A Review of Dining and such on Utila

Food, Eating and Supplying on the Island of Utila:

As a human you will likely experience the need to consume nutrient rich sustenance, the good news is Utila is rich in such nourishments, you just need to know where to find it.

Supply on this island is governed by the winds and waters. All goods come via freightor, it is rather spotty, and for first world citizens you will certainly end up wanting something you will not be able to find. But you will never go hungry. The produce, both fruit and vegetable is fresh and as such only certain produce is available at certain times of the year, the winter holds avacados for 10L each and you can get 10 sweet delicious oranges to snack on all day for one US dollar. The summer holds strawberries and mangos and all sorts of wonder that I can only regretfully imagine since I leave on the turning of spring. I say this because you will fare much better cooking yourself beautiful meals rather than eating out.

A Review:

I will simply list the best and worst of the island.

Grocery: There are around ten grocery stores, you may have to go to all ten to find what you are looking for. I will mention the two good ones, both owned by members of the two big island families.

Bush’s on the east side is the largest on the island. You can’t miss it. Closes early

Wardies on the west side is the friendliest, with his father always sitting out front waving to everyone that passes by, he is always fair with his prices, and always smoking a cigarette. There are no signs, it is the white building across from Rehab. Stays open later than most grocers.

Roneys is under a big house up on stilts heading west past “Float Utila”, he usually has the best fruits and vegetables for the best price.  He is the only real outside market.

I recommend becoming friendly with the proprietor and only go to that particular shop, this keeps your costs down.

Baleadas: Baleadas and Pastelitos are the main diet for many divers, heavy users doing 9 a day. Island fast food, some reaching your table in less than a minute.  They cost from 10L to 45L depending on their contents. The two big ones are:

Neyti’s: She is friendly and makes everything fresh, a tiny bit pricier though. She is in a yellow hut next to Skidrow.
 

Rosa’s: Rosa means business, on the east side she sits perched in her chair from sun up to well past night fall, this is where you go for a late night snack. Cheap, cold greasy pastelitos for 10L.

Resturants and Bars:

Munchies: is always a safe bet, the food is consistently consistent decent, as are the drinks. Great in quantity, Mondays is all you can eat pasta (that no Italian would put down (too hard). And free salad bar with meals twice a week.

Mainstreet: ‘s menu is small and rigid, some of the best prepared food around. It also has open mic, which sometimes turns out to be a brilliant night of full Jam bands including trumpets, dobros and sax’s. Excellent mixed drinks as well.

Mermaids: Their slogan is “good and cheap”, it is neither. The menu is essentially what you can pour out of a can and warm. On Thursday you can get a two for one pizza that tastes like poor quality cardboard, I will wait to get back to New York for another pizza. Mermaids is a good place to pass up.

Che Pancho: has a nice breakfast and lunch menu. But it’s smoothies are the best around, you choose the fruit and assorted wonderful additions, milk, orange juice, yougurt…And you can wither sit down with the mighty glass or take it to go in a plastic bag with a straw.

Skidrow: is a good place to hang out. Always packed at night, open all day to the early drinkers. This is where the real characters assemble, expats and backpackers alike enjoy the rum and lemonades and eat food so greasy your sweat becomes dangerously combustable. If you need a new shirt you can do four shots of Guiffiti (Honduran moonshine infused with whatever washed ashore that morning and some old mans cigarette butts) and “win” a Skidrow shirt. This is good for blending in, for on any given day, half the population is wearing such apparel.

El Picante: Terrible food and terrible drinks, they claim to be “authentic Mexican”, I hope Mexico is nothing like that. Best restaurant location on the island though.

Piccolo: So enticing the sign out front is as it lures you in with goganzola ravioli and pesto, in truth it is nothing more than good, it probably has the finest dining atmosphere on the island though, if for some reason you find yourself having "clients" take them here.

Tranquila: The biggest busiest bar on the island, typically a young crowd of several hundred people throughout the night. A beautiful dock that extends far into the water, with nice rickety second story deck on the end, this serves as both a urinal and naked diving board. There is tequila Tuesday with 10L tequila and 2 for 1 rum on Wednesday. Your money goes a long way here.

Treetanic: is a wonderland. The bar is in a tree house ship and there are bridges, tunnels and ladders that trail off into a  fantasy world of stained glass, contorted gazebos, mighty mango trees and general psychedelia. There are also cabins about for those who want to escape into their imagination.

Rio Coco: This is the only place you want to go for coffee, Starbuckesque drinks and snacks (but much better than starbucks), I also don’t know any starbucks that has an ocean view. A bit pricier, but worth it. 

Zen and the Art of Scuba Maintenance:

I met the richest man on the island last week, a billionaire with a two or greater in front of the nine zeros. I’m not sure if I’ve ever met a billionaire before, how would you know if you did? Well, millionaires tend to make scenes, it would seem sensical that billionaires would make a scene several fold. Last week I was sitting at the end of a picnic table looking yonder towards the sunset when an old man in a dirty ripped tee shirt walks up and sits down. He doesn’t say much, I can’t recall if he even said anything at all. He simply pulls some palm leaves out of his shorts pocket and weaves an elegant crane of fresh fronds. He leaves it on the table. Stands up and walks away.

A billionaire.

Had two great dives today, the cowfish lost its spot at the top of “my favorite fish list”, taking its spot, the sail-finned blenny. A tiny blenny who hides in finger size holes in small stones. You can pick up a few of these stones and place them face to face and the blennies will proceed to  yell at each other from their doorways like two neighbors arguing over a property line. They will eventually grow violent and kill one another or force the other to relocate.

