sea is the sheer number of hard corals there are here. It does seem a little strange to see such beautiful reefs and not find them teaming with fish. In places you do see huge numbers and varieties but in others it is very sparsely (no idea if that is spelt right!) populated. The dive boats are quite small, and can get a tad over-crowded. That seems to be the norm for most of the dive shops.
Tuesday I was recovering from sun burn! Wednesday I did my first ever whale shark searching trip with the Whale Shark and Oceanic Research Centre. This place is brilliant, run by Dr Rob Davis and Bryan Becker. The boat they go out on is bigger, a hundred times less crowded and they maintain strict rules about the encounters, something that is not always observed by the dive shops. We were not lucky enough to see whale sharks that day but I had the most wonderful afternoon on the boat, searching the seas. I did spot dolphins though and we were able to swim with them. It was a pod (is that just orcas?) of 18 spinner dolphins who were living up to their names and jumping high out of the water and spinning round before re-entry. You have to get in the water really fast and by the time I got in all I saw was a pair of dolphins disappearing into the distance! But I could hear them, all their squeaks and clicks, it was fantastic. The wind had whipped up the waves though, apparently to about 7 feet according to the captain, so it was quite a roller-coaster of a ride and really hinders the search for the sharks.
The next day we heard that whale sharks had been spotted the previous day right near where we had been, but in the morning. The research boats go out in the afternoon to avoid the crush of all the dive boats. By the sound of it 7 dive boats converged on the poor fish. It has rather put me off diving with any of the shops here, although there is a shop connected with the research place who you would assume know how to behave towards the sharks so I might give them a go. I don't want my encounter with the largest fish in the world to be one where I am angry and unhappy at how humans are behaving around the animal.
I did do something worthwhile on Thursday though. I joined up with Jeff from the Cafe Mariposa and we did a major clean up of the water and sea floor around the cafe docks. It took most of the afternoon and we eventually cleaned up a bin and a half of rubbish! Mostly plastic, but also including two toy trucks, two towels (one complete with clothes pegs!) and a pair of jeans! The really great thing about it was the snorkelling there was fantastic! There is a large pile of rocks that were dumped there, these stretch out towards the sea and they are being colonized by young coral. Towards the end of the rocks on the seaward side there were literally hundreds of fish, and I saw several cleaning stations where larger fish were either swimming very slowly or hanging vertically in the water allowing smaller fish to clean wounds and parasites off them!
Honestly it was the best thing I have ever done and I felt so great afterwards. I keep going back to look at our handiwork! I am planning to snorkel there again very soon with my camera and I'll try and get some good underwater shots. It's not easy as my camera isn't as adjustable as newer models so any pictures I take will be pretty crap until I get home and can 'clean' them up, which usually involves injecting some colour and contrast into them.
Friday involved another shark searching trip. Again they had been sighted the day before (story of my life!) by dive boats. Unfortunately the wind was again whipping the waves up pretty high and we had no luck, no dolphins either, although we did stop and snorkel on a lovely reef on the way back. I still had a brilliant time and I'm all signed up for the monday trip! Keep your fingers crossed for me! I took Terrie to Daves in the evening for yet another gorgeous meal. This time my choice was chicken with a red pepper cream sauce. Drool! Followed by Agnes' Swedish apple crumble from Cafe Mariposa! Double drool!
Yesterday I finally had the courage to venture to the free beach, called Chepes Beach. I've had my ear bent so much about the issues here it had made me a tad more cautious than I probably need to be. The beach was lovely, I didn't take any money with me just to be on the safe side, but no one hassled me and no one went near my stuff whilst I was swimming. The swimming is much better than at Bando so I was actually able to get some exercise! Trying to keep up with dolphins the other day has made me realise how unfit I am!
So that has pretty much bought us up to date. My skin is 99.9% healed up, I've lost weight and I feel fantastic! I'm off to the beach again this afternoon with Terrie, and I'll keep you posted on the shark searaching.
Take care all,
lots of love and hugs, Kim the Shark Hunter (in a non-shark killing sense of course!)
