Island Paradise to Military lockdown
Trip Start
Mar 09, 2009
1
21
31
Trip End
Ongoing
Tegucigalpa, Francisco Morazán, Honduras
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Utila
Let me tell you about a little island called Utila; a small island in the Caribbean about an hour ferry ride from the Honduran mainland. There is not much to do there if you don't do any or all of the three Ds: Diving, Drinking and Drugs and if you don’t do one of them, don’t bother going. But if you do any of them, it’s an amazing, fun and beautiful place and is very difficult to leave. One of the biggest lies in Utila, is "I’m leaving tomorrow."
Drugs
The second night I was there, there was a shoot-out with a suspected drug trafficking plane which was brought down. However, when the authorities turned up there was no evidence of drugs, pilot or any passengers, but judging by the crowd on the Wednesday night at the Bar and the Bush, the only late night venue on the island, most of the drugs ended up there. Cocaine is rampant on the island, there is little to no subtly about it, the buying/ selling exchange and taking; and the cops know about it, occasionally running supposed drug busts just to get good bribes from the various tourists and longer term residents. They have no interest in arrests, just money and confiscation. Weed, cannabis etc is also widely available and is openly smoked constantly on the island morning, day and night. However, although the majority of people are there to have a good time, you can see the damaging effects as kids (18 – 23 year olds) get sucked deeper and deeper into the lifestyle and don’t have the wherewithal to disengage, they seem tired and damaged before their time. This accumulated sadly in a death on the island this Sunday from a drugs overdose, believed to be from taking ecstasy. He was a 21 year old American doing his Dive Masters in Training (DMT) at one of the dive shops (UDC). Allegedly this was the first death of a non-islander in years; the last person to die was from free diving in caves – complete and utter madness!
Diving
The main reason to visit Utila is to dive. As mentioned in my previous blog there are tons of different dive schools, all offering different vibes, accommodation, deals etc. The courses are all pretty standard, open water, advanced, search and rescue, dive masters and instructor. Because you spend the majority of your time at the dive school, either diving or doing theory you tend to form a clique with that dive school and associate solely with people from that school. Surprisingly this wasn’t the case with me and I flitted from group to group. I dived at Cross creek, hung out at Underwater Vision, went to Parrot’s barbeques and had dinners with Captain Morgans. I got to know some of the Utila Dive Centre guys but not too well and didn’t even bother with Altons, mainly because they drove around the island in a blacked out minivan beeping at you as you walked along the one narrow road that had no pavements so basically where were you meant to walk? But I’m sure underneath the façade they were lovely people.
The Diving is great, beautiful clear azure waters, amazing reefs and great visibility and dazzling fish of all colours. Spectacular parrot fish, angel fish, trunkfish, trumpet fish, damselfish, fairy basslets, blue chroms, blue tangs, sergeant majors, butterflyfish, black durgeons and margates, porcupine fish, drum fish, groupers, snappers, stingrays, turtles, morays, lobsters and many many more. My favourite dives were my first deep dive which was in the north side of the island, the airport caves, which included swimming through natural rock alleys into caves and through passages that were both vertical and horizontal. It was fantastic controlling my own buoyancy through breathing. I had one hairy moment as I had to swim up and over a bar and down through a small tunnel as I raised myself over the said bar to slip through the small opening and then out of the cave, my mask filled with water. I screwed my eyes tight shut and deflated my BCD. Exhaling I tried to lower myself feet first down, knowing that there were rocks above me and all around the small gap I had to fit both myself and my tank through knowing that the rocks were also covered in burning fire coral. I knew I could not clear my mask as my head would hit the rocks above me. I remained calm and started descending feet first just as I felt a pull on my flipper and it was Juan Carlos or Juca pulling me through. Crisis averted. The next challenges were a wreck dive and a night dive.
The wreck dive consisted of diving down to 30 metres to explore the outside of a sunken cargo ship that all the dive schools clubbed together to sink. Nowadays there are mementos left by dive masters and others, including an iPod, a jar of marmite and a scary one eyed dolls head. We were not allowed to penetrate the wreck, you need more advanced training than the Advanced Course to be able to swim through and go inside wrecks. The night dive was pretty hairy, but at the same time amazing as when the torches were switched off the sea came alive with luminescence, the stars of the sea.
