Utila, Honduras

"Happy Birthday George!!!" I know it is a day late but we thought of you all day yesterday! We didn't have internet access or phone service since we were in Honduras. We love you! We hope you had a great day and that you were spoiled rotten!

The first picture is a picture of Nathan's second batch of crabs he bought for Q1 each. Nathan and the kids were in heaven.

We had a break in the rain Sunday afternoon so we decided to get a head start and head out a day early for Honduras.


The first few pictures are of us waiting for our ferry from La Ceiba Honduras to Utila. It is called the Utila Princess. The ride out to the Island was a little bumpy but we made it. The first view of Utila was breathtaking. The water was soo blue. Gorgeous!

Our ferry ride was from 9:30 am to 10:30. We found a hotel right away and then headed out to get lunch and explore the island. You can walk from one side of the island to the other in 20 minutes. They also have little TUK-TUK taxis that you can take anywhere on the island. We did this a few times. There is a picture of us on the day we left all 6 piled in with our luggage. We found a restaurant called Evelyn's BBQ. IT was decorated with Bob Marley everything. The decour was fun but the service was absolutely horrible and the food wasn't to good and it was expensive. So if you ever go to Utila don't eat here!!

Then we headed out to explore the opposite side of the island from where we were staying. We ran into the owner of Afton's Dive Shop. (We heard from some of the divers that this is a great dive school and the owner was wonderful to us. He gave us tons of tips about the island) He told us of a great area to take the kids snorkeling on the other side of the island near our hotel. It was a pier just past the public beach called Coral Views. They have a great pier that goes right out to the edge of the coral and you can snorkel right by the pier which made it easier to take turns going out. The kids loved it so much. Then we hit the public beach on the way back to the hotel.

That night we went out to eat at the best little restaurant. It was an Indian/Thai reastaurant. I don't remember the name but I believe it is the only one on the island. It was packed and there was no doubt in my mind why. The food was sooo good.

The next day we went to the other side of the island to a private beach called Bando's beach. It was perfect. Soooo beautiful as you can see in the pictures. There was coral out from the beach. You had to swim a little way and then cross some dead coral and you could snorkel there. Nathan said that it was a wall of coral that you could view from the side. I will have to have him add a comment about it. The kids absolutely loved this place. I didn't go out because of Gabs, and I wasn't brave enough to go without Nate. We also met a parrot named Bud who could say "Hello". The kids had a ball talking to her. The owner has 5 different parrots. We stayed here until about 3 PM then we ate in the IGUANA garden. There are pictures of this place. You can see pictures of the "Utila Spiny Tailed Iguana" that are found only in Utila. These pictures were taken from our table while we ate. We took the tuk-tuk back to the hotel to drop Gabby and I off for her nap and then the rest of the family went back to the pier to snorkel until dark. Gabby was still sleeping when they got back so they left us and went to a place called the "Pizza Nut" to eat pizza and bring some back for us. It was soooo yummy! The crust was super thin. If you are ever in Utila you have to eat here.

The next day we were going to get up and go snorkeling one last time before catching the ferry at 2, but we were too sunburned. We actually applied sunscreen twice but I guess it wasn't quite good enough for the Utila Sun. So we just slept in. We had the Tuk- Tuk pick us up at 12 and take us over to the boat dock. We ate lunch at the best, and I mean the best, sooo good that you would go back to the Island just to eat there, Mexican restaurant. I took a picture of it for the blog it was so good. The enchiladas are the best you will ever eat and the nachos are world famous. Yummm!

So anyway the trip was wonderful and so much fun. Utila is breathtakingly beautiful. When we were researching it the books and websites mentioned that the rainy season doesn't start there until November. This didn't make sense to us since it is so close, but apparantly the tradewinds hold the rain on the mainland until November, so it was clear and beautiful. It is an island that is mainly for dive certifications. They are supposedly the cheapest place in the world to get certified. $250 including accomodations for your open water. Which takes 3 and a half days. Once you get this certification they will take you out for $25 including the equipment rental. So the island was full of young single adults coming to learn how to dive. It had a party atmosphere and we were really the only family on the island. Tourism is down right now because of the political problems, so there weren't many people and whenever you talked to the locals you could tell they were really hurting. It was really sad. July is normally their busiest month and was slower than their slowest month typically. The island's first language is English and second Spanish. So you don't have to worry about communication issues to go here.

As far as political issues we didn't have a problem. I did take a picture of one group of protestors we passed blocking one lane of the road. They all waved at us and smiled because the USA is working to help reinstate their President. I don't know alot about the issues here, but apparantly the President was changing the constitution with out approval from any other government bodies. One thing he changed was "no term limits". So the millitary kidnapped him in the night and congress voted the next day to impeach him. Part of the country loved him so they are protesting.

I also took a picture of one of the palm tree farms. They were so beautiful. I wanted to hang a hammock and chill under the canopy.

That's all I've got this time. Keep checking the comments though for Nathan's description of the snorkeling.

Thanks Kimbo for the rainy day suggestions. It is actually fairly sunny today! Yeah! I will defiantely use the website and the suggestions though. The game sounds so fun. I can't wait for it to rain so we can play it!

Mel