After the dives I took an equipment maintenance course. I learned all about dismantling and reassembling the entire system. The valves, high pressure hose, primary and secondary regulator, learned the cleaning procedure for the metals, filters and o-rings. I feel a much greater connection to the system, once you are aware of them, you can imagine and sense the parts when you’re using them. You can feel them as if you are inside of the machine. I would love to be able to work more with this stuff. All I need is the esoteric tool kit.

With this addition to my credentials I will soon be able to get a job anywhere in this world (where there is water). 

Sustainable Agriculture:

I was egregiously mistaken when I said the other night that everyone in a hundred souls on this island is a celebrity. The truth is everyone on this island is so profound, paint nor pen may depict it.

I was warmed up by a goodbye drink with the Slovakians when I met a farmer. One of three or four on the island. I confessed my devotion to permaculture and he proceeded to pull out of his pocket a a beautiful cacao pod and the largest lime ever produced. Had this been India I might have prostrated myself at his feet and begged me to show me “the way”. I have been weak, I have been lame. I have sought pleasure in the stead of work. I will soon visit his farm and hopefully return to the path.

Prices (converted to USD):

A sweet pink grapefruit will cost .20

An avocado .50

A baleada or a fresh made greasy pastelito (the equivalent of fast food) between .50 and $1.50

A beer at a bar $1.50

A case of beer, from Archie, coming to .85 a beer.

A bottle of nice Nicaraguan rum, 750ml $7.

A coconut, $1, or free depending on your machete skills.

A movie, $2 and varying levels of sweat.

A book from the “library” $5, or trade.

A tank top and 4 shots of Giffitti, $10

A boat to Roatan $50

My  giant delicious homemade conglomeration, which can last a grown man five nights (A full pot of beans, rice, carrots, peppers, onions, tomatoes, three heads of garlic and vast amounts of curry.  $1.75

The 17^th

My hair is getting pretty dreadful. I called my accountant, Jose Greengold, he told me my dreadlock s were indeed tax deductible. It’s a product of the rainy season, the never ending days when it was too cold to bathe, but your hair is still wet, and salty, interweaving and locking, matting like an unshaved poodle. It is okay though, if my hair wills it, it will be so.

Laissez-faire hair-care.

Went to what was described to me as an “afro beat Garifuna show”. It was at the Red Light, on the side of Airport Road, a one and 5/8^th lane chunky road that connects Sandy Bay to the North Side, the equivalent of Interstate 405. Half of Campanada showed up, various motorized vehicles lined the side of the road a half mile in each direction. I packed in with 5 other people into the most vile of transports, the infernal tuk tuk, I pretended I was a dog and spent the ride with more than half my body outside, dodging trucks and large women. The whole mess turned out to be a karaoke fest, with swarms of people getting high off of the disco and strobe lights and warm beer.

Clean living here, I’ve eaten over 200 avocados, used no soap, cleaned my clothes only in the ocean. I wake up at 6:30am every day as opposed to my previous rising hour of 1pm and I’m on a diet where I only eat things that have bugs in it. They are my food tasters, Hitler had Margot Woelk, I have indeterminate beetles.

Buy the Beetles, Get the Bugs

The 13^th

Crack is wack. I’m sick of all of my things disappearing sequentially. Some nimble toed “rock star” made himself welcome into my bedroom whilst I in my blissful ignorance was cooking up some rice and beans in the kitchen. He helped himself to my cellular phone, which of course served only as an alarm clock these days. Two days later he must have admired my bathing suit, for that too is inexcusably absent. So it looks as if I will be reliant on ill informed roosters, whom cookadoodledoo to no regard for Greenwich Mean Time, to wake me up so that I may dive naked.

Speaking of crime, here are two laws that grant you great freedom. You are allowed to steal whatever you please. Unless there are three or more people who saw you commit the thievery. The second liberty you are given is, you may kill anyone you please. But, only as long as you are over the age of sixty. Both of these legislations are actual laws you may and must abide by. Laws that are written on the most legal of documents. This is why you can see your bike ridden all over town and not be able to do anything about it because the guy has many large associates and speaks like a pirate.

This island is very much how I imagine Hollywood is. You are walking down the street and within a few short minutes you see three celebrities. You are star struck every half a mile here because every, one in a hundred people here are a celebrity.  Not a single person outside the perimeter of this island may know them, but you know them, and you know that every single other living person who has been on the island for over a week knows them as well. In fact, they are greater than celebrities, they’re folk heros, and you can appreciate them all the more, because they have actually done something real and of value.

I was at a bar listening to some comedic guitar when Gunter sat down at the table. I hadn’t had the chance to meet him yet, but within a few minutes he made me quite aware that I had been drinking the wrong beer this whole time, and directed me to where to find, real, German, beer.

He mentioned how the sewage flows right into the sea (actually, Tranquilla bar used to flow directly to the sea, with their toilet on the top deck that you could look down into and see sea), the sewer system gets piped through the open drainage gutters and out into the bay. That is apparently why there is such high rates of staff staph infections. When the instructors preform their “confined water tests”, they are in the shallows, also known as the natural waste management facility.

I cleaned a dirty bottom today, the barnacles only bit back a bit. I was given 500 Lempira. I intend to set out to prove one can live a week here on said 500L.

Embrace the Buddhist way

And all will be okay

No more beer

Or 500 won’t last you a week here.

The 8^th

Todays dives were by far the most fun. The first one, we took the offshore passage to the north side to do some whale shark hunting, all of us sitting on top of the wheelhouse staring at the horizon. Nothing. At the Pinnacle the lot of us looked down upon the shear wall into the abyss. We floated down like skydivers in slow motion. At the bottom there was a swim through cave, when I went in I got some narcosis, the perfect amount. I came out the other side laughing and clapping like a drooling sea monkey. I took some skin off my knuckles going through the cloudy darkness and the only thought I had was “woah, I hope there’s a scientific reason my blood is green”.

