Diving, Snorkeling and Eating In Utila
Upon arriving at Utila we were bombarded by people trying to get us to go to their dive shops. There are more dive shops on Utila than people. So we just put our heads down and ¨dived¨ through the crowd (so to speak) and got away from the hubbub. We wandered around town for awhile, noted that the prices were back up to Costa Rican equivalents, meaning 5$ a plate for food. Rooms were cheaper though. We were hungry, so we wanted to find something light. We were looking for Batidos, called Licuados here, which are basically blended fruit and milk. I asked about a dozen places, none of which had any. They said they were out of fruit. Finally I found a place that still offered Licuados, so I asked what type they had. They said Banana. I said ok, we´ll take one. We did, liked it, wanted another, so I asked for a second. He said he couldn´t, we ate the last banana. So apparently, since no other place had any, we ate the last banana on the island. Go us!
Bellies less empty, we set about finding a dive shop. All of them were basically the same price and offered the exact same item (an open water certification) and so we were left to decide based on how we liked a place. After trying every place in town, we settled on BICD, Bay Islands College of Diving. The instructors were upbeat, fun, and didn´t ooze that ¨hey dude, ain´t weed great!¨ vibe that some of the other shops did. Total cost was 271$ and that included 3 nights of room rental and 2 free fun dives after the course was finished. Plus, they offered free internet for students!
We walked down to the beach on Utila, which isn´t much of a beach for an island, where they had a slackline set up. Which was considerably harder than it looked. It is basically a tie-down strap put between two trees and stretched tight. So it is a poor man´s tightrope. They said I did quite well for a beginner, but to be honest that wasn´t so great.
Later we had a ¨taco¨ in a ¨mexican¨ restaurant. It cost about 5$, and we were somewhat shocked to receive a plate with a cupful of chicken in the middle and chips stacked around the outside. I explained to them we ordered a taco, not ¨that¨. The menu specifically said it was ¨two tortillas deep fried with chicken¨. I pointed this out, and he explained that this used to BE two tortillas and they had been cut and deep fried into chips. And that this WAS a taco. I explained to him that this was NOT a taco, but that I would eat it. It actually didn´t taste bad, but it was a small portion for the price. This is a recurring theme on Utila.
Another recurring theme is that everyone on Utila quotes prices in dollars. And require payment in dollars, or in a very bad exchange rate for Lempiras, the local currency. But none of the banks or ATMs on Utila give out dollars. So where do the dollars go? I never figured out, but bring dollars to Utila!
That said, if you don´t have dollars, you can go to the ATM and pull out money. In Lempira, of course. Then go down the street to Jose´s money changing shack (His name isn´t Jose, but I forget what it was) (and seriously, it was a shack!) and he gives a pretty fair exchange rate and has a gigantic wad of dollars under his falling apart desk. Unlocked of course. Sometimes things make little sense to me here, but I guess that is part of the experience of traveling 
When we first walked into Utila, we saw a sign that said “Indian Wok Restaurant”. And I, being a fan of Indian food, promised myself we’d eat there before we left. So that night I tried to find it again. Now mind you, Utila has 2 real streets, that run at 90 degree angles to each other, and a few alleys around these streets. You CANNOT get lost. And we KNEW we’d seen this on Main Street. So we walked back and forth. Looking for it. Again and again. We just couldn’t find it! We asked people, and they pointed us in a certain direction, and it wasn’t there. We asked others, and it wasn’t where they said either. 3 days we walked up and down this street on various errands and never saw it. Finally, when we had all but given up, I went on one last quest to find it. After sorting through the various directions, talking with the few people who seemed to have heard of it, I finally traced it to a certain place. I went next door and asked them if they knew of the Indian Wok. They said no, they’d never heard of it. I went back around and finally found a tiny building by a pier behind another building, that had no sign, where they were cooking. Turns out it was the Wok. They had a TINY sign that the put out only when they were actually open, which was only about 4 days a week from 6:30 till 11 pm. And they SERIOUSLY need to work on their advertising, is all I have to say.
So to digress a bit, while Crystal was getting certified as a diver (I have been for some years now) I had some time on my hands so I wanted to go get some dives in while I could. The only boat leaving when I wanted to go was from Parrot Divers. I didn´t like the outfit very much, but it was ok. Cost 52$ for two-tank dives. You can tell how long it´s been since I dove with a wetsuit since I accidentally put my suit on backwards. (Hey, the full-length body zipper is easier to pull up in the front!)