What a brilliant week I've had. Firstly it hasn't rained all week, YAY! Was getting very tired of being confined to my room. There's only so many episodes of CSI you can watch before wanting to murder someone yourself! On Monday I went diving for the first time, with a company called Cross Creek. Bobby Dan was my dive buddy. We went to the north side first to a site called CJ's Drop-off. So named because it is a wall dive. It was wonderful to be diving again but that first dive was mostly taken up with me relaxing into my stride (or even fin-stroke!). The second dive was at a place called Labyrinth. I really enjoyed this one, was very relaxed, there were a lot more fish to see. It's not like the Red Sea in the number of fish seen, but then I have heard people talking about over-fishing. I don't know how much of an issue it really is. But I guess with more and more tourists coming to the island wanting to eat lovely fresh local fish there may well be more pressure being put on the reefs. The other main difference with the Red Sea is the sheer number of hard corals there are here. It does seem a little strange to see such beautiful reefs and not find them teaming with fish. In places you do see huge numbers and varieties but in others it is very sparsely (no idea if that is spelt right!) populated. The dive boats are quite small, and can get a tad over-crowded. That seems to be the norm for most of the dive shops.
Tuesday I was recovering from sun burn! Wednesday I did my first ever whale shark searching trip with the Whale Shark and Oceanic Research Centre. This place is brilliant, run by Dr Rob Davis and Bryan Becker. The boat they go out on is bigger, a hundred times less crowded and they maintain strict rules about the encounters, something that is not always observed by the dive shops. We were not lucky enough to see whale sharks that day but I had the most wonderful afternoon on the boat, searching the seas. I did spot dolphins though and we were able to swim with them. It was a pod (is that just orcas?) of 18 spinner dolphins who were living up to their names and jumping high out of the water and spinning round before re-entry. You have to get in the water really fast and by the time I got in all I saw was a pair of dolphins disappearing into the distance! But I could hear them, all their squeaks and clicks, it was fantastic. The wind had whipped up the waves though, apparently to about 7 feet according to the captain, so it was quite a roller-coaster of a ride and really hinders the search for the sharks.
The next day we heard that whale sharks had been spotted the previous day right near where we had been, but in the morning. The research boats go out in the afternoon to avoid the crush of all the dive boats. By the sound of it 7 dive boats converged on the poor fish. It has rather put me off diving with any of the shops here, although there is a shop connected with the research place who you would assume know how to behave towards the sharks so I might give them a go. I don't want my encounter with the largest fish in the world to be one where I am angry and unhappy at how humans are behaving around the animal.
I did do something worthwhile on Thursday though. I joined up with Jeff from the Cafe Mariposa and we did a major clean up of the water and sea floor around the cafe docks. It took most of the afternoon and we eventually cleaned up a bin and a half of rubbish! Mostly plastic, but also including two toy trucks, two towels (one complete with clothes pegs!) and a pair of jeans! The really great thing about it was the snorkelling there was fantastic! There is a large pile of rocks that were dumped there, these stretch out towards the sea and they are being colonized by young coral. Towards the end of the rocks on the seaward side there were literally hundreds of fish, and I saw several cleaning stations where larger fish were either swimming very slowly or hanging vertically in the water allowing smaller fish to clean wounds and parasites off them!
Honestly it was the best thing I have ever done and I felt so great afterwards. I keep going back to look at our handiwork! I am planning to snorkel there again very soon with my camera and I'll try and get some good underwater shots. It's not easy as my camera isn't as adjustable as newer models so any pictures I take will be pretty crap until I get home and can 'clean' them up, which usually involves injecting some colour and contrast into them.
Friday involved another shark searching trip. Again they had been sighted the day before (story of my life!) by dive boats. Unfortunately the wind was again whipping the waves up pretty high and we had no luck, no dolphins either, although we did stop and snorkel on a lovely reef on the way back. I still had a brilliant time and I'm all signed up for the monday trip! Keep your fingers crossed for me! I took Terrie to Daves in the evening for yet another gorgeous meal. This time my choice was chicken with a red pepper cream sauce. Drool! Followed by Agnes' Swedish apple crumble from Cafe Mariposa! Double drool!