I then spent my second week completing all my fun dives which varied from amazing to pretty ordinary. I must feel pretty competent underwater if I’m describing the experience as pretty ordinary. Unfortunately although I had another opportunity to swim with dolphins I did not have the chance to swim with a whale shark. They are currently in the area and a few of the other dive schools managed to not only see them but get in the water and swim beside them. I tried to be happy for them!
Drinking
The night life on the little island of Utila revolves around three bars – Coco Loco on the water front; Tranquilo next door to Cocos and Treetantic up the slope and on Wednesday and Friday nights extents to Bar in the Bush, which I only managed to get to once. Treetantic was definitely a favourite. The bar is set on a circular platform surrounding a huge tree and is covered in mosaics and glass beads all hand made by this mad American artist who owns not only the bar but also the 'huts’ that serve as luxury accommodation on the island. The mosaic craziness continues along raised walkways, to seating areas with swings, tunnels and staircases leading to the banos or to other discreet seating areas. Rum was the drink of choice and normally was bought by the bottle from the local shops and consumed prior to heading out to one of the above bars. On one or two nights a bit too much was consumed and there was no heading out to the bars but instead a stumble home followed by a ‘pass out’ Surprisingly there were no hangovers and if any were had they were quickly dispelled during the first dive of the morning, which meant getting up at 6:30. My drinking chums were a great bunch of people, Josie and Scott who I had met in Guatemala; Tyson who became our resident awesome chef; Dave and Alex; the Parrots gang of Mark, Melissa, Darren, Alan and the Cross creek crew of Max, Jen and Tim and the Underwater Vision gang of Dave, Carly, Debs, Ben, Chris, Sam and Jamie. I was never lacking drinking partners and in a few days was guaranteed to know enough people to walk into a bar by myself.
Independence Day
Independence day was such a revelation in its own right that it deserves a whole paragraph to itself. We had been told that the whole island basically shuts down and parties and that is pretty much what happened. No one was sure if Monday night was the big night or actually Tuesday night, but having got wrecked on the Sunday with some US Military boys and ending up skinny dipping with them at 2 am, I was in no mood for a big Monday drinking session. Thankfully I got sucked into a pub quiz, which guttingly Dave, Tyson and I lost to Josie, Scott and Alex. Unbelievably Scott beat me on knowing more countries in Africa - ??? So I was able to abstain from heavy drinking, but did agree to accompany Dave out as all the others fell to the wayside. We went looking for a party and couldn’t find one and ended up at midnight with me trying to extract a splinter of glass from Dave’s foot! Tuesday rolled on and there was a big parade – I slept through it. The afternoon was slow, no restaurants were open, but there were loads of locals setting up stalls along the road selling delicious but pricey plates of street food. Then by 4 pm Scott, Josie and I went to investigate what was going on in the centre of town. During the afternoon a makeshift boxing ring had been crudely banged together. It had a plywood floor and sagging side ropes, leaning struts and nails and splinters sticking out of every surface. The crowd was getting dense and starting to bray for blood, but first there was the matter of raising the slippery pole. Sounds rather filthy. But basically was this huge tall pole that was covered in grease and had 5000 lempiras stuck at the top. The object was for a team to make a pyramid or chain, standing on each other shoulders to try and reach the money. Once this was raised, the boxing started. Anyone could get in the ring, from men to boys to girls and even to white men. Anyone who wanted to flail their arms around and swing wildly at their opponent was welcome. There was blood, tears, one knock out, lots of cheers, many owws and ahhs and a lot of laughter. It was an unusual way to celebrate Independence Day but also possibly apt to show the fight and struggle against their former oppressor – Great Britain.
