Or I died in La Ceiba and went to heaven, and haven’t realized it yet. Not quite sure which.
I’ve been wanting to write something here the last couple days but have been too overwhelmed by everything that has happened to even know where to begin. I’ll just write about what I’ve done and where I’ve gone today, and I’ll update again in the next couple days with more descriptions of what Honduran culture and life is like. So if you don’t want to just read about me going to beaches and whatnot, wait for the other post.
Right now I am on Utila, one of the Bay Islands off the coast of northern Honduras. I flew into San Pedro Sula on Wednesday, a city in the Northeast of Honduras near the border with Guatamala. I took a taxi from there to Tela, a city on the northern coast west of where I’ll be volunteering, and stayed there from Wednesday until Saturday.
I met some other tourists in Tela from Italy, the States, and Australia and decided to take some tours with them. The Australians were in the middle of a year long trip through South America, so talking to them about all their favorite places was obviously really interesting. On Thursday we took a boat across the bay that Tela is on to a national park in the rainforest that can’t be reached by cars. The park was beautiful and has a sad story behind it. The area was going to be developed and luxury hotels were going to be put in but a Honduran woman protested this and organized to have it turned into a park. She succeeded and now no one but Indians who live off the land lives in the park, but she was murdered soon after it became a park, and most people think it was by someone in the tourist industry although the case was unsolved.
When we landed in the park we went for a short walk in the rainforest. We saw about 20 howler monkeys which make the most terrible sound you can imagine, some enormous spiders that made webs that covered three trees, and about a million crabs and lizards.
After that we rode down the coast a little, past some beautiful rock formations that were covered with birds including tons and tons of pelicans. Then we went snorkeling and drifted down to a beautiful beach where we had lunch. Saw a lot of jellyfish and tiny little fish as far as we could see.
After that we basically just lay in hammocks on the beach for a couple hours and relaxed. Our guide was a Honduran who lived in NYC most of his life and then went back to live there. Basically he sat on the boat, went for a walk and sat in a hammock on a beautiful deserted beach all day, and got paid for it. We can’t really understand why he would leave NY for this.
All of this cost around 25 USD which covered the boat ride, lunch, and the guide for the day. Everything in Honduras is ridiculously cheap; right now I’m staying in a hotel right by the beach for 8 dollars a night if that gives you any idea. Meals can be under 2 dollars if you get food from one of the street vendors who sell fruit and tortillas filled with meat, rice, and beans. Sit down restaurants are usually more like 4-6 dollars but the cheap places are almost always delicious, so I’ve only ate in the nicer restaurants a few times.
On Friday I went with the Italian woman I met to the village of Miami, Honduras. Just like our Miami Beach its an hour out of town on a very rough dirt road and has no electricity or running water. The economy is basically based on a couple fishing boats and a couple restaurants that serve drinks and food to the tourists, who seemed to usually be younger Honduran couples and families.
The “village” if you can even call it that is between a lagoon and the ocean, and wherever you sit you have a nice view of both. The local people built a lot of cabanas out of straw and we spend most of the day swimming or just sitting under them. It was pretty much beach as far as we could see in either direction and then mountains in the distance (pretty much everywhere you go in Honduras you can at least see the mountains).
To give more perspective on prices, the taxi driver who took us to Miami stayed there all day and waited for us since it would be impossible to catch another one there. It cost around 10 dollars to have him for the whole day, although he played cards with the people who owned the restaurant and didn’t seem to mind waiting.
After that we went to the Mesa Andes hotel where the American family was staying and had dinner. The hotel is about 10 stories up overlooking the sea, and from the top you can see the whole town, the rainforest, the bay, and a few other small villages. We had dinner there during sunset, which cost a little more than usual (about 7 or 8 dollars) but considering it was one of the nicest views I’ve ever seen and really good food I couldn’t really complain.