The dives were ok. I still am not too impressed with diving. I guess I´ve never been in the right place at the right time. Snorkeling is always so much better it seems. But I was glad when they were over. The next day I had a full day while Crystal was getting certified (It is a 3-4 day process).
So I noticed that they had three computers, but only one was turned on. I enquired why, and was told that the others didn´t work. Ah-hah! Something to amuse myself.
Having certain skills in the broken computer department, I volunteered to take a look at them. They said it was no use, someone had looked at them and said it was hopelessly broken. Ah-hah! A challenge! So they told me to knock myself out. 20 minutes later I had, to quote one of the instructors ¨three computers worth of parts spread out all over the floor¨. A swiss army knife was my only tool. This is how the computer looked when I started:
So you can see, it needed help. Well, I fiddled with it for awhile and finally got one of them up and running. Then I made the other one run faster (it was terribly bogged down with cookies and background programs and the like).
I was just about done when another instructor comes over and says he has a mini laptop that has died. Apparently, his antivirus program had deleted user32.dll. Which is, apparently, a file that windows considers important. So his computer was a nice paperweight for now. But it was so small it had no CD drive, so the only options were a network or a USB boot. Never having done either, it took me most of the day to work out a decent USB boot system. It was so hard and took so long that by the time I was done, he was practically begging me to give up. Hah!
Naturally, I did eventually get it working at about dark. The next day I decided to go diving with Crystal and BICD decided to award me 2 free dives in exchange for services rendered. So not only did I get to have fun, but I got paid for it!
These dives were significantly better. People make a big difference in such things, and the people at BICD were the best. Kinda like a disfunctional family. That night we ate at the Indian Wok, and had Garbanzo Curry, and Curried Hummus. Both of which are recipes I will be working on duplicating when I get home.
Next morning we headed for Jewel Key, a tiny island off Utila that was entirely built into a town. To get there we took a water taxi, which was actually a 12-foot boat completely filled with propane tanks and 8 people. The boat rode so low in the water that it was in considerable danger of swamping several times. Plus the waves were rather high that day, so we actually surfed - in the boat - to the island. It was quite fun!
We were never more than 50 yards from shore though, and we passed about 20 dive boats on the way. I commented to the others that if we WERE going to get shipwrecked, then doing it surrounded by literally hundreds of rescue divers was probably a good place to have it happen!
And the driver of the boat (err, captain) didn´t charge us for the ride. Which was cool. We walked through the small key/town and tried a local specialty - fish burgers. I was not impressed. But interestingly, prices on Jewel Key were LESS than Utila. I get that everything on Utila has to be shipped in from the mainland. So it´s more expensive, OK, I understand. But why does ANOTHER boat trip to an even MORE isolated island make prices 30% less?? It hurt my head, so I tried not to think about it much.
Next morning we rented fins (we had been carrying snorkels since Costa Rica without using them) and took a water taxi to an even SMALLER island called water key. Which had some good snorkeling, as you can see:
Literally thousands and thousands of minnows, it was like swimming through minnow snow.
After that, we headed back to Utila. Checked my internet, and in responding to Emails ALMOST missed the last boat back to the mainland. Seriously, it was pulling away from the dock as I was running up. Crystal had gone ahead and was trying to get them to wait for me and they didn´t want to. When I made it evident I was willing to jump onto the receding boat, they caved in and let me on. I had already paid the exorbitant 25$ pp (each way!) fare. I WAS getting on!
Anyway. I didn´t really like Utila that much. It was hard to find good food that wasn´t white flour based. Street food was pretty scarce and restaurants were pretty expensive and portions were small. It was noisy on the weekends and it was just… not too nice. I didn´t think. Not to mention the streets were about 10´ wide and was shared by trucks, mopeds, people, and bikes. There was a constant danger of being run over by something from one direction or another. So I was SO relieved to get back to the mainland and have some REAL food. Tamales, Batidos, Soup, and affordable again!
Next we headed to Copan. Don´t touch that dial! (So to speak!)
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Posted on February 20th, 2009 by Natnee and filed under Honduras |