The best thing to do underwater is laugh, this is so because you start to wonder if the laughing is making any noise and if it does, does anyone hear you, and if they do, do they know it’s laughing, or is the laughing only happening in your head and you are perpetrating an imaginary act in your head to correspond to what you believe should be happening. And all these thoughts just make you laugh more.

In any case I could’t stop laughing. We came upon a Nurse shark on the second dive. You had to sneak into a crevice to see it and you passed a small moray on the way out. “Yikes” I thought as my face swung by. But then out of nowhere a monstrous moray comes swimming from out of nowhere. It goes into the sharks den and slams right into it. It comes out all riled up and starts going for everyones fins and trying to munch on the camera lens. After some action it would swim away and they’d be feeding he shark a lionfish they had speared when all of a sudden the moray is back for blood, swimming through your legs, all the while making the “num num num” face. I depleted a good quarter of tank in laughter.

The following link goes to the video. Courtesy of Shaun.

Nurse Shark v. Moray

Slightly Continued

What I mean to say is, there is it is all take, but no give. Everything in this comfortable air conditioned life is made to order, fast food, no effort, no problem.  Your house is the way you want it, your food is the way you want it. You get it where ever you want, when you want it, in what ever quantity you want it. But no one ever bothers to see where the sausage is made.

No give. Just take.

Everyone knows the best way to flavor food is hunger. People need to get hungry for their lives. I know my beans always taste better when I have been sitting on the floor like a Jain monk, around a pot of beans I have just filled with water and spent the good time picking out the beetles clinging to the legumic life rafts.

One Month Anniversary:

The lodge is getting packed and I’m realizing how privileged I am to speak the most important language on earth. The Ruski can convey his thoughts on Gandhi with perfect grammar, the Italian can tell me how his foot ails, the French Canadian can share my pleasure at leaving the northern cold, the Slovaks can tell me what it’s like to sleep under the Eiffel Tower and the Germans can ask me what time tomorrows boat leaves. Cheers to English imperialism.

I am slowly coming down with a classic case of Island Fever. The seas are closing in, and Pumpkin Hill looks shorter every day. The dive sites are most familiar and all the parrot fish look the same.

I want to be in Munchen for Oktoberfest, see the serenity in east Asia, be in Brazil the most interesting country in the world, then head south for Argentinan Patagonia. I want to be in Tennesee for Bonnaroo and in the Green Triangle to suffer the monotony of trimming season.

I don’t want to stay here, but I don’t want to go home either.  Walking home in New York, looking at the sad disgusting faces of the drivers of the new SUVS, whilst creating bubbling noise about their daily digestion of superficial culture on their shining white phones that can do so much it is almost considered magic, or god. Coming home from jobs where they produce nothing that they themselves or their consumers can tangibly see, working eight hours in hopes that someday soon they will receive the privilege of working twelve. That is why the human condition is so weak. We work all day, for people we don’t like, generating plastic and plastic related “things” that serve a purpose that bears no true emotional relationship to our lives. Our souls are half full, there can be no true joy until real work has been done, our food is half rich and our fun is half hearted. It’s like were playing a viciously competitive game of monopoly, where all you want to do is beat your best friends and make them cry like little girls.

There are moments when I am blown back, astonished that there are not only few, but many, seemingly even most people who disregard compassion, instead choosing hatred, violence and pain. Do they not see that compassion is peace and peace is love, the purest most righteous and desirable thing that has ever been known.

The 6^th

Went to the American bar to watch the football game. It was the United States verse Honduras qualifying game for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, the first of two for Honduras in the North American, Caribbean, Central American bracket. When the U.S scored the first point the Hondurans, enraged, drew knives and machetes, someone ran out and came back with a can of gas, threatening to burn the bar to the dirt. I snuck out the back to use the restroom. I returned four hours later, or however long a football game takes, and found Honduras beat the United States 2 to 1. Jubilation was in the air.

It has been a month since I have seen or heard any news, other than that of the Coconut Radio. Whenever I have the opportunity to take a peek my chest fills with electric dread and I must turn away in haste. The farthest I got was glancing up to the right hand corner of the yahoo news, you know, where they post the most searched and usually wind up cutting it off. It said “Cats kill millions”. I instantly slammed the computer shut and sprinted of the sea.

I hope to return home to hear some sort of shocking news, something like, “Governor Chris Christi agrees to bathe in the Mississippi River, raising the water level enabling continued shipping commerce.”

Industry & Trade

I spoke the other day of the millionaires of Pigeon Cay. At the time I thought it quite literally to be a fishermans tale. But I talked to someone today who caught a “White Nose Fish” and soon following this catch he went out and bought himself a nice new house.

There is a sleek 1200 horse power speed boat that was left as a gift for the coast guard.  Simply found, empty, floating off shore.

The aeronautical cowboys used to visit the power plant to cut the power to the whole island for those clandestine arrivals and departures, not that it was necessary after midnight, electricity was turned off on the island at that time anyway. They would bring a string of lights to the municipal airport for the very late night arrivals.

Every day the black helicopters chop over my head. Americans. So you can stop wondering why the drug war has a price tag of $20,000,000,000 a year.

The dive boat captains refuse to go to the north side in the afternoon, so as not to risk seeing anything they are not supposed to. See no evil, speak no evil.