Yesterday I finally had the courage to venture to the free beach, called Chepes Beach. I've had my ear bent so much about the issues here it had made me a tad more cautious than I probably need to be. The beach was lovely, I didn't take any money with me just to be on the safe side, but no one hassled me and no one went near my stuff whilst I was swimming. The swimming is much better than at Bando so I was actually able to get some exercise! Trying to keep up with dolphins the other day has made me realise how unfit I am!
So that has pretty much bought us up to date. My skin is 99.9% healed up, I've lost weight and I feel fantastic! I'm off to the beach again this afternoon with Terrie, and I'll keep you posted on the shark searaching.
Take care all,
lots of love and hugs, Kim the Shark Hunter (in a non-shark killing sense of course!)
Sunday 8 March 2009
2 weeks in!
Hello again peeps,
I wish I had lots of exciting adventures to report but unfortunately it has mostly been raining! My crazy Texan neighbour, Bobby Dan, has been looking out for me and took me out for an amazing meal last week. We headed to a bar called Tranquila, which I hear is not so tranquil later on in the evening, but was perfect at sunset, sitting on a high dock overlooking the bay. Then we hopped next door to Dave's. This place doesn't look like much from the outside but my god the food was good! You have a choice of pork or chicken, it is served with rice, mash and salad and a choice of one of 4 or 5 of his famous sauces. I went for red wine and garlic. Yummmmmm! It was a huge plateful! and only cost about 3 pounds!
The following day he took me to this water tower. Sounds exciting doesn't it! However you can climb on top of it and the view is amazing! Unfortunately the camera messed up when I was uploading the pics so not all of the pictures are as good as they were and I don't have any programs here to fix them!
We were meant to go diving yesterday but it was pouring with rain and I slipped over on the way to the dive shop! Hopefully tomorrow. And tonight I'm going to a talk on whale sharks. Might actually get to go out looking for them one of these days, weather permitting. Wish I had more exciting news for you but I've had to stay pretty much holed up due to the rain.
Hopefully I'll have something more interesting to say next time. Take care and big hugs to all.
I wish I had lots of exciting adventures to report but unfortunately it has mostly been raining! My crazy Texan neighbour, Bobby Dan, has been looking out for me and took me out for an amazing meal last week. We headed to a bar called Tranquila, which I hear is not so tranquil later on in the evening, but was perfect at sunset, sitting on a high dock overlooking the bay. Then we hopped next door to Dave's. This place doesn't look like much from the outside but my god the food was good! You have a choice of pork or chicken, it is served with rice, mash and salad and a choice of one of 4 or 5 of his famous sauces. I went for red wine and garlic. Yummmmmm! It was a huge plateful! and only cost about 3 pounds!
The following day he took me to this water tower. Sounds exciting doesn't it! However you can climb on top of it and the view is amazing! Unfortunately the camera messed up when I was uploading the pics so not all of the pictures are as good as they were and I don't have any programs here to fix them!
We were meant to go diving yesterday but it was pouring with rain and I slipped over on the way to the dive shop! Hopefully tomorrow. And tonight I'm going to a talk on whale sharks. Might actually get to go out looking for them one of these days, weather permitting. Wish I had more exciting news for you but I've had to stay pretty much holed up due to the rain.
Hopefully I'll have something more interesting to say next time. Take care and big hugs to all.
Tuesday 3 March 2009
Island life!
Hello folks, sorry for the delay in updates but island life includes the internet going down frequently! Today so did the electricity and the water!
Goodness it has been so long since I last wrote that I can't remember what I was going to tell you about. Let's start with the cockroach!
Ok so its 2.45 am and something wakes me up, I thought I felt something moving in my hair. I hoped it was my imagination but I felt it again. Leaping out of bed I ran and turned the light on. Nothing in the bed, I run into the bathroom. Looking in the mirror I found that all the hair on the left side of my head had come out of my hair band. I couldn't understand what had happened! It certainly was quite a sight. Then I lifted up my hair and saw something. Shaking my hair out quickly I saw a cockroach fall to the floor!!!!! Needless to say it didn't live very long but oh my god! So there I was at 3am setting up my mosquito net. I hadn't really needed it before as I have barely seen any mozzies here but I'm sorry, I put my foot down at having cockroaches wandering around my head all night! I should point out at this point that I hadn't seen any in my apartment before and I haven't seen any since.
