Trapped

Utila was our next stop on our itinerary. We had planned to spend a while here in order for Charlie to learn to dive and also to wait for a package to arrive from the UK for Lisa. The trip was also to enable Lisa and her boyfriend, The Kulak, to be reunited after an absence of nearly 2 years.

On the boat journey to Utila there was a rather large lady that had the exact facial features of a pig. She chose to park her king size frame on a seat that everyone had to squeeze past to get on the boat. She had a very small scampering child with her, possibly a snack for the journey, who was also in the early stages of pig feature development. As Charlie tried to squish past her, one of the bag loading kulaks smashed a large rucksack into him, making him lose his balance temporarily. Attempting to correct this, and not fall into pig lady’s ample lap, Charlie accidentally trampled on the small pig featured child’s bare feet. Unfortunately Charlie was wearing his clumpy walking boots. Oops. Sorry piglet. Also on the boat were many people vomiting into plastic bags, provided by the crew. Nice.

A Fish in the Hand is Worth Two in the Bush

Utila is a small Caribbean island that was inhabited by English pirates and black slaves, making it very distinct from mainland Honduras, especially due to the fact that like Belize, it is English speaking. Partly due to this unusual population makeup, many weird and wonderful characters were encountered during the 4 weeks of our stay. Here follows those who had the most impact on us:

Jimmy

A tall man with permanent 5 o´ clock shadow and acne scars who has a penchant for wearing only teenage girls clothes and sometimes bonnets and microshorts. He spends the whole day sitting around smoking, sometimes at Wheelchair House (see later) or wandering the streets with an oscillating fan in varying states of repair, or riding a ladies bike around the streets. While we were here, Jimmy had his long curly hair cropped close in a beehive Lesbian fashion, which led to hysteria all round.

Ann

A popular character on our travels, and one of the Kulak’s ”many friends”, she was spotted on the boat to Utila and christened then by Lisa and Charlie. She had the usual Ann trademark dumpy figure, Down’s Syndrome bowl haircut and Harry Potter glasses. Turns out she is a Methodist minister from England, who now lives on the island. We were glad to have found another Ann. We have missed our Anns.

Jackie

This was a work colleague of the Kulak’s in Munchies restaurant. She was a stout stumpy lesbian with cross eyes and cropped curly ginger hair.

Wheelchair House

This was a crispy hands meeting place for the freaks of the island. Sometimes only empty wheelchairs were on the balcony. Other times characters included one armed man, praying mantis spastic, wheelchair bound fat lady, several very old and ugly men and sometimes our favourite friend Jimmy! Also there was a man that was blue.

Crispy Hands Farm

Almost opposite Wheelchair House was Crispy Hands Farm. This was a sprawling wooden shack that was never maintained or repainted, which housed some people (we think) and many chickens, dogs, cats etc. Also housed in an adjacent Crispy Property was one gorilla (please see below for further details).

Gorilla

One day we visited the bank and stood in a queue for 40 mins as there was only 1 person at the desk. Kulak got shouted at 3 times and threatened with a gun for straying 5 cms out of line. Luckily for us we didn’t understand but laughed heartily for the entire duration. Within this time a ´lady´ entered the bank and forced her way to the front. Not one person, including those with guns, challenged her idea of direct access. This was because she resembled the Great Silverback Gorilla. She was 7ft tall and broad with Sport sandals and a tent of a dress. Queen Kong was ageing in years but this had not affected her giant stature and look of menace. Fear was instilled into all that beheld this great beast of the bank.

Post Office Lady

Charlie and Lisa decided to send things from Utila back to the UK. We had bought parcel tape but it didn’t appear to have any stick. We visited the PO with our barely wrapped parcels and were met with a steely gaze and unfriendly spiel of “This won’t get there”. However she proceeded to use her extra sticky tape all over the parcels, in a very generous manner. She looked at our ´fan game´ postcards in disgust and almost refused to send them. On the PO counter were many leaflets about God, which Charlie knocked all over the floor. On an earlier occasion we were refused service for not wearing a shirt. Lisa visited the PO Lady on a number of occasions but not once did a smile break. To the question of “Has my parcel arrived yet?” was a repeated snarl of simply “NO”.