I myself, walking along the trash strewn north side beach, more vibrant than the visible spectrum of light from all the lovely plastic fragments, found a quadruple sealed bag. Rectangular in shape, yellow rubber covered by blue plastic covered by pink plastic wrapped in duct tape. Sliced straight down the center, empty. Some one had a really good time…. Or someone had a really terrible time. 

“Super Bowl Sunday”

The dive shop called in sick today, the lot of us snuck off to Water Cay. The Salva Vida did not have her engines at 100% so we took two dorys. I along with 23 others were on Hermans boat, it looked as if we were taking the nighttime cruise from Cuba to Florida.

We passed Pigeon Cay. Some say that this small sleepy Cay of old fishermen, living in old shacks and houses packed so tightly together has more millionaires per capita than anywhere else on this blue and green earth. This being attributed to their luck in fishing for square grouper.

We arrived on Water Cay and promptly set up camp. Drinks were concocted and food ingested. The slack line was set up for all those who enjoy frustration. Soon the tropical rain arrived, while some took shelter around the coconut bark fueled fire, tropically shivering, Herr Osterich was enjoying his first game of baseball. All the way up until when the wet grip of a small bat turned it into a throat seeking missile. I turned as Osterich fell to the ground unconscious. This allowed for some practical EFR training. After a good amount of fumbling he was strapped down to a boogie board with weight belts and shivering he was sent sailing for the main(is)land.

Afterwards we set about wandering the island, playing with fire, trying to break language barriers and breaking open shells to get out what I truly hope were almonds.

I went to sleep that night as mentally fresh as one can be, laying alone on a table on the end of the dive shops dock looking at the stars, imaging what they must look like beyond the peaks of the Gracias a Dios, where no human lumens penetrate.

I thought about the college I would have been otherwise enveloped in at that moment. I thought about the professors and students who thought they really knew something. It wasn’t how to save lives or grow food or create machinery or even make contributions to any type of math or science. Still their egos grew fat off of mass delusion and towered over the studious innocents. I wrote this for them.

Being smart is realizing you know nothing.

Being intelligent is using the nothing you know to do something.

Being an intellectual is saying everything without knowing or doing anything.

1^st

I spent the morning creating irregularly shaped tortillas. They tasted warm and delicious but I’m not sure if it was worth all the dough all over the walls and floor and my clothes.

Took money out from the bank to pay for the diving. On the way back I took a detour since I was borrowing a nice bike and found myself in a traffic jam. Motorcycles and mopeds were stuck behind a mess of black cows. The running of the Utilian Bulls. Just off the boat, there were over twenty squeezed tightly heading up the small road. I first passed a lazy one off to the side taking a nap, in the process of being agitated by some village girls. When the opportunity arose the herd took it, running up the steps trying to get into the grocery stores and china shops as the owners tried to slam their doors on their faces. The cowboys in the lead pointed for the cows which way they would like them to turn at a fork, they responded more to the yelling and big wooden sticks the young cowboys in the back and flanks held high.

Both literally and figuratively, my life is a room filled with piles of open books, lying face down, pages of varying unbalance. Resting on the bed, floor, table and on top of each other is a Twain and a Phalanuk, Steppenwolf, Farenheit 451, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and a Kerouac I’ve been reading for two years. Not to mention another whole pile of dive text books.

Walking down main, late at night, suddenly my foot kicked a weighty asymmetrical object that went flying, I knew from some sort of combination of senses, including sixth and seventh ones, it was not something I have ever kicked before. Looking down I saw the largest crab I had ever seen. Coloured as the armies desert fatigues, he looked up at me and said in a melancholy voice, “what’d you do that for jerk”.

The 30^th

I used up a quarter of a tank chasing down a mammoth, six foot Southern Ray. The instructors apron strings have been severed, so I have begun to float solo. My fancy watch informed me I went into decompression at 136 feet and then, simply assuming I was dead, failed to give me any further advice. I hope and believe this was because I went free diving wearing it an hour before and lacking a free diving setting the computer  thought me mad.

I found the skipper whom I was seeking, he is sailing for Belize on Saturday. I assumed he was looking for a crew, but rather he was seeking passengers for $450 US a head. He had his own vessel sitting in Roatan and was borrowing his friends sloop to raise funds for engine repair. Never the less he was most interesting. A young, good looking German who two days ago, being a stranger, I wagered for a bottle of rum that he was not gay. My victory was ensured as he told me of his Kava drinking days in Vanautu. Jealous of the native girls attraction to him, a black magician cursed him and his boat, so as he sailed away he found himself perpetually just a few meters out of the winds reach. In a personal doldrum he motored for the breeze but every time he approached the wind, as it had been doing for days, simply stepped out of reach.

I told him $100 and I’ll cook, we will see in two days.

Post Script: Man cannot survive on Krazy Glue alone. I was prematurely appreciative about the glues repair job on my sandal. But through some battlefield tech testing I discovered World War Two parachute cord mixed with the sticky creates a sort of high powered fiberglass that has held for five action packed days.

The 28^th

I think we can call the cycle officially gone. They call this paying the “island tax”. If that is so, it’s tax season. Night one my bike and my cheese.  Night two, Jermaines fancy shirt. Night three my diving brief case, empty and moldy. Word is some crackheads moved into the neighborhood, and you know how they get. Someone suggested I go tell the policia, but I don’t see how successful that would be in a country where they recruit only Guatemalans into the military because they can’t trust the Hondurans.

But as always, all energy eventually equalizes, this time almost immediately. I found a Patagonia jacket in the bay, smelling of the lowest of tides and zippers rusted still. Still, I am proud to wear a product of Yvon Chouinard whom I have a new found respect for in his loving protect of Patagonia the land.