Terrie and I went to visit the Iguana reserch station and it was very interesting. Turns out there are quite a few reptile species on the island including 3 iguana species, but only the Black Iguana, or swamper, is endemic to Utila. There are some real issues being faced by the iguanas (and all wildlife) on the island, the greatest being habitat loss due to over-development. There are also issues with all the rubbish, and the fact that the Utilians eat them despite it being illegal.
A few days later i thought I'd try the trail that leads across the island to Rock harbour on the other side. It all started off well, passing through stunning green fields and seeing lots of birds that I haven't seen around town. Then I hit a forest trail, lovely! Reminded me of Costa Rica, until I passed a rubbish dump. Not an official one. Man it would take a huge amount of work to clear up. I was so upset I couldn't even bring myself to take a photo. But I got past that area and it went back to being beautiful again. Lots of lizards and crabs scuttling about. Suddenly I turned a corner and found myself in true mangrove country. Unfortunately this also meant it was calf-deep in mud! I did try to continue but iy was hard to keep track of the trail with all the water so I turned back. I did wander off (foolish perhaps!) in another direction for quite a way and it was just brilliant to be back in a tropical forest again, and there were some seriously impressive trees. Sadly my little compact couldn't cope with the lighting issues so I wasn't able to get any usable pictures. Thanks to my time in Costa Rica I seem to have acquired a pretty good sense of direction because I found my way back to the trail easily enough and headed home, muddy but happy.
Since then I've been mostly holed up in my apartment due to a mixture of rain, and then catching a cold and getting a touch of montezuma's revenge at the same time! Lucky me! That has pretty much caught us up to date. I did my scuba review last week to refresh my skills. But I'm a bit wary of all the dive shops set up out here. It's not like anywhere else I've ever been. I'm thinking of maybe not doing as much diving here as I had originally planned. I can't do the Advanced underwater naturalist course that I wanted as the guy has had to rush home for a family emergency, and it turns out the whale sharks don't just come at this time of year, they are here all year round, oh and the full moon has nothing to do with it either! at least they haven't found a connection here. Oh well! I can still go out and look for them, it's just unlikely I'll get lucky. Last sighting was 30th January. They see more in March and April because the Lonely Planet guides say that is the time to see them so more people arrange to go out looking, rather than there actually being more sharks around at that time!
Eeep! It's getting late here and I had better go grab a plate of the local food (rice, beans, tortillas and either grilled pork or chicken) and head up the hill to my home. Hope everyone is well. I'll try and post again a little sooner next time! Internet and electricity permitting!
Bye for now....
Goodness it has been so long since I last wrote that I can't remember what I was going to tell you about. Let's start with the cockroach!
Ok so its 2.45 am and something wakes me up, I thought I felt something moving in my hair. I hoped it was my imagination but I felt it again. Leaping out of bed I ran and turned the light on. Nothing in the bed, I run into the bathroom. Looking in the mirror I found that all the hair on the left side of my head had come out of my hair band. I couldn't understand what had happened! It certainly was quite a sight. Then I lifted up my hair and saw something. Shaking my hair out quickly I saw a cockroach fall to the floor!!!!! Needless to say it didn't live very long but oh my god! So there I was at 3am setting up my mosquito net. I hadn't really needed it before as I have barely seen any mozzies here but I'm sorry, I put my foot down at having cockroaches wandering around my head all night! I should point out at this point that I hadn't seen any in my apartment before and I haven't seen any since.
Terrie and I went to visit the Iguana reserch station and it was very interesting. Turns out there are quite a few reptile species on the island including 3 iguana species, but only the Black Iguana, or swamper, is endemic to Utila. There are some real issues being faced by the iguanas (and all wildlife) on the island, the greatest being habitat loss due to over-development. There are also issues with all the rubbish, and the fact that the Utilians eat them despite it being illegal.
