Day 31 - Belize (Teakettle)

Ok, heads up people, I'm a big fan of Belize and I've been looking forward to this bit of the trip so don't expect any objectivity in these posts whatsoever.

Let's start with a bit on Belize itself. British Honduras until independence in 1981, Belize is a downright cracking place to be if you're an English speaker in Central America. The only country with English as a first language and a parliamentary democracy to boot. All the essential ingredients for a stable and civilised society. So civilised is Belize, that they have a Harrier GR3 jump jet parked right outside their international airport as a sign to any arriving tourist that they have been on the right side for a large part of their recent history and that visitors have nothing to fear. 

Although their currency is the Belizian Dollar, it has the queens head on it, marking it out as a stable and attractive thing to carry in your pocket. 

Pound for pound, Belize is the most sparsely populated country on planet earth. The size of Wales, it has around 250,000 inhabitants. The capital, Belmopan, has a modest 18,000 residents, the size of a large village in the UK. Belize City boasts more (65,000) but I'd be surprised if it matches the size of Bracknell.  Thems the conurbations, most towns of note are barely worth the name. 

Guatemala has been pursuing a territorial claim on Belize since the 1940's, declaring it the 23rd Guatemalan State. It even has a seat for Belize in its government chambers which has never been occupied. Her Majesty's Government and the Government of Belize take a somewhat different view on this matter. 

What all that means is you've got a pretty clean environment in which to explore. And the simply brilliant news is that I now have a new, slightly pasty, travelling companion from home to explore with. I flew into Phillip Goldson international airport from Roatan early this morning and three hours later a very old friend from the UK joined me for the last week or so of travelling. 

For a change, he'd done some planning and we jumped into a mini-bus for a trip up country and into the Belizian jungle. Two hours later and we were in our lodge looking out over the tree canopy and listening to the sounds of the wild. Quite a nice change of pace to not have to think about travel and accommodation, just for once. 

The lodge itself is several steps up from my recent standard and a welcome improvement! Aside from the very comfortable surroundings, we've got humming birds flitting around the place, I've seen fireflies sparking on the evening breeze, heard howler monkeys trumpeting their presence, bats swooping and chittering in the night sky and the constant clicking and scratching of tropical insects just to let you know that the jungle is ever alive. 

We've got a couple of things we want to do here tomorrow but after settling in, we went for a walk in the jungle to acclimatise. Within less than an hour walking through the jungle, I managed to get bitten by every mosquito within five miles. And it bloody hurts! 

Flying over the second largest barrier reef in the world, on the approach to Belize City.

Every UK airport should have one.

The main road in the capital, Belmopan.

OUCH!!!

Day 30 - Honduras (Roatan)

Well that's it for Utila. I've stayed there waaaaay longer than I intended. That's probably the best measure of how much I've enjoyed my time here. My last night on the island was suitably entertaining and surprisingly emotional.

I haven't done this a great deal in posts but I would like to offer public thanks to Tara, Steve, Ernie, Foster, Pete and best wishes to everyone at Gunters Dive Shop for an incredible bunch of days learning how to dive and drink.

I caught a charter boat from Utila to Roatan early this morning in advance of a flight from there to Belize City on Sunday morning. $50 for the boat trip, which wasn't too bad. 

I finished an eleven volume alternate history on the American Civil War this week and I'm soooooo annoyed with the author! It's taken me since Burma to get through this! He telegraphed the ending about five books in and had no twists of surprises in the final SIX books!! What a waste of my time! Harry Turtledove, you tit! I'm too loyal. It's a treasured gift and a curse.

I'm beginning to come to the end of my travels but I still have Belize to go. I have high hopes that Belize will provide a suitable climax to my break and that will be reflected in the posts left to come I trust.

Day 30 - Honduras (Roatan) mostly spent detoxing and lazing about. 

West End, Roatan. not too shabby!?

Pelican

Day 25 - Honduras (Utila)

I was sitting at dinner last night and everything started to sway - I'd only had one bottle of beer - and I realised that my inner ears were still on the boat! It's really quite freaky to realise that you've turned into a salty old sea dog after a just short week on the / under the water. 

Today I saw a stingray up real close, about a couple of metres and coming directly at me. Such a graceful thing. I also saw a trigger fish which has teeth that can bite right through coral. Again, just a few feet away. I undertook a wreck dive at 100ft in the morning, which was just awesome. I also had my first experience of running out of air and had to run off an auxiliary tank for a bit. It all sounds rather dramatic but standard procedure for greedy air hoggers like me. I haven't experienced narcosis yet but am looking forward to my first time with that enormously. 