On a clear day you can look South and see not the coast, due to the earths curvature, but the grand mountain range on the mainland. A majestic range, running from east to west as far as my eyes could see. The tallest in the country at 9000 feet, they call it the Gracias Adios, which I only desperately hope is true.

Post Script: The range is actually called Gracious a Dios. As Columbus sailed out of storms reeking of fatality the mountain came into view, and the Spaniards naturally thanked God. 

26^th

Today was the final day of the rescue diver course. The written test was accomplishable in one half of a minute and somehow my hand was able to answer each question without the use of any at all cognition. The two days of practical exercise were much more entertaining. Yesterday the instructor went AWOL, viciously swimming with so much intent I thought he saw a whale shark, we followed the endless underwater sand dune down to 135 feet, leaving the three of us following completely Narc’d. The officials will tell you narcosis is like being drunk. I will tell you the actuality, it is like being too drunk.

To celebrate, the instructor took us into the interior Spanish neighborhoods to play billiards. Walking down “main” street, we swung left into what looked like a dingy alley. This alley turned out to be something of a secret passageway into the heart and bulk of the island, the unseen arteries and heart of the isle. We went into three pool halls of varying repute. The first holding a wily transvestite and a sound system rivaling early rock concerts, the second a small cozy hall with smiling faces, and a dark bathroom up two stairs, so it sat like a soaked kings throne. The third held the must uncertainty, dark, laser lighting, a sound system rivaling Madison Square Garden, silent quiet people in the corners, Honduran military passing through, girls coming in and out of backdoors, were are not certain, but we are pretty sure it was a brothel.

In each of these three places we played the most fascinating pool game, Honduran in origin, the balls are lined up numerically around the table, touching all the sides, with the one ball in the center. You start with the one ball, this being the subject ball, you can hit the one, then any other ball. Every ball you sink, you get the points of that ball. So once the one ball goes in you proceed to the two and so on. It is reliant on combos and care, if you miss the subject ball or scratch, it is negative the subject balls value, or if you hit another ball without first hitting the subject ball it is minus the ball you hit. It is far more difficult and contemplative than 9 ball or any other such thing, because there are cases where you could be the world champion pool player and still have a shot that could only result in negative points. My favorite part of this game was the nano second you finished two or three girls would run out from behind the bar and reset the table. Muy rapido.

I returned to the dock on the back of a motorcycle, the motorcycle in my mind still having absolutely no excuse for being on this island, even more offensive than driving a hummer through mid town Manhattan. I found the security guard feeding rum to a bunch of six year olds, I left for my room indifferent. There I found my bike had been stolen, and to salt the wound they also made off with the soggy cheese I bought just that morning. My only comfort being an alley cat, who crawled into my coat and eventually shared my bed nestled up to my chest, but not before trying to burrow into my cranium.

The following day.

Found myself at the helm bright and early, a pod of dolphinos played chicken of the sea with me. Bearing down on the bow with great intensity, preforming a jet fighter maneuver rounding the stern and returning forward to ride the bow for a bit. Even more alluring, I think is the sail fish, or flying fish. Bursting forth from below the waves like a sparrow leaving a tree. Moving from water to wind, surfing the air just above the surface with grace and shimmering dewy wings. Eventually touching down 20, 40, even 70 feet from where they emerged.

When we got back I headed straight for the ferry dock to try and cut off the cheesy bike thief from his break for the coast. No cigar. Always attentive I watch every spoked wheel riding by, but it’s hard when the bicycle market has been corned by one brand, Bacini. Still, having only the bike three days I know I can spot it anywhere. 

The 25^th

Being mobile reinforces how small this island really is. Headed west, and got there in seven minutes. Rode up onto a dock in the lagoon and inexplicably rode out through the kitchen of some resort.

Stopped by the market and received a cornucopia of starfruits, avacados, bananas, eggplants and ginger. Just 52L. The ginger evidently being the least costly thing on the island, the grandest root jangle I’ve ever seen costing a mere 15 US cents.

Searched for passage to Roatan, I was sent from dive shop to hotel to gym, eventually finding the captain in the hyperbaric chamber. He stood there tapping at esoteric buttons and dials as some poor bender was doing Darth Vader impersonations inside. He didn’t know when he was leaving, if ever. He just knew it was $50 one way. A poor alternative to Captain Vern, his posters still hanging about town to this day, promising fun, relaxing daily trips between the island. Much loved and missed he was shot and killed by passengers, or more appropriately, pirates, shortly before my arrival.

On the matches:

There are three types of matches available on this spit of land. The first, Gato Negros. Like the other two, the box is yellow, all minimal in design and visually appealing. The Gato Negros showing a sitting cat, easily mistakable for a subservient whiskered rat, eyes dead on the consumer, with a lit match in its jowls. These become completely unlightable when the humidity gets beyond 10%, you can see their value on the floor below the stove, piled so high you’d think a mouse was running a woodchipper down there.

The second box is Fosfords San Martin. Picturing just a burning match with a flame that you might expect to see a hindu diety sitting in. These matches being the most precarious. You must close your eyes during ignition, for when you strike these evil twigs the phosphorus turns into flaming shrapnel with a common flight path into your eye or other bodily areas, burning most chemically. The third box, Caballo Rojos, are as you might say if there was three bears and a blonde haired girl involved. “Just Right” 

The Next Day(Today)

To quote Jimmy Buffett on the subject of this morning “My head hurts, my feet stink and I don’t love Jesus”. As it goes, straight from bed to boat. Inaudibly groaning I sat huddled in the wheel house as we hiked over ten foot rollers, in pouring rain, searching for whale sharks.