A few days later i thought I'd try the trail that leads across the island to Rock harbour on the other side. It all started off well, passing through stunning green fields and seeing lots of birds that I haven't seen around town. Then I hit a forest trail, lovely! Reminded me of Costa Rica, until I passed a rubbish dump. Not an official one. Man it would take a huge amount of work to clear up. I was so upset I couldn't even bring myself to take a photo. But I got past that area and it went back to being beautiful again. Lots of lizards and crabs scuttling about. Suddenly I turned a corner and found myself in true mangrove country. Unfortunately this also meant it was calf-deep in mud! I did try to continue but iy was hard to keep track of the trail with all the water so I turned back. I did wander off (foolish perhaps!) in another direction for quite a way and it was just brilliant to be back in a tropical forest again, and there were some seriously impressive trees. Sadly my little compact couldn't cope with the lighting issues so I wasn't able to get any usable pictures. Thanks to my time in Costa Rica I seem to have acquired a pretty good sense of direction because I found my way back to the trail easily enough and headed home, muddy but happy.
Since then I've been mostly holed up in my apartment due to a mixture of rain, and then catching a cold and getting a touch of montezuma's revenge at the same time! Lucky me! That has pretty much caught us up to date. I did my scuba review last week to refresh my skills. But I'm a bit wary of all the dive shops set up out here. It's not like anywhere else I've ever been. I'm thinking of maybe not doing as much diving here as I had originally planned. I can't do the Advanced underwater naturalist course that I wanted as the guy has had to rush home for a family emergency, and it turns out the whale sharks don't just come at this time of year, they are here all year round, oh and the full moon has nothing to do with it either! at least they haven't found a connection here. Oh well! I can still go out and look for them, it's just unlikely I'll get lucky. Last sighting was 30th January. They see more in March and April because the Lonely Planet guides say that is the time to see them so more people arrange to go out looking, rather than there actually being more sharks around at that time!
Eeep! It's getting late here and I had better go grab a plate of the local food (rice, beans, tortillas and either grilled pork or chicken) and head up the hill to my home. Hope everyone is well. I'll try and post again a little sooner next time! Internet and electricity permitting!
Bye for now....
Monday 23 February 2009
Bienvenidos a mi casa! Welcome to my house!
Well folks, it's me again. Goodness I don't really know where to start. What a strange little island. The town is very busy, lots of travellers and backpackers mostly here for diving. So many dive shops you wonder how the hell they get enough customers to survive. Lots of rubbish which is such a shame, although they keep the main street pretty clean. There are issues with what to do with rubbish and their new recycling plant is ready but not open. It's a problem that is seen all over Central America. People just throw their rubbish anywhere they can and it's like they can't see it. It is much their cultural upbringing as their education I think. It was even bad in Costa Rica which has such a wonderful reputation for conservation and eco-lodges. Much of the island has been bought up by Americans who divide the land into plots and build on them. It won't be that long before it is all houses, either for ex-pats or for holiday homes, aside from the mangrove and savannah on the west end of the island which can't be built on. It must have been wonderful about 10 years ago.
The Utilians that I have met have all been friendly and helpful and I love their creole accent, remind me of Jamaica but is mostly easier to understand. There are lots of people here from the mainland now (come to supply the tourist industry probably) so quite a lot more spanish is spoken than there used to be.
I've been feeling very anti-american ever since I saw all the realty offices and their pictures of the island all divided up into plots. But they are not all bad. Terrie and Jeff who own the lovely Cafe Mariposa (fabulous fresca drinks with big glasses of safe-to-drink ice and lime and the wonderful nachos that can be seen in the photos!) work hard to use only glass bottles which can be recycled and to reduce and reuse as much as possible.
Anyway, I'll get back to my rant soon. So back to my actual travels. Cynthia the Australian and I headed to Coopers Inn for our first night. Basic rooms and shared bathroom for $10 a night. The people who run it are very nice but the shower was a nightmare, in fact calling it a shower is an insult to showers! More like a dripping tap! The following day, Saturday, Cynthia helped me trek around town looking for apartments. Starting to panic as finding everything a lot more expensive than planned or already full. Lots of places were also closed. There is a religion here that has Saturday as the Sabbath. Is it the Seventh Day Adventists? anyone know? I've seen one of their schools here. Anyway, one of the most promising places, Countryside, was closed so I had to leave it till the following day. In the afternoon we headed to the Bandu beach which you pay $3 to use. Not a bad place, the entry fee keeps the numbers of people down and the place was pretty clean. Was lovely to get in the water. Saw plenty of fish, including a huge barracuda who kept eyeballing me. But the snorkelling wasn't that great. By the time we realised we needed to walk way out over some rocks to reach the actual reef it was a bit late to try. But that is where the palm trees in the photos are.