Yesterday I took a bus to La Ceiba, which is west of Tela and the big city that is close to the village I’ll be volunteering in. I took a taxi to El Porvenir where I’ll be volunteering to drop off my luggage that I wouldn’t need. We got there and the driver started yelling at everyone he saw “donde esta los gringos?” Eventually a little kid jumped in and said he would take us to Charlie.
Charlie is an older American from Louisiana who lives in El Porvenir with his wife. I’ll talk more about them once I start volunteering, but they work with the school and are very involved in the community. Charlie got in a fight with the driver when I told him what I was paying, I was apparently getting ripped off badly which I usually just assume at this point. Its funny because you catch yourself arguing prices intensely with people here and then realze suddenly that you’re arguing over 30 or 40 cents, but in this case Charlie managed to negotiate a rate 10 dollars cheaper so it was worth it.
After I left my things the driver took me back to La Ceiba and then I took a boat to Utila, one of the “Bay Islands” off the coast of La Ceiba. Utila and Roatan are the two most famous islands in the Honduran Caribbean, and I had trouble deciding which to go to. Roatan is much bigger and more developed, and has cruise ships stop there and lots of families vacationing. Utila is an island that is famous for its diving, and everyone said it was cheaper and better for younger people.
When I got to Utila I arrived in a towns that has tons of restaurants, dive shops, and an absurd amount of bars. I pretty much just randomly looked for hotels and found one with a room for 8 dollars a night run by a really nice older Honduran couple who talked to me for awhile about the island.
“So its safe here at night?”
“There is no crime in Utila. If you fall asleep on the beach don’t have too much money on you but you probably will be ok anyway.”
“No crime?”
“Well if you want a fight you could ask somewhere at a bar nicely. But only if you want to. Otherwise no. Were you here for Sun Jam? Tourists were on the beach all night!”
“What is Sun Jam?”
“It is three days on a small island off of Utila in a cave. I think they listen to this music…electronic? Do you know?”
“So if I was here a week ago I could’ve gone to an electronic music festival in a cave on an island?”
“Yes. Very nice people there!”
“……” unable to say anything.
So anyway, Utila is totally different from mainland Honduras. Everyone is bilingual whereas in the mainland no one spoke English anywhere. On main land Honduras I constantly felt like I had to be careful with everything I owned. On Utila I rented a bike (no cars here only bikes, golf carts and mopeds) and don’t even need to lock it, although apparently there’s some risk of someone drunk taking it and riding it a ways down the beach, but never actually stealing it.
Everyone on Utila is either a diver, a backpacker, or someone who is sick of the real world and wants to relax on the beach and do nothing. Everyone works in tourism, and everything is locally owned so most people own their own business or are friends with the people who own the business, and everyone makes enough money to live moderately comfortably there. There’s lots of retired Americans and Americans who are working in restaurants and hotels, but it doesn’t seem like anyone really does any work, because all the jobs just involve sitting on the sea talking to tourists. I talked to one Honduran who said he worked at a restaurant but they were closed today for some reason I didn’t understand in Spanish. An American translated it for me, and it turns out the whole resturant was taking the day off for “don’t give a fuck lets go to the beach”. That basically describes the universal attitude here, no one really cares about anything. I never really liked Jimmy Buffet but I feel like I can totally understand the song Margaritaville now, its basically just about Utila.
Everyone in Utila starts conversations with strangers, and everyone is totally friendly. I had a guy offer me cocaine yesterday and said no, and then he asked me where I was from. We talked for awhile about the US, and he gave me some travel advice. Even the cocaine dealers here are the nicest people you’ll ever meet!
So my plan is to stay here for a week and work on Spanish, and then go back to El Porvenir and begin volunteering. Studying is hard with everyone partying all the time, but I found a tree on the beach that is pretty peaceful and I can sit under it and practice with flashcards. Its tough but someone has to do it. Of course, I can also practice Spanish at the bars and restaurants, but its tough to force yourself to when everyone speaks English, especially when my brain is exhausted from needing to get by in all Spanish on the mainland.
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