I also realised today that George Lucas must be a diver. Most things underwater look like they've come from the Mos Eisley Cantina on Tatooine. The fish varieties with eyes on stalks are a particular favourite of mine. The whole thing has made me smile - and nearly drown myself - on several occasions. 

Travellers tip: don't try and survive on shaving oil when on the road, I have for the past fortnight and the fact is, it stinks and doesn't work very well. You need to shave if you're diving to make sure the seal between mask and face works properly. Shaving oil is compact but it gums up your razor, blunting everything and because it doesn't really work, you end up cutting yourself repeatedly every morning. I currently look like I've had a pane of glass shatter in my face at a distance of three inches and it bloody hurts to boot. I took the step of buying a can of foam today and am looking forward to lathering up properly in the morning. 

I'll make this the last fishy post for a while. It's getting a bit samey which is something I wanted to avoid. And if I've started to talk about shaving then I'm obviously running out of things to say. My time in Utila is coming to an end soon so I'll take a... shall we say couple of days break? And I'll be back with something different and interesting to share then. 

Day 24 - Honduras (Utila)

I've not got an awful lot of news today so it's a bit all over the place.

Today has been another diving day and I think I'm beginning to get the hang of it. My instructors and buddies no longer drag me around on a bit of string worrying over whether I've remembered to breathe at some point in the last minute or so. So that's encouraging. I seem to be able to stay in roughly the same place without flapping my arms as if trying to fly and my ears appear to be acclimatising much better than they were. The only minor mishap today was when someone made me laugh, ruining the face to mask seal that I'd carefully suctioned together, letting in several gallons of water. Still, my training paid off and I recovered the situation while muttering, 'must not laugh too much when diving' over and over in my head. 

The celebrity appearances today included;

Two sea turtles, one of whom I followed in his slipstream for a bit (he's a much better swimmer than me). They were both utterly utterly brilliant. Some puffer fish, a couple of very large lobsters, a lion fish, a stunning trunk fish, needle fish and a very nice flappy stingray. I don't have to highlight that these were just the ones that stick out do I? The sea is blummin teeming with all sorts, the above are just the ones I remember. 

Because I'm generally a quiet chappie and tend to keep my mouth shut in new social circumstances and because my skin tone has darkened a tiny smidge since arriving in Central America, people have begun to make some interesting assumptions about my origin. I've been variously asked if I am Australian, South African, Italian (by an Italian guy), Argentinian (by a German woman) and Greek by someone who was obviously visually impaired. I've found it all rather amusing really. Once formal introductions are made I am generally quite sociable although that can get quite draining after long periods. At least everyone knows I'm British by then and accepts any late night reserve without question. ...Unless it's a bender night, in which case I get all excited and talkative and moan at everyone wanting to go to bed so early. 

As a special favour to a cheeky young scamp to whom I am related because he asked for them and because I don't have any other new pictures from today, here are a couple of extra fishy/coraly pics. 

Possibly a porcupine fish but there's some debate in the bar over that one.

Needle fish.

Day 23 - Honduras (Utila)

This post is entitled, 'Me'. For reasons that I am unable to explain fully, I feel strangely uninhibited and unchained in my approach to posting at the moment. So I will reveal a little more about myself than usual.

I do wonder from time to time if people get bored of these blogs. I try to change things around, tone, subject, information (or mis-information), to keep them fresh. Sometimes it feels like it works, sometimes less so. I hope they are not too samey. That would certainly be boring wouldn't it? Anyway, if anyone has any feedback or suggestions on what works and what doesn't, shout (a few people close to me have offered some... perhaps I ought to say, 'thoughts' on on bits that don't hit the mark - and some that do to be fair - which is always interesting to hear. 

Wasn't it Jean Paul Sartre who said, 'I am what I am'? Or was it Gloria Gaynor? It doesn't matter, the point is, I make no apology for using my own words to describe my journey but I hope there's something for everyone thrown into the mix. 