Yesterday morning I went back to Countryside and picked up a lovely little apartment for $314 for 5 weeks. I have a private bathroom with a decent cold shower, a tv with cable (watched the Oscars last night! ok ok I slept through most of it!), and a little kitchenette. I'm really pleased with it and sooooo glad to be able to unpack finally and not have to lug my bags about anymore.
Is the island what I expected? No, not any more. Too much development, too much tourism and not enough concern for the environment. There is a Conservation organisation here who are fighting hard to improve things. I heard that they could maybe use a hand so now I am planning to get in touch and see if I can be of any use a day or two a week.
I'd better stop there as the post will be way too long and you will have all fallen asleep before you reach the end. Sorry about that. I've never managed to keep travel journals before and I'm kind of using this blog as my journal. Do feel free to switch off if you get bored!
Hasta pronto amigos y familia, talk to you soon friends and family. Big hugs to all.
The Utilians that I have met have all been friendly and helpful and I love their creole accent, remind me of Jamaica but is mostly easier to understand. There are lots of people here from the mainland now (come to supply the tourist industry probably) so quite a lot more spanish is spoken than there used to be.
I've been feeling very anti-american ever since I saw all the realty offices and their pictures of the island all divided up into plots. But they are not all bad. Terrie and Jeff who own the lovely Cafe Mariposa (fabulous fresca drinks with big glasses of safe-to-drink ice and lime and the wonderful nachos that can be seen in the photos!) work hard to use only glass bottles which can be recycled and to reduce and reuse as much as possible.
Anyway, I'll get back to my rant soon. So back to my actual travels. Cynthia the Australian and I headed to Coopers Inn for our first night. Basic rooms and shared bathroom for $10 a night. The people who run it are very nice but the shower was a nightmare, in fact calling it a shower is an insult to showers! More like a dripping tap! The following day, Saturday, Cynthia helped me trek around town looking for apartments. Starting to panic as finding everything a lot more expensive than planned or already full. Lots of places were also closed. There is a religion here that has Saturday as the Sabbath. Is it the Seventh Day Adventists? anyone know? I've seen one of their schools here. Anyway, one of the most promising places, Countryside, was closed so I had to leave it till the following day. In the afternoon we headed to the Bandu beach which you pay $3 to use. Not a bad place, the entry fee keeps the numbers of people down and the place was pretty clean. Was lovely to get in the water. Saw plenty of fish, including a huge barracuda who kept eyeballing me. But the snorkelling wasn't that great. By the time we realised we needed to walk way out over some rocks to reach the actual reef it was a bit late to try. But that is where the palm trees in the photos are.
Yesterday morning I went back to Countryside and picked up a lovely little apartment for $314 for 5 weeks. I have a private bathroom with a decent cold shower, a tv with cable (watched the Oscars last night! ok ok I slept through most of it!), and a little kitchenette. I'm really pleased with it and sooooo glad to be able to unpack finally and not have to lug my bags about anymore.
Is the island what I expected? No, not any more. Too much development, too much tourism and not enough concern for the environment. There is a Conservation organisation here who are fighting hard to improve things. I heard that they could maybe use a hand so now I am planning to get in touch and see if I can be of any use a day or two a week.
I'd better stop there as the post will be way too long and you will have all fallen asleep before you reach the end. Sorry about that. I've never managed to keep travel journals before and I'm kind of using this blog as my journal. Do feel free to switch off if you get bored!
Hasta pronto amigos y familia, talk to you soon friends and family. Big hugs to all.
Sunday 22 February 2009
What a journey!
Hello peeps, well I made it one piece. But only just! The flight from Heathrow was fun, good films, saw The Duchess and Vicky Cristina Barcelona oh yes and Madagascar 2!! Didn't think to sleep. Might have been a mistake. Huge crosswinds coming into JFK airport in New York made for one hell of a bumpy landing. Followed by 6 hours aimlessly humping heavy backbacks around the airport. Soon realised that it was really 6 in the morning UK time which might have been why I was fading fast!
