Your Escape Blueprint

We have been doing some exploring of the neighbourhood on our daily walks………..  We are perched on the hillside overlooking downtown San Jose, which means lots of hills! It also means a lot of high end luxurious homes with fantastic views, both of San Jose and the surrounding countryside.

These houses range from ultra-modern to classic villas and range from dazzling white to vivid burnt orange, bougainvillea cascades in exuberant colour against palm trees and spiky huge agaves. Every place is different and also the same!

Every single one is hidden by high walls or fences each topped with razor wire, entrance is obtained through huge motorized gates with and without security guards. All windows and doors have bars or additional gates and all of course have a built in security system.

It appears the price of success in this country is that you live the remainder of your days behind bars…….. not something we are really interested in doing.

Which is why we very amused yesterday, we passed a property tucked away behind a high graffiti covered wall with Si Vende (For Sale) plastered in bold lettering on it. The gates were in disrepair , the side gate missing with the opening protected with strands of barbed wire. Of course we had to go and have a peek to see what was beyond……… a large empty lot with a impressive view of San Jose and nearby hills.

While admiring the view a voice piped up behind us, we turn to see a immaculately dressed man, addressing us from his SUV  ………. turns out he was the agent with the listing for that property! What are the chances of the real estate agent driving by at that precise moment???

He regaled us with what a wonderful location it is and we could build up to 5 properties on it, only up to 3 stories though, the owner was relocating etc. etc. etc. A very pleasant charming man, however Freddie my man there is no way we would live here!

We long ago established that we are not big city folks; add to that the outrageous prices here! Outrageous, compared to the rest of Central America anyway…….. actually very similar or even more than what we would pay back in Canada.

The main reason though is all those bars and miles of razor wire, is it really necessary or just because that’s the way it has always been? Seems to us there is two societies here, the haves and the have not’s and they appear to be hurtling rapidly away from each other.

A perfect place to get away from it all!

If the diving, the nightlife and the crazy ATV & Golf Cart drivers of Utila are getting to you, wander uphill from the main intersection to find a perfect little oasis.

The Jade Seahorse is something you have never seen or imagined in your wildest dreams! Enter though the colourful gate and prepare to be amazed!

The garden has slowly been transformed from a quiet hilly slope into a feast for the senses, multi coloured glass twinkles from every direction, used on walls, rocks, stairs even bottles! The pathways are explosions of carefully set fractured tile leading you to the next discovery, a stately arch, a wooden stairway ornately shaped and gaily painted. Serpents, dragons and bulbous headed monsters, even Buddha’s are to be found in the most unlikely places.

This place is not to be rushed, like all gardens worth their salt it has “hidden rooms and passages” places to sit and meditate or just to let your gaze travel over the amazing amount of artwork here. It seems that anything and everything has been utilized here, broken tiles, glass beads, marbles, bottles, plates, glasses, bowls, glass floats, plastic Koi, shells, hard drives & ornaments all incorporated into a homogenous yet wildly undisciplined whole with copious amounts of concrete and adhesive.

Throw in the uniquely decorated cabins which are available for rent, the popular Tree Tanic bar, which is of course built in a tree and accessed by several stairs and walkways which lead off to hidden corners of the garden and the wildly decorated bathrooms, yes even they are covered in glass beads and tiles.

The gardens are free to visit, donations are generously accepted (box by front gate) if you visit during the day you get to see the dazzling splendour at its best, the Tree Tanic bar does not open till evenings, maybe to entice you back to see what this wonderland looks like when a twinkle  with another light?

Here it is folks!

A chance to join us diving………..

Our destination was a deep seamount known as Roatan Banks; this area which is just off Cayo Cochinas a spot very seldom dived. Alton’s is the only dive shop that goes there from Utila.

The reason for all the excitement was that the Groupers should be spawning, which brings in large fish i.e Sharks, as we have seen very few of those, we decided to take the plunge and tolerate the 2 hour trip there and back. We had a full complement of divers and dive masters as we pulled out at 6 am, some still clutching their cup of Java, some wishing they hadn’t later on……. It was a little bouncy on the way out.

We did see Groupers both Nassau & Blackfin, the Blackfins are the big ones! Somewhere in the middle is a shot of one of those elusive Sharks, a Black Tip Reef Shark ……. You have to look very carefully to spot him!!!!!

The highlight has to be towards the end, yours truly (yep, that is me wearing pink) spotted not one, not two, not even three, but four lobsters in a Barrel Sponge (the fourth is in the back rear corner, count the antennae if you don’t believe me). It is almost impossible to see in the clip but also in the sponge is a large crab; he was on the top surface of the sponge above the lobsters! Lobsters are usually solitary creatures, so trust me this is rare…………

This video footage was provided by courtesy of Mister Blue Sky a fellow diver who has what must be the smallest video camera ever! After seeing the quality of the underwater video with no additional lighting I was gobsmacked, this little baby the Go Pro is on our wish list now!