I came back for a snack of the most demoralizing thing to happen since the knife I bought and fully rusted six hours later. Whist shoveling handfuls of old raisin bran down my throat I thought to myself, “well this doesn’t taste good”. A visual inspection of the bags contents held an unacceptable level of movement. Immediately my mouth was emptied at a speed of 74 miles per hour.

Paid my reef fee, on my way back I walked into Roney’s Garage (Go Where You Want Go) to inquire about the bicicletas. “Were shipping in some new bikes” He said looking up from the weld, “500L and you can have it”. “Yes!”. “Or 100L a day to rent”. “Ummm, I think I’ll just purchase to own”.

It only keeps getting better on this island. So with just the graces of the Duppys, the rusty bike will survive without tools and I can survive with the vicious drama of the single lane island super highway.

The 23^rd

Yesterday is a bit blurry, but I will surely recall as I write. Dancing…no…night dive?...one more thing..yes! bicycle. I will start there. I borrowed Jermaine’s new bike which he had purchased the night before, or rather the morning. I had heard him stumbling up the steps around 3 after midnight, returning from some early morning clandestine shopping. He had walked up to some guy and inquired about a bike, the man said “wait here” and disappeared up some back alley, returning a moment later with a nice bike costing a fair 700L.

This very same bike I took for a wonderful ride past town, turning into a desolate sandy road (the alleged last day before paving) through a quaint suburb, trailing off into a Hawaiian looking volcanic coast, featuring hibiscus and lazy hummingbirds, finally leading into jungle. This is where I grew overly confident with the puddles I had previously traversed and proceeded right through the epicenter of a vast ocean, where in I found myself pedaling up to my waist through the murky murk. When progress ceased I stepped off right into the quicksand. The mud held my only sandals with great tenacity, only returning it in an apologetic eruption tearing it in half.

I returned tired, just in time for the night dive. Down 30 metres through the pitch dark to the S.S Dick Cheney (The Halliburton). Fulfilling three Advanced Open Water endorsements, Deep Water, Wreck and Night. We descended upon the spooky scene, beams of light from our flashlights shining spots upon the deck. We circled the ship twice, finally swimming through the bridge with an irritated moray guarding one side and a sleepy urchin on the other. On ascent we killed the lights and drifted softly with the phosphorescents hugging us in neon illumination.

Later on Jermaine and I went on a search for The One Armed Man, last spotted outside Tranquilla Bar, a secondary objective, 10L tequila shots. Otherwise known as half the shot for half the price. Intending to stay for a single drink and buy another bike from the One Armed Man, we instead had something closer to 12 shots, played kings and danced shoeless to terrible club music with five girls each respectively representing a different Scandinavian country.

The Next Day(Today)

To quote Jimmy Buffett on the subject of this morning “My head hurts, my feet stink and I don’t love Jesus”. As it goes, straight from bed to boat. Inaudibly groaning I sat huddled in the wheel house as we hiked over ten foot rollers, in pouring rain, searching for whale sharks.

I came back for a snack of the most demoralizing thing to happen since the knife I bought and fully rusted six hours later. Whist shoveling handfuls of old raisin bran down my throat I thought to myself, “well this doesn’t taste good”. A visual inspection of the bags contents held an unacceptable level of movement. Immediately my mouth was emptied at a speed of 74 miles per hour.

Paid my reef fee, on my way back I walked into Roney’s Garage (Go Where You Want Go) to inquire about the bicicletas. “Were shipping in some new bikes” He said looking up from the weld, “500L and you can have it”. “Yes!”. “Or 100L a day to rent”. “Ummm, I think I’ll just purchase to own”.

It only keeps getting better on this island. So with just the graces of the Duppys, the rusty bike will survive without tools and I can survive with the vicious drama of the single lane island super highway.

Post Script: I usually despise product placement, but I believe in giving credit when credit is due. Krazy Glue steadfastly repaired my blown out sandal, molecularly rebonding the atoms between the tear. Cheers to Mr. Elmer.

The 14 and 15^th

It has been over 48 hours since the rain began to fall, and it has yet to stop. Day one found me on the dock in the classroom for five hours of card games. No matter if you are from the U.S, Germany, Austria or the Netherlands you will sing along with Credence Clearwater Revival.

Went to a party, where at I had my fill of assorted liquids. Wandered back to the Lodge expecting to possibly meet the new security machete toting security guard who covers the shop, lodge and gas station.  Went straight to the kitchen to cook a midnight rice meal, that was where I encountered him. I fixed him a plate which he ate with a mucho gracias. Later on I discovered that he was not the security guard, but just some guy who came to rob our rooms.

Day two I became the apparent dock chess master, a tournament must be in order to achieve any semblance to officialaity. The check mate came in a way I had never seen before, one that took me off guard and left me with wonder about the possibility of recreation. Chess is perhaps the most beautifully expansive game ever to be created by man. With every move you move closer towards individuality, creating a unique game that no one has ever played, making a series of moves no one has ever made. Something like 

16,000,000,000,000,000 of them.

More on dogs. You will see them hastily walking past you on the street, and when you ask them for the time they will just look up and back as they pass and say “I have a meeting across town”

At present I am on the floor sitting on a mat that smells like a horse stable, eating an “authentic falafel” with coleslaw in it, the second innaproiatly coleslawed meal today, the first being a “taco” otherwise known as a “burrito”, “enchilada”, “Quesada”, or “baleada”. I long for my 99 cent Union Square falafel.