Jehova´s Witness

Lisa went to visit Charlie on a very rainy morning, when a river was running down the street. A lady was walking in the same direction and offered to share her umbrella. “What a kind lady” Lisa thought as they walked up the road. They chatted about life on Utila and information finally leaked that she was here on a mission. Upon reaching Charlie’s hotel they parted and she gave Lisa some reading material. We thank the Jehova´s Witness lady for it was this reading material that provided over 1 hour of sniggering.

Parrot Man

A small café was open in the mornings from 6am to 9am right next to our dive centre. It was often frequented for a small breakfast treat. It was to this café that Lisa retreated to when she lied to the Kulak to escape for a morning and pretend she was diving. The café was run by an eccentric old Alaskan man who owned several rescued Macaw parrots. He was often to be seen cycling down the road with a giant red and green macaw balanced precariously on his shoulder and nibbling his ear with contempt. Shouts of “NO” followed by “SQUAWK” echoed down the road. It was this gentleman that offered Lisa a job, luckily she escaped to South America.

Greed Killed The Bee

Responding to many enthusiastic ejaculations from Lisa, Charlie decided to give scuba diving a try. Utila is renowned for its propensity of dive schools and also for being one of the cheapest places in the world to learn. In one day, Charlie (accompanies by Lisa) visited nearly every dive shop on the island (apart from the one run by junkies and another one that looked far too sociable). During this epic journey, a few gems were discovered, including a school run by a 1970s throwback man with massive NHS style glasses who inspired little confidence at the surface, never mind 40 metres underwater. We also encountered a lady who had obviously never been told “less is more” when it comes to lurid blue eye shadow, and had a mouth as wide and thin lipped as a shark and the over enthusiasm of a raddled QVC presenter. We are ashamed to say that during interviews with these people our ability to control ourselves once again failed and a few snorts of laughter escaped mid-conversation. He he. Crispy Hands Dive School also made an honorary appearance, but after a long day off searching, Charlie decided on “Utila Water Sports” as school of choice. Coincidentally, this school also had the nicest boat (with an all important sun bathing deck on the roof).

Day 1 of the “Open Water” course consisted of watching hideous safety videos and practicing some confined underwater skills such as taking off your mask underwater. Day 2 involved some more advanced skills and a 100 metre swim that Charlie attempted and failed. Encouragement from the instructor was met with loud protests of “I CAN’T DO IT!” Eventually, realizing he was beaten, the bullied instructor let Charlie swim round the boat 3 times instead, in order to avoid another scene. He he. Soon Charlie was diving for real, seeing an upside/down jellyfish on his first dive that no one else saw (lucky them). Charlie also dived a wreck, as well as lots of coral reefs.

On completing the open water course, the instructor tried to persuade Charlie to take the advanced course. A short sharp reply of “NO!” was the answer he got, followed by “I DON’T LIKE IT!”. Here endeth Charlie’s diving career, irreconcilable differences cited as reason for its discontinuation.

Author’s note: diving is considered by some people to be an amazing experience that allows you to explore a totally different world. Which is all well and good if you want to explore a world that is cold, wet, and filled with a plethora of extremely ugly, visually offensive horrors. Charlie does not want to explore this world.

Winks and Snorks (Lisa´s Diving Experiences)