Slept all the way from JFK to San Pedro Sula, much needed I can tell you, arriving bleary eyed at 7am to torrential rain! Realised then that raincoat was buried deep in the rucksack. Oops! Had to wait for a few hours for bus terminal to open so enjoyed watching the rain until it cleared and the first rays of sun appeared. Everything was fresh and green and brightly coloured with tropical plants. Got chatted up by a policeman, who very kindly helped me with my bags to the bus.
Nice bus, more luxury coach actually. Couple of stops and four hours later I arrived in La Ceiba on the North coast. Unfortunately I slept most of the way but whenever I did open my eyes there were stunning forest-covered mountains. Got a taxi to the ferry port, another wait...forgot that waiting is a huge part of travelling! The wait was worth it though as there were some great birds to look at, no not the two legged kind, I'm not that way enclined! Saw frigate birds, terns and a stunning osprey. Then a tiny ferry appears, not what I was expecting at all. Met some nice people whilst waiting, and ended up sitting outside on the front of the ferry with them. This proved to be a very wet experience as you will see from the slide show! But what a ride, got called a crazy pom by my new Australian friend for clinging onto the front whooping with delight with every huge spray of water that hit us. Two of my new friends are the owners of a very pretty cafe and offered all who get soaked a free drink!
So it's been a pretty good start so far. Have spent 24 hours here now, but will tell you about the island in my next installment.
Adios amigos!
Slept all the way from JFK to San Pedro Sula, much needed I can tell you, arriving bleary eyed at 7am to torrential rain! Realised then that raincoat was buried deep in the rucksack. Oops! Had to wait for a few hours for bus terminal to open so enjoyed watching the rain until it cleared and the first rays of sun appeared. Everything was fresh and green and brightly coloured with tropical plants. Got chatted up by a policeman, who very kindly helped me with my bags to the bus.
Nice bus, more luxury coach actually. Couple of stops and four hours later I arrived in La Ceiba on the North coast. Unfortunately I slept most of the way but whenever I did open my eyes there were stunning forest-covered mountains. Got a taxi to the ferry port, another wait...forgot that waiting is a huge part of travelling! The wait was worth it though as there were some great birds to look at, no not the two legged kind, I'm not that way enclined! Saw frigate birds, terns and a stunning osprey. Then a tiny ferry appears, not what I was expecting at all. Met some nice people whilst waiting, and ended up sitting outside on the front of the ferry with them. This proved to be a very wet experience as you will see from the slide show! But what a ride, got called a crazy pom by my new Australian friend for clinging onto the front whooping with delight with every huge spray of water that hit us. Two of my new friends are the owners of a very pretty cafe and offered all who get soaked a free drink!
So it's been a pretty good start so far. Have spent 24 hours here now, but will tell you about the island in my next installment.
Adios amigos!
Sunday 15 February 2009
p.s.
Malaria tablets taste disgusting!
Oh and please ignore the slideshow for the time being. I wanted to get it in place on the page, but as soon as I have some real trip photos I will be showing them instead of blog page elements!
Oh and please ignore the slideshow for the time being. I wanted to get it in place on the page, but as soon as I have some real trip photos I will be showing them instead of blog page elements!
4 more sleeps!
Amazing how time flies! I can't quite believe that my adventure begins in just a few days. I have found a great way to deal with the panic that washes over me from time to time. I sit transfixed watching some amazing wildlife webcams that I have found that show live streaming footage from Ecuador, Africa and the Belize reef. They are well worth taking a look at, you never know what you might see!
Click here for the one in Ecuador. It is mostly hummingbirds but you can sometimes see toucans and the wonderfully snuffly-nosed coati, a Latin American mammal that is related to the raccoon.
Click here for the Belize reef. They have been making some repairs and adjustments to this cam over the last few days so if it doesn't work, go back again soon. It's wonderful watching the fish and I saw a stingray the other day :)
Last but definitely not least, whilst not remotely related to my current trip, the cam in Africa is amazing. I've seen so much wildlife on it, including giraffes, warthogs, elephant and antelope. Click here to check it out :)
I'm not sure which of the other National Geographic Wildcams are live/working at the moment as some of them are seasonal.