Hope you enjoy this taste of diving and we want you to let us know where in the clip the Shark is ???????

When planning our trip to the Bay Islands of Honduras, it was with a little trepidation! Although there is not a nationwide travel advisory, Foreign Affairs Canada states that Canadians should exercise a high degree of caution when travelling in Honduras. They also advise against all travel in several parts of the country due to exceedingly high levels of violence and crime. These areas are Valle, Choluteca, and Olancho, luckily areas we did not have to travel through.

Honduras is a place where you can be mugged or even shot without even trying; Honduras has the highest per capita murder rate of any nation on the planet.

The combination of poverty, drug trafficking, and gang activity has resulted in several incidences of armed robberies targeting tourists, as well as the normal mayhem in this troubled country.

With this in the back of our minds, we opted for the safer and more comfortable option of a small tourist bus from Puerto Barrios, Guatemala to La Ceiba, Honduras. The plan being to catch the 4:30 PM ferry to Utila from La Ceiba.

You can do the same route by local transport – this adds a lot more time to the journey, our small bus did the journey in 6 hours, the local bus takes much longer, which means an overnight stay in La Ceiba. Riding local busses for long journeys can also test your   endurance for pain and suffering. The private transfer can be arranged in Guatemala at the Rio Tropicales, the ferry and the bus cost US $47 by booking through them. Fellow travellers who joined our tourist bus in Puerto Barios paid US $50 for the bus only! It does pay to book in advance.

Our day started at 6:30 AM in Livingston Guatemala with a 45 minute boat ride to Puerto Barrios. The ride was smooth and the scenery in the morning light was spectacular! This truly is a beautiful part of the world.

Our driver Samuel met us in Puertos Barrios as arranged. After packing the minivan to the gills with an assortment of travellers, the majority of the luggage was piled on top and lashed down. Our small van with its burden of travellers and mountain of luggage, resembled a snail with wheels.

One of the occupants was a very hung over backpacker, who had apparently not washed within the past couple of weeks. I had the blessing of sitting next to the emitter of moans, grunts, and body odour. I had to constantly push him off me during as he fell asleep, losing all control of his limbs and head.

The silver lining regarding my position in the van was the view it afforded me. I was able to see Honduran life flash by as we embarked on our 6 hour journey along the North Coast of Guatemala into Honduras.

Guatemalan immigration was a breeze, we wandered into a small hut where a friendly official stamped our passports with our exit stamp, no money required for a change. It was also here that we had the opportunity to switch out Guatemalan Quetzals for Honduran Lempura, the money changers clutching great wads of notes as their fingers flashed over their calculators. Judging by the size of those wads it is a lucrative business.

The first impression of Honduras was Honduran Immigration; this had no resemblance to anything I have ever seen before. Our bus pulled up to a large cement building, where we were directed to the front to see a tangle of people elbowing for the privilege of throwing money at one of 2 immigration officers who sat behind tiny windows, looking for all the world as if they were selling bus tickets.

Believe me nothing moves as slow as Honduran bureaucracy. In Honduras Franz Kafka is considered a pathetic little whiner. The immigration officers were obviously getting paid by the hour and there was no apparent sense of urgency as the lineup built. It took almost an hour for the 10 passengers in our bus to get through immigration.

The second impression of Honduras was that life here is harsh.

A dead horse on the side of the road, rotting in the tropical heat was the first sign of how tough it is. I could almost smell the rotting carcass as we whizzed by, or was that my seat mate? There were other horses in the process of dying, tied up feeding at the side of the highway, while another equine had shed its bonds and ran up in front our our van from the ditch, luckily Samuel was watching the road and managed to steer clear at 60 miles an hour.

The countryside was full of pineapple fields, acres of bananas, and vast groves of palm oil plantations. Trucks and tractors with loads of palm oil berries or people were everywhere. Sometimes vehicles were broken down on the side of the road, completely abandoned or with people lying underneath them, either mechanics or those seeking shelter from the blistering heat. Vehicles which had not yet died were often falling to pieces while in motion, belching amazing quantities of putrid smoke.

The country side was amazingly beautiful, several kilometres from the coast rose a range of shaggy green mountains shrouded in lush jungles and clouds.

The real blight on the landscape was the piles of garbage or Honduran snow as it is affectionately referred to. There were drifts of it along the side of the road and blizzards of it flying out of the air conditioned coach buses in front of us. Private garbage disposal has far exceeded private garbage collection capacity here in Honduras. The garbage just seems to swirl into ever growing piles.