After the boxing was done and the sun was setting 1 lempira notes were thrown from the ring and the children scrabbled over each other to get to them, adults elbowed their way in and I and others took photos. Suddenly the scene went white... no it wasn’t a drug plane crashing or the celebrations taking a sudden narcotic turn. No it was flour and I was coated, my hair had gone grey, my clothes virginal white and my camera was covered in a thin lay of white powder. I decided rather than to watch the ‘climbing’ of the greasy pole to rush home to ‘de-flour’ myself. I got some strange looks... which I explained away with “This is what happens if you try and bake a cake.” I walked past our dive shop and was laughed at, nothing new there, but Nourja had a brilliant idea of using compressed air to blow the flour off my camera and clothes, so thankfully the camera was saved. I then met up with the others including Tyson who had been slaving away in the kitchen cooking us all an independence day feast and we wandered back down the road to watch the firework display which you just knew was two men running to set off a firework and then running away just to repeat the exercise a few seconds later. We then returned to eat our feast dodging children and fire crackers and other hazards.
Photos of Utila are again already posted on Facebook so please use this link to see them... http://www.facebook.com/album.phpaid=121275&id=536447282&l=772425fdb0
That night we went to Treetantic and met up with others and then onto Cocos where I danced the night away until I was dragged home. It was a great day and night.
On Friday we said a sad goodbye to Josie and Scott who were travelling to Nicaragua. I was going to go with them, but it would have meant I would have lost two free dives and also another couple Dave and Kate, from Cross Creek were going to do the same journey on the Monday, so I thought I’d stay the weekend and travel down to Nicaragua with them. Saturday I said another sad goodbye to Dave and Tyson who were going on a boys’ adventure to the Mosquito coast. Again I kicked myself and thought I should really go with them, I mean who was going to cook for me now? The ferry was leaving at 2 and at 1 pm, I seriously contemplated throwing all my stuff in Brad in record time and catching the ferry with them. The weekend was quiet without the gang, I still went to Parrot’s barbeque and had a chocolate cake fight and bumped into a guy, Mike, who I had met and hung out with in El Tunco. And then the rains came. I was planning on going out once last time to Treetantic to say goodbye to everyone, but half way there, I was drenched, cold and tired, so I turned around and went to bed instead as I had to get up at 5 am to catch the morning ferry.
Monday 21st September
Dave, Kate and I wandered down to the ferry and whilst slapping away the sand flies that were glued to Kate and my legs we discussed whether we should try to travel through down to Tegucigalpa the capital of Honduras or stop at San Pedro Sula. Getting to Teguci would mean that the Tuesday travel time would be cut and as we had all Monday we might as well try and get as far as we could. Once we got to La Ceiba, we investigated the options, timings and price ($24) and decided to do it. At San Pedro we had a couple of hours to wait before the bus departed to Teguci, so we cleverly bought our Tica bus tickets ($20) to Managua for the next morning, which would save us time doing that when we got to Teguci.
The bus was slow we departed an hour late and it took over 4 hours, it is meant to take 3. The woman next to me was shouting, constantly on the phone, getting more and more het up. Dave, Kate and I exchanged looks, pulling funny faces at each other. About half an hour from Teguci we get stopped at a road block, not unusual in central America. A policeman stuck his head into the bus and then departed. Seconds later we were on our way again. We arrived at the bus depot to silence. There were no taxis, no one out on the road. People were grabbing their bags and calling on their mobiles and no one was talking to us. We went up to the security guard and I asked in my halting Spanish where we could get a taxi. He responded, I caught ‘there are no taxis’ and then the woman who had been sitting next to me, translated. “He’s trying to tell you, there are no taxis you have to stay here at the hotel.” We all turn and look at her nonplussed. “There is a curfew, you can’t go anywhere.” Okay so she had had a reason to be getting more and more agitated. She then apologised that she wouldn’t be able to give us a lift as her husband who was a policeman, and coming to pick her up, had only a small car. We thanked her and followed the security guard into the back of this building, which turned out to be a hotel.
We then found out that, that afternoon Zelaya had decided after 3 months of exile to return to Tegucigalpa. He had taken refuge in the Brazilian embassy and was rallying his supporters. Of all the days he chose to return, after 15 hours of travelling over mountains and through rivers – what by foot?? It had to be the day we were travelling through to Nicaragua. We obviously did not co-ordinate our diaries, next time I will get my people to talk to his (or other disposed presidents) people. I don’t think we really grasped the seriousness of the situation as we negotiated the price for a night’s stay and confidently believed we would be able to catch the Tica bus the next morning. Frustrated we shelled out all our lempiras still positive we would be leaving. We watched the news, which was sketchy on the situation, I spoke to my brother, first time in months and reassured him everything was fine.