The 13^th

Four of our five having coming down from Pumpkin Hill the other day at sunset and lacking flashlights returned to the cave at the hills base. Past barbed wired pastures and up the solid roots of the stately tree eternally clinging to the shear jagged volcanic stone wall to the entrance. A sort of a porch, 25 feet off the ground with many seats and drink holders. Single file we crouched through the entrance hole to the first chamber, the heat already soaking us. We squeezed through the next two passage ways with excellent claustrophobia, avoiding the “mud” on the floor in vain to the third chamber. This chamber held the bats. Before getting here we agreed “don’t shine the lights up, so we don’t wake them”,  but immediately inside we illuminated them like can-can dancers. They remained surprisingly calm, just hanging, upside down, wrapped in their cloak, dangling to and fro, deciding to flutter wildly ever once in a while. We soon decided to about face, only half upset with only just scratching the surface of the cave, the other half more than happy to abandon the rarely felt sense of claustrophobia.

The 12^th

Much thought devoted to human physiology. I’ll design a better human right now. One air duct going from the nasal passage to one lung and the other from the mouth to the second lung. This one alteration making choking on spaghetti only possible if you had an inclination to eating spaghetti through your nose.

Today was by far the most interesting  dive yet, and only due to what was above the surface. Cruising for the North side the sky became filled with cyclones, sometimes four at a time. One touching down 60 metres from the boat, the captain approached it, closing in on only 20 metres before turning away. I wanted to go all in, it was fantastic to stand on top of the bridge when stagnant tropical air suddenly turns chilly, and in gale force as salty raindrops fall from the sky. The clouds returning the sea.

When we returned to the surface the “wind trousers” were gone, a pod of dolphins had taken their place. The lot of us gave chase in only masks and fins. Only two tuna surprises lagged behind to give us cautious inspection.

Day 9

Alive. Got a coconut, never having opened one before I took a pen and like administering an adrenaline shot came down hard on its skull. It became the first thing of the week to “blow up in my face”. Stunned, a geyser erupted into my face soaking my shirt and all four walls.

Hiked Pumpkin Hill, the tallest point on the island. The view commanded a 321 degree view of what you might expect from a decent quality Hawaiian post card. As beautiful as the view was our gazes were aimed at the ground at a leaf cutter ant super highway, so industrious, so small. It got me thinking of the Argentine ants, I believe that they will soon surpass humans as the dominant species, or else it will be yet another failed socialist super system.

Day ?

Today the sun rose with great exuberance, and I found myself as sick as how the neighbor’s dog should (but doesn’t) feel after the many hours he spends lapping away at the seven or so outdoor washing machines. Obviously the perfect day to do my first dive. There was a break in last night at the dive shop, an individual smashed through the upstairs balsa wood vent and alleviated the pressure felt by the cabinet draw, missing was a many number of Lempiras.

My personal strength prevailed for once, getting me through the two dives (drum fish, moray, huge conch, leopard snail…) and many more. I spent the rest of the night writhing and reading, and another perfect coincidence; the neighbors decided to put their soundsystem to use with hours of terrible dancehall. Mark Twain saw me through, today after deliberation I decided to call him the first contemporary travel writer as well as the first Gonzo journalist. With all due respect to my still second favorite author Dr. Thompson.

A coconut would be more than splendid, but I cannot currently constitute the outside, the saturated sounds of what I’m missing on a Skid Row Saturday only taunt.

Day ?

I spend approximately 24 seconds each day wondering what day it is and what time is it, rarely do I find out either. I will now provide a brief synopsis on the wildlife and fauna. Firstly the mystery has been solved about the gunshot sound followed by a secondary solid bang and final plop. The origin of this startling sound that occurrence once or twice an hour waking me up throughout the night is some sort of nut, like a small coconut with a sort of semi green outer layer. It departs the tree, pounding the hollow wooden roof, falling to the porch and then rolling off into the mud below, an autopsy must be in order.

The cats and dogs wander in and out of restaurants, tonight a dog turned down my nachos while a cat stalked them quietly from the ledge, naturally the felines name was Nacho. Crabs in the front yard, mosquitos in the back. A Hummingbird outside my window, a gecko in the bathroom and coach roaches in the kitchen.

The supposed scourge of the island is the sand fly. I have never encountered one myself, but my legs say otherwise, if indeed their signature be abundant tiny red dots forming 2 ½ by 2 ½ by 2 ½ inch triangles. They are smaller than atoms and only come out at night, a dangerous combo.

Day 4: Languidly lilting east an Australian shepherd weaves under my toes. “sorry” his man-buddy says “he’s drunk”. The three of us walked the strip with many people stopping to compliment the man about the dog, instead of the dog himself. Rowdy was his name and a phenomena most interesting surrounded him. The throngs of village dogs all went wild over him, from every side of the street, from high porches and low porches, from behind gates, fences and walls. This being abruptly different from their usual behavior of nonchalance and disregard for cats, humans and other dogs alike. “Yeah” the guy says “you should have seen it the first day here”. So I figure it is either a new kid on the block kind of thing or this dog is some kind of superstar , the Frank Sinatra of dogs.

Day 3: It has been well over a year since I complete the PADI openwater course, thus I found myself snorkeling among divers. Received a short history of freediving, which I discovered is a perpetual thing, half of every breath for most people is used for free dive chattery. If you were wondering how commited some of these individuals are let me tell you ~ so passionate are they, they will flood their nasal passages by snorting up the sea. This will continue until their head is fully saturated, like a cranial fishbowl, thus allowing them to descend to great depths without the inconvenience of needing to equalize.  There is also the story of the diver from some Italian of Grecian village who at the turn of the century was pressed by the government to find and retrieve a lost anchor. So this man jumped in the water swam down found the anchor and tied it up. He was down for five minutes at a depth of 140 meters. This only being possible because science did not exist at the time.

