Itchy!

Trip Start Feb 10, 2008

Trip End Aug 06, 2008

Loading Map

Map your own trip!

Map Options

Show trip route

Hide lines

Where I stayed

Rose's Guesthouse

Flag of Honduras Utila, Honduras
Sunday, June 22, 2008

Yes, itchy; if I could choose one word to best describe my experiences over the last few days, then that would be it. As I predicted, the burning in my thighs gradually gave way to an insatiable itching; one that unfortunately also assailed my torso, stomach, neck and parts of my arms, despite the fact that they hadn't seemed particularly sunburned. To make matters worse, despite applying a healthy covering of the strongest DEET possible to my legs and feet every night, they have been devoured by mosquitoes, and so have joined the itching extravaganza that is my current life. And so I have spent almost every waking hour over the last few days thinking about how much I itch, wishing I didn't itch so much, trying to resist the urge to vigorously scratch every inch of my body, and vigorously scratching every inch of my body. However, things are not as bad as they might seem; if I could choose any place in the world to itch and scratch to such an extent, then Utila would surely be in the top ten.

I arrived here on Thursday with two French Canadians, who happen to be the same two French Canadians that I joined for dinner after finishing my last blog entry. As appealing as the lotion / cable TV combination had been, in the end I decided to stop being such a miserable bastard and so accepted their kind invitation. It turns out that they are very quiet, both in terms of the volume of their voices and the quantity of their words, and are also rather nerd-like. But they are both friendly enough, and we agreed to meet the following morning so that we could share the cost of a taxi to the port at La Ceiba.

Local boy on boat to Utila

After a relaxing hour long boat journey we arrived at our destination, Utila, where we were accosted by a number of gringos and locals trying to sell us their wares; specifically, the diving courses and accommodation of their respective companies. After a short discussion we decided to go with "Parrot Diving", mainly because their salesperson was quite hot and also a bit mental (at least those were my reasons). After hearing her bang on in French about the open water course (she's originally from Ecuador but is fluent in five languages), we were shown to the various types of accommodation on offer. Although my bilingual buddies wanted to minimize costs by sharing a room together, I insisted on having my own so that I could lubricate my pink body with some privacy.

Whilst watching the Germany vs Portugal match in a bar, I met a couple from Leeds and, shamelessly going back on my promise to meet my timid Canuck companions at 17:00, arranged instead to join the Brits for some drinks later on. I had heard that Utila was somewhat of a "party island", which I was quite excited about due to the fact that I had barely gone out since my booze-filled nights in Mexico, but unfortunately our bar to bar wanderings suggested that this was a place that was more accustomed to people supping a beer or two whilst sharing diving tales, as opposed to downing shots of tequila and revealing their genitals to unsuspecting passers-by. Still I had a good evening, and it was actually nice to talk to some people that I had so much stuff in common with.

Utila from afar

As I have stated before, the main reason that travelers head to this island in such droves is that it offers world class scuba diving at comparatively low costs, and my reasons for coming were no different. Unfortunately I felt that it was in my best interests to delay donning a wetsuit for a day or two, as a) I didn't want my burned skin to ruin the diving, and b) I didn't want the diving to ruin my burned skin. Luckily Utila is a pretty awesome place to just kick back and relax; second to diving, the most popular pastime seems to be to sit out on one of the many piers that jut into the Caribbean Sea and, whilst nursing a beer or two, watch the world and the people go by. And that is exactly what I have done for the last day or two (well, that and itch), and quite frankly I'm in no hurry to change anything.

Having said that, despite Herculean like efforts in regularly moisturizing and refraining from scratching my burned skin, yesterday I entered the final phase - peeling. At first I was pretty pissed off that all my efforts had been in vain, but once the floodgates opened it was actually quite satisfying to scratch and peel to my heart's content. It also means that I am now free to do some significantly overdue diving, which coincidentally I am supposed to be doing right now. Unfortunately my instructor didn't show up this morning - the manager seemed to be a bit worried about him actually - but I was told that I should definitely be able to get going tomorrow afternoon. I'm pretty excited about it; two nights ago I met an American woman who told me that they had come within a foot of a group whale sharks on one of their dives - creatures that are around thirty feet in length and whose mouths are easily large enough to swallow a human whole. Gulp.

Anyway I'm off to watch Spain beat Italy.

Adios

x

P.S. I have now uploaded some photos to the last 4 or 5 entries if anyone is interested.