Cheap diving & the most spectacular bar we’ve seen

A Parting Gift

Travel Woes: We started our trip to the Caribbean island of Utila, Honduras from Granada, Nicaragua at 1am. We took one taxi and two buses to get to La Ceiba, Honduras (20 hours total) – spent the night there and then in the morning, took the ferry for one hour to Utila. Along the way Marcelo’s Immunization Card got misplaced by the bus company and a Honduran border agent asked for a $500 bribe to get into the country. Fun times but we made it and only paid $20 to the Border asshole Agent. As a parting gift the Border Agent gave Marcelo what’s in the picture above.

Onward…

A View of the Honduran Mainland from Utlia aka our front balcony

If you want to see how we got from Granada To Utila, click here.  For some reason google maps wont allow me, or I’m just ignorant of how to do it, to add Utila as a destination point on the map and still show the route we took, so Utila is the small and the closest of the three islands just off La Ceiba.

Utila is known as one of the best places to get a Scuba Certification. There are approximately 20 different dive shops vying for every tourist that comes to the island. Suffice to say, we saved mucho dinero getting our Open Water PADI Certification on the island as opposed to the USA.

Pre-Dive

We only paid $260 per person for the course, two fun dives and six days lodging. In the States, the course by itself could be upwards of $800 each. That said we did have to endure some vicious sand flies, mosquitoes, and HEAT with HUMIDITY. Totally worth it!!!

Utila has one main street that contains nearly all the businesses on the island. Backpackers from around the globe travel here to dive during the day and party at night.

Think of the children

Utila also has of the best bars we’ve ever experienced. Imagine that Gaudi decided to design a bar, this is Treetanic.

It’s a massive bar set on a hillside with a botanical garden and eclectic art throughout the entire place.

Also, the bar also contains a spider “sanctuary”.  I have never seen so many spiders in one area in my life.  They are in an area that is separate from the bar.  Even during the night, you aren’t going to walk into web or charlotte.

Not Charlotte but a close cousin

Seen on our snorkeling and scuba dives: lots of coral (hard and soft), sponges, numerous species of fish, quite a few barracuda, a moray eel, and large ray. I also decided that at 33 feet down I wanted to be a fish and tried to suck in as much water as possible. SCARY, but a learning to relax and rely on the equipment made me human again.

Life Lesson – RELAX
For more pictures click here

It's very faint in the pic, but it's a double rainbow (just above)

Jason