I've been listening to West Coast Hair Metal almost constantly since arriving in Utila. If you're looking for a reference point on that, Aerosmith is a reasonable proxy. For anyone more music savvy, there's been more than a small dose of Poison, Mötley Crüe, Van Halen, L.A. Guns and Guns & Roses have contributed a couple of classics. I appreciate it's not to everyone's liking, Urm.... anyone's liking if you're from the UK, but it fits the mood of this place so damn perfectly and I'm in no mood to apologise for my taste in American Rock. Nobody does brainless, trashy Rock like they do. 

In fact, If I've found myself in a bar on my own and there's some Melodic Rock going on, I've been known to mumble along at as low a volume as my state will permit and try to control my urge to be physically exuberant with a spot of foot tapping. I've been caught in my muffled croonings and modest physicality more than once (I do know the sub-genre more than passingly well).

I moved into different accommodation today. The digs were perfectly fine but I thought a man of my means could afford hot water and wifi, so I decided to upgrade. Interestingly, even with the new plush surroundings, I calculated that I could reside here for about 135 years without suffering any terrible financial hardship. Worth more than a passing thought. What with the diving, the right music and abundance of beer, it does make one think. Actually, the way I'm hoovering up Salva Vida at the moment, funds would probably run out in less than a decade - and that's if my liver held out that long. 

Oh, and I'm missing toast and marmite. Quite a lot. 

And toilets with seats that don't shift about like they've been greased with baby oil and toilet door locks that aren't bent nails. 

And mattresses. I mean mattresses with springs in them, not straw. 

Me on boat

Sunset yesterday evening

Day 22 - Honduras (Utila)

I'm in a bit of a rut at the moment. Days just seem to be an endless stream of early starts, morning coffee, sunbathing on the boat, dive to see wonderous things, water melon to cleanse the palet, sunny boat ride, dive again, lunch on a small island, whale shark spotting, back to the shop, beer, divers tales, dinner and bed. It's getting very monotonous. If anyone has any ideas about how to end this depressing cycle, please keep them to yourselves.

At last, I have some action shots to share. These are all of me and what I saw. I didn't google image any of them, they were right in front of my face. I have a bunch more photos but this is a selection of the best. I won't add a sarky commentary, they don't deserve it. 

Day 20 - Honduras (Utila)

PADI open water qualification, tick. I am now a newly qualified PADI diver and I feel quite good about it I must admit. My left ear now refuses to clear and is very annoying but what an incredible experience.

I've seen a dozen different types of crab including a very spiky one, barracuda, green moray, three types of Ray, sea cucumber, sand eels, more fish than you can shack a speargun at including, jacks, groupers, gruntfish, parrotfish, batfish, frog fish, little electic blue ones by the swarm, hi-viz yellow ones swimming right upto your nose, blue and yellow zigzag stiped ones, big fish with scales the size of your thumbnail, coraly stuff that disappears into itself in a flash when you stick your finger near it, flatfish that look like sand until you get within an inch of them and then they scuttle off, fish with great big lanterns protruding from the end of their noses on droopy prongs, fish that had four swipy rear fins that operate in four different directions at once that resemble.. well I don't know what, but they're mental, great big emerald tubes poking out of the bottom of the sea - don't know what that was but they were beautiful. Leaf coral swaying with the current and the stingrays that waft gracefully just above the sand, minding their own business were THE most incredible sight. Oh! Actually, they got trumped by the cowfish that change their colour from brown to electic blue when you get near them. God must have been tripping when he made them up. Phenomenal. I even had a bunch of fish that nipped me. I think they were attracted by my horse riding wounds. In fact I know they were, as they were feeding off my poor old legs like they hadn't had a decent scab lunch in forever. 

Apologies for not providing the Latin names for any of the above but it's still early days for me. 

I have no reference point but according to the owner of the dive shop, a Canadian, the visibility below the surface is, 'insane' at the moment. I certainly didn't have a problem seeing stuff - for seemingly miles. 

It's funny isn't it? I'm becoming blasé about things like Seahorses and exotic fish. Having never set eyes on a seahorse until 48hrs ago, I'm now seemingly surrounded by the things and regard them much like I'd've regarded seaweed last week. 

Boiled down version, I'm basically Sean Connery in Thunderball. Except without SPECTRE chasing me with motorised speargun shizzle. 'Another cold bottle of Salva Vida Mr. Bond?' 'Don't mind if I do old man. And crank up the Aerosmith would you? I love this one.'

I won't be going on about this for the next week but these things will stay with me forever I'm sure. 

Long nosed batfish from the dock.