Tela

The last stop in my vacation is Tela, a small city on the Caribbean coast of Honduras about an hour and a half south and east of San Pedro Sula.

Tela is nice, but the beach would benefit from an organized clean-up to pick up the trash that litters the sand.

Tela, as seen from the Maya Vista hotel

My days here have been pretty lazy. I walked along the beach for two hours on Saturday; on Sunday I went to Parque Nacional Jeanette Kawas (Punta Sal); and today I went to the Lancetilla botanical gardens and sat on the beach. I´m staying at the Maya Vista, which has a good restaurant and great patio conducive to drinking and watching the sunset.

Parque Nacional Jeanette Kawas

Howler monkeys at PN Jeanette Kawas

I head back to the U.S. tomorrow. I´ll catch a mid-morning bus from Tela to San Pedro Sula and sit in the airport until my flight leaves. Overall, this has been a good vacation and I feel rejuvenated.

Utila II

My week of diving in Utila was good. I liked the rhythym of the day, except for the waking up at 6:15 AM part for the 7:00 departure for the morning dives. The upshot of such an early start is that by 11, I was "done" for the day and could eat lunch, sit around, read-nap, and enjoy the sunset before dinner and turning in at 8. There isn´t a whole lot to do on Utila - what I just described pretty much sums it up. I took a walk one afternoon but aborted after about an hour b-c I decided it was hot and that I´d rather be napping.

View from Rubi's Inn pier at dawn

Utila's happenin' main street

Overall, the diving was good, not great. The reefs were pretty healthy and there was a good diversity of hard and soft corals, sponges, and fish. I was happy with the dive shop. I was a little underwhelmed b-c I think Asia really spoiled me. At Sipadan (in Malaysia), I saw a bajillion (yes, I counted) sharks and turtles and huge schools of fish. In Utila, no sharks, no turtles, some schooling fish, and certainly no whale sharks. But still, the diving was good, and I don´t regret returning to the Bay Islands.

Utila

I arrived on Utila on Saturday morning. The ferry ride over was very bumpy, and some people got sick. Thankfully, I did not.

I had mixed karma on arrival. I found a great place to stay that is only $15 per night, and I found a good dive shop to dive with. My bad karma was that I felt a little ill - fluish, or maybe I swallowed some fecal matter while river rafting the day before. I decided not to dive for a day and just chilled out instead.

I did go diving on Monday afternoon. We went to two sites on the south side. Both were good - lots of corals and fish. The reef is pretty healthy. I got extremely cold during both dives, which kind of sucked.

On today's two dives on the north side, I wore two wetsuits and was quite toasty, although it was a little hard to move my arms. I felt a little bit like the little brother in "The Christmas Story." Today's dives were good, too. Our boat lost its rudder right before the first dive, so we had to get towed to the buoy, towed to the second dive site, and towed to shore. Thankfully the dive shop already has a replacement boat.

dive site on north side of Utila

I'm done for the day. Dive vacations are great. The only bad part is that I had to be at the dive shop at 6:30 AM for our departure, but after two very strenous hours underwater floating around and looking at fish I can sit around all afternoon and do nothing. Dinner is on the agenda for the evening, but first it is hammock time.

La Ceiba

On the flight from Miami to San Pedro Sula, I changed my mind about heading straight to the islands and decided to spend a few days in La Ceiba instead.

La Ceiba has changed quite a bit since I passed through 6 years ago. For one, a small tourist infrastructure developed, which made it a lot easier to enjoy the area's natural wonders. I stayed at Omega Jungle Lodge, which I would describe as a backpacker ecolodge. Two Germans ran it. I spent most of the non-nature-y time sitting at the bar talking to the disgruntled returned Peace Corps Volunteer bartender who was about to quit after all of 4 days of work.

Jungle Lodge Bar

On Saturday, I went white water rafting on the Rio Cangrejal. Our group of five started off with some river swimming and boulder jumping. The river is a bit low right now, so the rapids were only class II - III, and only one was challenging. They were all fun though, and I had a great guide. All I had to do was follow his instructions on when to paddle, when to back paddle, and when to stop.

Blogazon conquers a rapid

In the afternoon, I hiked up part of Pico Bonito to a very nice waterfall whose name escapes me right now. The trail was fairly well marked and not strenous.

Cascada El Bejuco

My time in La Ceiba was very worthwhile, and I'm glad I decided to spend two nights there. I probably could have spent another day or two, but diving called.

Mañana

Tomorrow I leave for a little vay-cay. I'm going to play it by ear, but the rough plan is to get to Utila on Saturday and spend about a week diving. After that, I'll head back to the mainland for some time on the beach in Tela. Or maybe I'll spend some time near La Ceiba.

Amo Honduras !

Super Tuesday redux

I don't have much to add to what has already been said by the bajillion commentators.

On the left, I'm not surprised that yesterday resolved nothing. I'm getting a little excited that my vote in a month might actually mean something. But then again, even after Ohio and Texas, there probably won't be a winner. I'm waffling as to whom I should support. My head says Clinton but damn does she have a lot of baggage, so much so that she is more likely to lose in November. My heart says Obama, but I can't help but feeling he is an empty vessel into which we pour our hopes.

On the right, Huckabee's victories, although dwarfed by McCain's, surprised me. They raised the increasingly likely specter of Vice President Huckabee. He may be folksy and charming, but deep down he is evil.