The next morning we woke early, packed had the complimentary breakfast, asked the front desk to get us a taxi to take us to the Tica bus station. At this we were met with blank and confused looks. “I don’t think the bus will be running?” This stopped us in our tracks. “What?” we collectively asked.
“Er, the bus it won’t be going. The ex-president returned yesterday.” The bewildered man replied
“Yes we know he returned, why can’t we leave?”
“There is a military lockdown, there is a curfew.” He tried to explain
A curfew during the day? Baffled we looked at each other, none of us had contemplated that the curfew would continue into the day.
“Please would you call the Tica bus to see if they are leaving?” we pleaded. None of us could afford to spend another night in the hotel. He called and confirmed that no they were not leaving. We sat down and tried to think of what we were going to do. I was all for trying to find the action, which he overhead and promptly warned us not to leave the hotel.
We got back to the room and called the British Embassy in Guatemala and were advised not to leave our hotel, that they were monitoring the situation and it could become volatile at any moment. In fact the military had moved into the disperse Zelaya’s supporters who had defied the curfew outside the Brazilian embassy. Tegucigalpa resembled a ghost town, there were no cars, few people on the street and all shops were shut. We slowly came to the realisation we would not be leaving on the Tuesday and just hoped that on Wednesday we would be able to get out. 6 pm rolled on and the curfew was extended to 6 am. At 8 pm we were watching television when all of a sudden a stationary screen appeared with the Honduran flag and a message stating there was an official announcement. We turned over and listened to a statement being read out in English saying that Zelaya had to accept the elections on 29th November. That the interim government were open to have a dialogue but Zelaya had to understand that there was also a warrant for his arrest, which had been issued by the supreme court and was therefore out of the interim government’s control. So if Zelaya stepped outside of the Brazilian embassy he would be arrested for unconstitutional acts.
It was the weirdest press conference I had seen. The press secretary took questions from a motley crew of reporters in Spanish, which revolved around the fact that water and other amenities had been cut off to the Brazilian embassy. But the upshot of the whole thing was the curfew was not just going to last until 6 am but would be extended again to 6pm. Our hearts sank, we would be under hotel arrest for another day. There were only so many games of cards we could play. Food was also expensive so we decide to stock up on breakfast and steal as much as we could from the buffet cart to last us through the day.
Wednesday morning rolled on and the breakfast tables were filled with local reporters. The staff were angry saying that all Zelaya was doing was disrupting Honduran lives. We were hearing complaints that the curfew had been imposed too quickly not allowing people to get in provisions. This could be damaging to the interim government which on the whole had been reasonably popular. Therefore at 9:45 there was another press conference, all the other channels were taken off air and it was announced in Spanish that the curfew would be lifted from 10 am to 5 pm to allow people to get provisions and to work.
We watched as the streets filled with cars and people, the supermarkets overflowing with braying crowds, the multiplaza teeming with locals trying to get to banks, get essential and some non essential supplies. Everything was pretty calm and there was only one incident where the crowd looked hostile, so we quickly scurried away. Meantime the front desk was trying to find us a way and means of getting out of Honduras. They came up with another option for Thursday; we weren’t going to be getting out of there on Wednesday but possibly Thursday. So another expensive night and then possibly shelling out for another ticket to Nicaragua on top of the one we bought in good faith on Monday.
I write this on Wednesday 23rd, about to enter my third night under curfew; the roads are becoming quiet, as people are returning home to meet the 5pm deadline. The TV crew is pulling into the hotel carpark and the rain is flooding the empting streets and I’m hoping, still optimistic that we will get out of here tomorrow.
So much for my bolshie comments, travelling to Honduras is fine, there are no problems, it’s all perfectly safe, best time to go is after a coup and then the friggin’ ex president instead of taking his millions and running to find asylum in some African, European or South American country, returns. Who could have predicted this? Well I’m well and truly learned.
