Rafting!

So I am now stuck in La Ceiba, trying to decide if I should stick it out here until Friday when there is a trip going out to the Mosquitia region or if I should head off to somewhere a bit more pleasant.

Luckily I've managed to kill a day or so by going white water rafting up in the jungle. Not entirely sure how I ended up on the trip, I was just getting out of bed and hunting for some breakfast when someone came up to me and said "Aren't you supposed to be coming rafting? We're waiting for you..."

So it was pack some stuff real quick and jump on a bus for the jungle lodge.



The river is pretty fast with grades of rapids from 1 up to 4.



Not a great deal to report on the rafting. We went up to a class 4. The boat only capsized once - which we somehow managed to do on a class 2 rapid.



The jungle lodge was fairly quiet but there were a couple of parrakeets to keep us entertained along with a baby anteater (sorry no photos) that one of the barmen was trying raise.



Nice views over dinner and breakfast the next morning.

Adios Utila!

Finally made it off the island. Adios Utila!



I left an island that looked like it was about to disappear under a deluge of rain.



But the last weekend on the island was pretty good. We went off for a "Sunday Fun Day" at the dive shop which consisted of a couple of dives in the morning followed by copious quantities of beer and general partying.



Followed by large amounts of relaxing and chilling out:



Sitting around on the beach (being bitten by sandflies)...



And then back home for some well deserved sleep.



I'm now in La Ceiba, not sure if I'm going to stay here for that many days, it all depends on if I can get any trips arranged from here. If I can't then I'll be jumping on a bus to Copan to see the ruins there.

Almost made it off the island...

Got as far as the ticket office for the ferry before I was convinced that it would be far more fun to stick around.

New departure date is Monday.

Lined up for the rest of my time here is:

Spanish festival tonight
Dentist tomorrow morning
Maybe climb pumpkin hill in the afternoon.
Burns night
maybe a bit of canoing
and more diving on Sunday

Raindrops keep falling on my head

Just to cheer you all up, this is what I saw when I woke up this morning:




Happily the sun is out again and it looks like the weekend is going to be fantastic!

The island

We all took a trip up the local water tower. From the top you can just about see the entire island!

My apartment

Thought you might all want to see some photos of the view from our apartment that sits on the lagoon.

I´ll probably only be on Utila for another few days. Starting to get itchy feet and I´m not going to do a huge amount more of diving so it´s time to move on somewhere else.




And another shot of a beach.

Horse riding

Went for a pony trek yesterday. Above is my horse "Blue Thunder" - AKA Binky. Possibly the slowest horse on the island due to the fact that in human years hes carrying about 70 years.

Suited me fine. All the other horses were a little bit excitable.



Lovely walk around the countryside to the beach and then onto some cave pools for a quick swim.



Apparently these are some pictures from over 300 years ago - not entirely convinced by that.

Water Cay

The other day we took a trip over to one of the cays that surround the bay island.



Lovely place, great for snorkelling and swimming around.



It also seemed to be the nursery for a huge number of little fish.



We had a small little fire and cooked up some hotdogs and got nicely toasted on a crate of beer.

Under the sea!

Here we are, fully qualified advanced open water divers!



Part of the course was underwater photography. Here´s a selection of some of the better pictures (most of the good ones were taken by the instructer, but the ones of the fishes are by me.

Advanced diver!

I´m now an advanced open water diver!

Apparently I´m now qualified to hire diving equipment and go down to 30 meters!

I´ll post some underwater photos later, we´ve had no Internet for over a week and it´s all via satellite now.

Last night we all went out for a night dive on a shipwreck!

New Year´s Eve and Utila

New year´s eve was your usual crazy partying.

and I´ll leave you with some pictures of where I´ve been hanging out for the past few days:

Ferry to Utila

After a pretty uneventful night in Le Ceiba we jumped on the ferry to Utila.



This is the nice ferry to Roatan.



and here is our slightly smaller version for Utila.

Off to Utila

This was a crazy few days of travelling trying to reach Utila in time for new year´s eve. Jumped on a minibus from Antigua into the city at 7:30 and from there got what was supposed to be a nice comfortable bus to Rio Dulce. Turned out that it was actually only a minor step up from the chicken buses. Not very comfortable.

However, we eventually reached Rio Dulce and after a bit of wandering around found smoewhere to stay. Not much to say about the place, we were only there for one night. But here is a nice photo.



Next day, jumped straight on a launch to take us to a place called Livingstone. Quite a nice boat cruise along the river and lakes passing a few interesting sights including some hot springs and some nice lilies.



Livingstone was not all that of an interesting place. Not much of a beach and the nightlife was not great.



But we did get to see some local people doing some drumming and dancing.



Next day, it was goodbye livingston, hello to a day travelling on buses to reach Le Ceiba.

Christma!

Finally found some time for updating the blog. So Christmas in Anigua was good fun. Christmas eve was a combination of culture and extreme partying. We all went out for a meal and then the slightly less drunken of us decided to head out to experience a Christmas mas in one of the many churches.



I won´t try and describe it, but it was certainly an experience. Following on from that it was back to the bar to find our friends and carry on the party...






The following day we all met up again for Christmas dinner. No party hats or crackers with rubbish jokes, so it wasn´t entirely traditional, but it was pretty good.