The San Pedro Sula-Santa Rosa de Copán Highway was ulcerated with massive pot holes marked by make shift flags or spare tires standing upright stuffed into the holes. Some of these holes were large enough to qualify as underground parking.

All along the roadside there were people selling fruit and vegetables on the side of the road, some standing, some sitting, all of them holding their wares above their heads in plastic bags.

We skirted the outskirts of San Pedro Sula complete with its shanty towns, depressing huddles of shacks built of ticky tacky complete with rusty metal roofs. There were people in wheel chairs occupying left hand turn lanes. Sometimes the wheel chairs were operated by boys pushing grandparents, mothers pushing daughters, and many times the occupants of the wheel chairs were on their own. Their mission apparently was to impose a sense of guilt whilst beseeching for alms. Jockeying for position with the wheel chairs were the street vendors, selling water and snacks to travellers as they waited for the traffic lights to give the go ahead.

In contrast to the horses along the highway the city horses were to be seen cantering through town pulling carts often burdened with impossible loads.

Although a poor country there is obviously enough money in Honduras to buy guns – and lots of them. The government sector was well represented in the gun department. The military omnipresence was creepy. We passed through at least 6 military and police check points – apparently looking for cocaine traffickers. The heavily armed guards with automatic’s at the ready showed absolutely no signs of joviality.

The private sector gunslingers, which apparently was a much better gig, were stationed at every gas bar and bank. These armed guards were usually very friendly and jovial.  That’s were the friendliness appeared to end. Most of the citizens I observed at 60 miles an hour did not appear to be very friendly at all. The people appeared hard, bitter and pissed off…….

Political slogans abounded, painted on walls, rocks etc. these vied with Billboards plastered with politicians complete with the obligatory shit eating grins.

We arrived at the ferry terminal in La Ceiba with time to spare, collected our bags and promptly traded them for luggage tickets with the very friendly ferry staff. The contrast between what we had seen on the journey down and what we saw here were worlds apart, this became much more apparent when we arrived in Utila.

Utila is a world to itself; the locals will smile (if prompted) and return an Ola!, as they drive by at break neck speed along the narrow main drag. The majority of people in Utila speak English, often with a very heavily accented patois accent. There also appears to be more of a mix of races and skin tones here, no doubt some of it due to the British Pirates who made The Bay Islands there base for many generations (including Captain Morgan).

There does appear to be an underlying tension in here in Utila. It could be due to the huge influx of backpackers who descend on the island to dive by day and party by night, or the possibly the recent influx of mainland Hondurans, it is hard to say.

Watching the dominoes being slammed on to the table during the permanent game in town, you would expect guns to be drawn at any moment…… but no! they are all good friends just engrossed in the spirit of competition.

Having been here for a while, I feel that if you want to find trouble on this island it will find you. Personally Utila feels a lot safer and comfortable than mainland Honduras.

Honduras may have a bad reputation, but like all countries you have to choose your spots wisely. Utila was the perfect choice for us.

I had an interesting realization while diving in Utila – it is sometimes more rewarding to “Let it be”.

Our dive boat left Alton’s Dive Shop at 8 AM with a contingent of very experienced divers. Our first dive was at a site called “Black Hills“, a seamount located 1.5 km southwest of Utila. This is considered to be one of the best dive sites on the Island. The site consists of solitary rock formation in the middle of an otherwise flat seabed. This seamount is a perfect spot to attract sea life. The coral is healthy and there are large amounts of reef and schooling fish.

One of our fellow divers, Steve (a self confessed “Fish Nerd”), is a very experienced diver and a volunteer surveyor for the Reef organization. REEF’s mission is to promote the conservation of marine habitats and is accomplished primarily through the Volunteer Survey Project.

Having done volunteer reef surveys in the Philippines I was most impressed with Steve’s encyclopedic knowledge of the fish life we encountered.

What was interesting about this dive was despite my scientific education, a career in engineering , and some training in reef species identification, I resisted the urge to join Steve ataching names to each fish I saw.

Rather I made the conscious decision to let my analytical mind take a rest, and focus on enjoying the schools of fish swirling around us. To observe the fascinating marine life around us without having a mental commentary playing along.

When my mind is still, and I just “Let it Be”, the colours, the motions, and the richness of the marine environment come to life! I can float with the creatures in the sea, watching them the same way they watch me. This is the Zen of Diving.

When staying in Livingston you have to go see the Seven Altars…… no it is not a religious festival or a church, rather a series of seven waterfalls, cascading over huge rock altars in the dense jungle north of Livingston.

