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....