No other trip news to report at the moment, aside from the occasional panic attack, my biggest concern right now is whether or not the walking shoes I bought will actually arrive in time! I'll try and post again on Wednesday, which is packing day, and maybe even get a photo of the chaos zone that is my bedroom!
Adios amigos!
Click here for the one in Ecuador. It is mostly hummingbirds but you can sometimes see toucans and the wonderfully snuffly-nosed coati, a Latin American mammal that is related to the raccoon.
Click here for the Belize reef. They have been making some repairs and adjustments to this cam over the last few days so if it doesn't work, go back again soon. It's wonderful watching the fish and I saw a stingray the other day :)
Last but definitely not least, whilst not remotely related to my current trip, the cam in Africa is amazing. I've seen so much wildlife on it, including giraffes, warthogs, elephant and antelope. Click here to check it out :)
I'm not sure which of the other National Geographic Wildcams are live/working at the moment as some of them are seasonal.
No other trip news to report at the moment, aside from the occasional panic attack, my biggest concern right now is whether or not the walking shoes I bought will actually arrive in time! I'll try and post again on Wednesday, which is packing day, and maybe even get a photo of the chaos zone that is my bedroom!
Adios amigos!
Wednesday 11 February 2009
8 days to go!
Woooohoooo! All the shopping is done, the money is ordered and the nerves have disappeared to be replaced with pure excitement! I found a great website the other night all about Utila (http://www.aboututila.com/index.html). Silly woman I should have googled it sooner :p Anyway I found a list of all the apartments that are available for longer term and yay! there are plenty in my price range. Let's just hope they are not all taken.
There was the most beautiful eco-lodge, unfortunately it's just outside my price range (ok ok its about twice as much! :D). Almost wish I hadn't seen it, just look at this gorgeous bedroom! (Click here!). With my budget I'm not likely to find such beauty! And most of the cheaper apartments are away from the ocean front. Again, hardly surprising :) Still, the more I read about the place the more I can't wait to get there.
Tomorrow I have to start my malaria tablets, never had to take them before :( Still, better safe than sorry! Well, can't think of anything else right now, just glancing around my bedroom makes my heart race as there is travel and diving gear scattered over every available surface including the top of the tv! It's been so long since I've been on an adventure, I can't wait!
Bye for now!
There was the most beautiful eco-lodge, unfortunately it's just outside my price range (ok ok its about twice as much! :D). Almost wish I hadn't seen it, just look at this gorgeous bedroom! (Click here!). With my budget I'm not likely to find such beauty! And most of the cheaper apartments are away from the ocean front. Again, hardly surprising :) Still, the more I read about the place the more I can't wait to get there.
Tomorrow I have to start my malaria tablets, never had to take them before :( Still, better safe than sorry! Well, can't think of anything else right now, just glancing around my bedroom makes my heart race as there is travel and diving gear scattered over every available surface including the top of the tv! It's been so long since I've been on an adventure, I can't wait!
Bye for now!
Sunday 8 February 2009
11 days to go!
A mixture of panic and excitement is setting in now, and having just looked at my bank account it is more panic than excitement at the moment! I'm mad to do this, but hey, I've always been mad so no surprises there :)
I'm off to Norwich tomorrow for, hopefully, the last holiday shopping trip. I keep buying things and then returning them because they are not right! The return list currently includes two pairs of shoes, one book and one hat! Pity I can't return my brain and ask for a refund. Let's hope tomorrow is slightly more successful. The shopping list for tomorrow is frighteningly long and I can hear my credit card groaning already at the prospect. Let's hope the recession has ended by the time I get back and I have the amazing fortune to walk straight into a job.
Ta ta for now folks :)
I'm off to Norwich tomorrow for, hopefully, the last holiday shopping trip. I keep buying things and then returning them because they are not right! The return list currently includes two pairs of shoes, one book and one hat! Pity I can't return my brain and ask for a refund. Let's hope tomorrow is slightly more successful. The shopping list for tomorrow is frighteningly long and I can hear my credit card groaning already at the prospect. Let's hope the recession has ended by the time I get back and I have the amazing fortune to walk straight into a job.
Ta ta for now folks :)
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