Our decision to explore this area was one of those impulse decisions which end up coming together seamlessly, probably because we were already staying at Rios Tropicales who arrange these trips. Our fellow travellers Christin & Dennis were immediately intrigued by the idea, as our guided tour would take us through the Garifuna section of Livingston, into the surrounding fields, across a river and along the beach to the falls. Included was our guide, lunch and the entry fee of 20 Quetzals, the deal was struck and 15 minutes later we were following our very friendly, though non English speaking guide up into the higher part of town.

The most disturbing thing about that stroll through this area of Livingston was the very apparent poverty and the accompanying disregard for the accumulated rubbish and sickly feral dogs and cats. When money is tight such things are low on the list of priorities all over the world, even though it offends our western sensibilities such is the reality of travel.

About 15 minutes later we veer off down a side road, passing fields of corn, bananas and small thatched houses sitting in their own small circles of hard packed red dirt. No fancy tiled floors or indoor plumbing here, just lots of chickens, kids (both human and goats) and the odd pig.

Did I mention that it rained a lot in Livingston while we were there? It had rained torrentially every night since we had arrived which meant that we would witness the falls in full roar. What it also meant was that our guides chosen route was fraught with its own delights. Mud and lots of it, skirting fields and crossing swollen streams while balancing precariously on moss covered logs became an “adventura”  as our guide explained with a big grin as we squelched, slipped and slithered our way deeper into a system of trails used at some points by only pygmies or the wildlife equivalent.

I for one was beginning to despair of ever getting out of the mud when we arrived on the banks of a murky green, gently flowing river, at last… here is where we would catch our canoe and then on to the Altars!

Well kind of, a very serious young man paddled over in one of the local handmade dugout canoes, these consist of a hollowed out log with no such refinements as seats apart from the 2 plastic crates placed strategically inside. Our guide urged us to get in, we promptly did, and managing to weigh down the boat so firmly that there was no way this thing would float with all of us in it.

Our guide disappeared and we could hear a conversation bandying back and forth across the river until help arrived. Help in this case was a much more substantial boat with a outboard engine skippered by a very large, almost naked Rastafarian, who proudly introduced himself as the father of the dozen or so kids who were shrieking with delight nearby.

Our skipper cranked the engine and we were whisked off downriver and gently deposited at the north side of the river only a few kilometres from our starting point in downtown Livingston.  It had already taken 2 hours to get to this point (thanks to all that mud) and we still had a way to go.

The rest of our trip was on foot along the most garbage strewn beach I have ever seen, countless pieces of plastic and dozens of single footwear examples (a one footed person would have no problem finding something to fit in this mess).

I should note here that you can explore the Altars by yourself, either arriving by boat or walking through town over the swing bridge (once it has been rebuilt that is) and then along the beach, although do be aware that there have been some security issues in the past, some of the areas inhabitants are not averse to relieving you of your money jewellery etc. As always leave the fancy stuff at home and take with you only what you need for the day.

The distinct advantage of having a guide is that you are now “hands off” so we felt very safe the entire time (apart from the visions of us being covered in mud from head to toe). We arrived at the entrance to Siete Altares, our guide paid the fee and our upward climb began. It is fairly easy going until you reach the first altar, which is a large impressive table or altar like rock over which the water pours in a crystal clear sheet. Footsteps have been chiselled into the rock and along with the helpfully strung ropes it is a easy matter to climb up and across the top into the bubbling stream beyond. You will need waterproof shoes or at least something you don’t mind getting wet as your journey from here on is over the rocky stream bed.

There are indeed Seven Altars, most of them with accompanying pools the largest of which is at the very top altar. It is worth the climb trust me, especially when your guide is a trooper and volunteers to show you the best spot to jump in from. You got it……. clamber up the left hand side of the rock walls, there is a very useful rope pull to assist you ascent , once there  follow the handily placed foot notches to the middle. Take a deep breath and jump well out, you don’t want to find out that it is possible to stand on boulders directly under the falls……. not from that height.

The pool is actually very deep as Denis found out when he attempted to swim to the bottom; this of course is with a relatively high water level, jumping  may not be possible at dry times.  Whether you brave the jump or not it is a great place to cool off and wash away the remainder of that persistent mud.

Refreshed, exhilarated and famished we made our way back along the beach to partake of lunch and a cold cerveza at one of the excellent beach resorts. Our half day trip had already stretched to 6 hours, so our guide negotiated a ride on one of the communal trucks and we arrived back in town in style. I and Christin squeezed in with the driver and the guys rode shot gun in the open back.

A Super day with a couple of new friends, what else can you ask for, all for the princely sum of around $12 each, highly recommended and thank you Christin & Dennis for making it such a delight….. mud and all!