After, Jermaine who arrived one day after me, from one hour away in New York, who is staying one room away, studying for the same certification, and I went to dinner. We were stopped on the way by a man on a bicycle. This man who years ago ran a pirate radio station from the abandoned hilltop-peak  teak castle after a mere minute he offered us both jobs on a gold dredge in Nome Alaska. I must find this man again. We made it to the Main Street(restaurant) and were joined by a Canadian couple, soon talk of aerospace engineering evolved into a science fiction film script in which Earth begins sending convicts to Mar to serve their life sentences  only to rapidly advance technologically and invade earth 35 years later.

Had drinks at Treetantic (a tree house bar with wonderlandesque path ways, bridges, gazebos and caves) I now know why building supplies are so sparse on the island; they all ended up here. Stopped back at the dock where some old ex-pats were smoking , with them was a character whom they call Hurricane Fifi, the story goes, 35 years ago a five year old Fifi washed up to the island during a hurricane and has been here ever since. Beside the fact this man looked as if he was 60 it seemed plausible, I was happy to grant them the benefit of the doubt with the mathematical error attributed to what in particular these grandparents were smoking.

Day 2

I went to sleep less than happy with my accodomations. 8x20 with a bed scratchy enough I contemplated taking out my ravor and giving it a good shave. I woke up earlier than I have in ages, this is the benefit from a non-comfy bed, you wake up from a collection of many lucid naps feeling totally refreshed. Like when I was sleeping in the library, I woke up from a three hour sleep everyday for over a week like I just had some post-space age highly refined coffee.

I got breakfast at “Munchies”, tipped the guy three lempira with USDollars still dominating my value processing system, poor fellow must utterly despise me giving him a 15cent tip. Wandered the main street most of day away, it is non stop quad, moped, motorcycle, tuk tuk, pedicab and the occasional duct tape engine truck, all being operated by three year olds, with two year olds on the back seat.

It rains over one hundred times a day here: “This rain must be messing with me, just when I thought it couldn’t rain any harder, it gets louder bigger and faster. Twice the hardest rain I have ever seen nonchalantly doubling. Pretty soon it won’t be falling, it’ll just be here.

I find it difficult to shop here, you could find a wider array of food products in the Republic of East Germany, and they would be more vibrant as well. I got a sauce that tastes like bathroom cleaning supplies, shoulda known better than buying something labeled Don Julios: Mojo.

Retreated back to the castle to read, after a bit the light goes out in my room. The next second I realized the unceasing club music next store has stopped, the next second; it’s pitch black outside. The whole island lost power.

An hour later the power comes back on, just finished a four serving pasta meal, Really would like to get out for a brew, but I’m stuck laying in a foodacoma. I’ll get one for breakfast.

The Bittersweets

The water in the sinks is a nice tannish brown and is pressurized enough to hit me in the face roughly 100% of the time.

But I can’t complain, there is water!

My room is plain and dirty and the bed is like 100 grit sandpaper.

But I’m paying $70 a month for a room 42 Monty Python ministerial steps away from the azure blue waters of the Caribbean.

The hardest part about cooking here is there is never a lighter handy for the stove.

But the good news is that divers smoke so much I think Paul Mall should give them a sponsorship.

Day 1

Driving to JFK at 3am, feelings of anxiety. I realize that sometimes making plans is more fun than going thru with said plans. Board the 757, one of the most beautiful things is the scenes of earth from god-view, and New York city in the dark morning is indeed the finest you can catch(although it is too late in the morn to see the electric snake, perhaps that is for the best). Watching NY fade away is upsetting, one of the rare times of NY nostalgia. ----This is not an airplane, it is a flying fart juice canister.

Miami is more serene. Across the runway is a Lufthansa Airbus, there is certainly no way that thing can fly, Dorothys house from the Wizard of Oz has better aerodynamics. Board the 737, my fear of flying is gone (seemingly for good), I suppose that is what happens when you’re doing the same thing for hours on end. I even have hopes for some mild to gentle severe turbulence to rock me to sleep. We follow what looked to be the entirety of the Keys about 15 miles to the east (what a unique land formation), and pass right through the center of Cuba, it sure looked peaceful down there.

Grand Cayman Isle: Oh the humidity! I forgot what you felt like. Lap dogs of various breeds sniffing out my bags, still nervous even though I know I had nothing in there, followed by the third pat down of the day, this one being far more intimate, they must like me. I reach La Ceiba, the airports are getting progressively smaller, this one using aeroplanes as a sort of rusty décor rather than for transportation, saw a plane taking of using a single donkey for propulsion. The customs line took well over one sweaty hour as 62 employees watched as one ticket lady stamped away at our official documents.  Split a cab with a Portlandian who after this is heading south to engineer on a research ship based in Panama. La Ceiba is quite beat, the landscape being composed of mud and garbage. We were stopped by two soldiers sporting Ak-47s, I gingerly smile and wave. The ferry was completely sealed top to bottom, I though this excessive until we made it out to the 13ft rollers. The vomit task force was in full operation on this crossing. I want to be the captain of this vessel, it is more like surfing than sailing.

On the dock I bid farewell to my temporary travel buddy, I catch a lift on the divemasters moped, flying past pedestrians on each side, dodging dogs and such, leaning into a sharp left and speeding to a stop at the end of the narrow dock. I’m handed a beer, Salva Vida ~ it certainly was. The young girls are running around with cigarettes in their hands lighting fireworks, than go flying past my ear exploding in the bay. The first thing the little girl tells me is “you’re a good person”, I like this one.