Belize and Honduras!!

February 26, 2011
The last week has been so busy that I didn't even have a chance to write. We have come and gone from Belize already and its a good thing because it was the most expensive place so far. All the prices were on par with home. We got to Belize City at around 1 and booked our ferry tickets straight away. Having 45 minutes to spare I decided to taste the local street food. We got a chicken and rice with beans and salad meal. It was awesome!! There was this guy with cloudy eyes and yucky teeth who saw me counting my change to pay for the food and came up and just stuck his hand in my face and expected me to give him money. I ignored him and Chad even got between us and he still wouldn't take a hint. The lady selling me chicken however told him to "git tha heel oudda heeaah"! I must say hearing English has been quite refreshing...even if we can only understand half of it. The ferry ride to Caye Caulker (pronounced Kee...of which i didn't know until we were two days on the island) was about 45 minutes. Once we got there this guy decided he was going to help us find the best accomodations in town. We figured what the hell and he actually found us a perfect place on the quieter beach for only $20 a night which was a steal really for the island. We stayed 4 nights in Caye Caulker. Mostly we ate, drank and went to the beach. On the Saturday night after we arrived however there was a "Full Moon Party". You had to buy tickets and the only way to get out to the party was to take a water taxi. It was pretty pricey but we figured it would be worth it. However our beach day tired the hell out of us and we fell asleep at 5pm and then woke up at 1am! So off we went to catch the water taxi and we got to the party by 1:30. It was winding down a bit by then but still pretty wild. They had the party in this two level cabana type deal. The bar was on the lower floor and the dance floor was at the top and of course everyone wanted to be on the top floor. They had "security gaurds" manning the stairs and only really letting locals go up. It was a pretty basic dance/drinking party. The prices for drinks were stupid...a spiced rum and coke was $6US!! This one hippie girl tried to bust out the hoola hoops but the police officer grabbed her hoops and said "no hoola hoops". It was funny at the time...mostly because of our distaste for hippies...and hoola hoops. We left the party at 5am with the second last boat...the very last one left at 7am!!
Our friends from Vancouver recommended a sailing trip that they had done the previous year. So we looked into it and it sounded wicked. We booked it and left town on February 22. It was with a company called Raggamuffin. The boats were definately worthy of the name Raggamuffin. We had three crew...all local Caye Caulkerins named Jermaine, Shane and James. Jermaine was a slightly shady character who was supposedly accused of stealing cocaine that washed up on his friend's island from the Colombian drug runners. James was an older guy that used to teach diving courses and is an expert spear fisherman. Shane was the entertainer of the group and was a backflipping, dancing, freestyle rapping flirt machine. He says his family wants to send him to the US to try to become a real rapper. The first day we stopped to snorkel some reefs twice. The very first snorkel spot we saw a HUGE eagle ray, that was probably about 10 feet across. We passed through a school of baracudas while going through the reef and I almost chickened out and went back to the boat. Thier teeth are as big as sharks teeth!! A german guy on our tour caught a huge one on the first day. The tour was all about sailing, fishing, snorkeling, eating and rum punch. They figured this punch was the best thing in the world. It was this concoction of fruit punch juice crystals, water and cheap white rum. They made a big batch of it in those big water jugs. So like 25 gallons of rum punch and 20 of us couldn't even finish it. The food was really good though. The first night we had conch curry and baked baracuda! We stopped on this tiny little island that was maybe 1/2 an acre with 3 or 4 palm trees and surrounded by reef. Our 12 tents covered the place. We slept there for the night and they cooked us up a big breakfast in the morning. The next morning the winds were good enough that we could actually sail a bit. We had the sails up most of the time but the engines were usually always going too. More fishing that day and Chad caught a baracuda. Others on the boat caught a red snapper and a tiny little tuna! The second night we spent on Tobacco Caye. This island had lots of houses on it and there are actually 20 people that live there. We snorkeled here as well and I saw two more spotted eagle rays, some little sting rays and some other people saw a bunch of jelly fish. They pushed some more damn rum punch at us but we opted to patronize the only bar on the island and have a beer. Three days of fishing and sailing and no beer is unheard of! Later that night it was dance party central at the boat where the crew thought they should show the single ladies how to dance "Belizean" style. That was our time to exit as most people know Chad is not a fan of dancing and didn't feel like being rum punched into dancing to Michael Jackson tunes. Next morning was another big breakfast and off for more snorkeling and fishing. On our way to Placencia we were lucky enough to have a pod of bottle nose dolphins chase our boat for a few minutes! They were so big and amazingly beautiful.
Once we got into Placencia we were sunburned and tired and not in the mood for the tourist "helpers" who want to find you a hotel. We followed a couple who did use of these helpers and got a place on the beach for pretty cheap. A few minutes later the same guy came to our door and asked for my husband. Chad being in the bano at the time couldn't come to the door. So he proceeded to ask me for a tip of $5US! I asked him what the hell for and he said that he bought us there so he deserved a tip. I gave him $1US and told him I didn't have any more money. He gave it back and asked for my husband again. He stunk like booze and had one that was all cloudy and he had no teeth. He was frickin creepy. In the end he took his one dollar and left after I told him he wouldn't get any tip. Anyways, after that went out for some food and then hit the hay. As the next morning we had to catch the ferry to Honduras. There is only one ferry a week so we didn't really have a choice. The ferry ride was 4 hours and i got a bit sea sick but not too bad. An english fellow from the sailing trip was headed the same way so we decided to stick together. On the boat we met some other Canadians from Burnaby who live on Utila (where we were headed). They are dive instructors there and were a wealth of information. We decided to stick with them as they knew the cheapest and fastest way to get to the island. We didn't realize what an endeavour it was to get from Belize to Utila. First the ferry from Placencia to Big Creek for passport stamps then on to Peurta Cortes in Honduras for immigration and more passport stamps. After that we caught a city bus to San Pedro Sula to the main bus terminal and after that we caught a bus to La Ceiba and had to stay overnight because there are only two ferries a day that go to Utila, last one was at 4. La Ceiba was dirty and loud but we all shared a cab this moring to get to the terminal and we finally made it here.
When we got to the main dock we dropped our big bags at Captain Morgan's Dive Shop and headed out for some breakfast and some major dive shop shopping. We visited three of the major ones and it took us almost all day. We finally decided on Utila Dive Centre because they had the best accomodations and the best reputation. A bit more expensive than the others but the fact that our room is actually decent and there is a great pool and a nice garden with hammocks makes it worth it. The other shops were bare bones, borderline infested places. One house they had a room in looked haunted and the other shop was situated over top of a swamp. We are dead tired and are sick of moving around all the time. I think we will stay here for a couple weeks. It will be nice just to chill for a while. So that brings you up to speed on what we've been up to for the past week. Made me tired just writing it!