Lisa knew that the island was completely dull unless one went for a bit of sub-aqua fun. First stop was Alton´s Dive Shop where she completed her Divemaster a couple of years ago. Upon arrival there were two familiar faces (Ally and Ian), who remembered me as they had both instructed at Alton´s at the time. Everyone else was new and an annoying girl, called Precious, was in the office. Lisa never liked Precious when she worked for BICA last year, due to the over use of the word ma´am. The people there were unfriendly and the new management would not honour the lifetime free diving that is offered with a divemaster. They would also not give me any discount on doing specialties. In disgust Lisa went to the same dive shop as Charlie, which seemed like Alton´s in the good old days. The people were friendly and the atmosphere was fun, but most importantly, discounts were offered! Getting carried away as usual, Lisa did five speciality courses: Deep, Wreck, Night, Search and Recovery, and Nitrox. Wreck was awesome as we went inside the one wreck in Utila. Search and Recovery was fun but we only brought up concrete blocks from the bottom when I was expecting the pirate gold of Cortes himself. Oh well... Next time! Some of the best moments were had on surface intervals when going Northside. On a trip to Northside we came across a pod of dolphins that wanted to play with the boat. This created panic on the boat; people grabbing fins and snorkels, people grabbing cameras and others trying to direct. The chaos was alleviated as 20 people sploshed into the water and went for the dolphins. Lisa and Charlie being slow to get ready actually made it nearer to the dolphins. Lisa swam as much as she could and was rewarded when a second group passed the front of the boat only about 2m infront of her. What an amazing experience as there were about 30 dolphins and some mothers with calves (how cute these fake looking animals are). Unfortunately the giant splosh of people and lack of fun boat waves to play with sent the dolphins into hiding. On another trip, where Charlie wasn’t present, we came across a Whale shark. We all got into the water and swam and apparently lots of people saw it but myself and a friend felt very stupid as we didn’t see a thing. Thankfully we caught up with the Whale shark again and so there was going to be no mistakes on this second run. There he was as soon as we got into the water. A big 6m to 8m beast but amazingly graceful and calm. Lisa followed the whaleshark with snorkel and fins, kicking as hard as she could to keep up with his slow movements! The rest of the group stopped and so it was just Lisa and the shark swimming rapidly away from the boat. Eventually he dived out of vision and so I stopped, exhausted, and waited for the boat to pick me up. I only experienced one scary moment when surfacing from a long dive with 2 other divemasters and I was last to come up. A small shark-shaped creature was swimming directly for the three of us. The other 2 had not noticed and were chatting on the surface but Lisa tried to get their attention. Most animals will swim away from humans so I was a little cautious as it got closer and closer and closer, seemingly with some intent, but Lisa couldn’t figure out what. She tried to attract the attention of the others, whilst maintaining eye contact with ´the beast´. The noise probably came out as gurgles. Finally the boat captain spotted it from the boat and shouted to everyone. It turned out to be a sharksucker (Remora), which attach to Whale Sharks and can try to attach to humans! Lisa was interested due to its very strange shaped head that had obviously evolved flat to sit flush against the underside of a shark. All other experiences where the norm except that Lisa had her 100th dive and went only in a bikini. This had such a sense of freedom that almost every dive after was only in a bikini and borrowed rash vest (what a difference to scottish diving!). Many turtles were seen and one was watched eating for ten minutes not seeming to care that it was surrounded by 7 bubble making giants. Lisa cannot wait to do some more diving but it was all getting a wee bit expensive so she will have to wait until a job comes along. They offered her a job working at the resort but would have to start within the next month, meaning no South America. Adios.

The Crip

One of Charlie’s classmates on his Open Water diving course was a spindly lady in her mid 30s whose name was Ali. It turned out that she was holidaying alone because she was in the middle of a divorce, and was understandably feeling a bit down. Luckily it was Charlie and Lisa to the rescue with their personal “Rapid Results” program of vice overindulgence and promiscuous behaviour.

PG Tips Hotel

Lisa stayed in a different Hotel to Charlie as she was with the Kulak. Unfortunately this hotel housed a PG Tips family that told Gustavo I was a prostitute as Charlie kept visiting my room when he was at work. Ha ha. Nosey PG Tips. One PG Tips in particular scared Lisa quite a lot as he was on Utila because he shot a man in Roatan (another Bay Island). He still had his gun with him and was treated with extreme caution and fake politeness by all. One night Lisa returned to the hotel alone and was accosted by another PG Tips man sat on the floor asking if she was alright for smokes. She replied in the affirmative and walked to her room. Thinking no more of this incident she visited the bathroom. The corridor was pitch black and the bathroom door was open so Lisa automatically put her hand round to turn on the light. A split second before the light went on she saw 2 white eyes and white teeth glinting in the dark. As the light illuminated the scene a shriek left Lisa´s mouth as a camouflaged black man sat on the toilet, with his pants down was revealed to her innocent eyes. She quickly turned away apologising profusely and locked herself into the other bathroom. All subsequent visits to the bathroom were conducted with extreme caution and plenty of light. This was a danger hotel but only because of the clients as the owners were friendly and nice.

Kulak in a Kayak

On one day the kulak decided that going kayaking would be a fun idea. Charlie declined the invitation and so Lisa and the kulak headed off on a little trip with a kayak. The going was tough on the first sea leg of the journey. Lisa began to think this was a bad idea. Especially as the kulak (obviously not a marine kulak) thought the person at the front, Lisa, should steer the boat. What kind of boats are steered from the front? ..... Ans. None. Because it is ineffectual. Would the kulak listen? ans. of course not. After hitting a small reef we eventually turned into the lagoon, which was much flatter and calmer. Then the route got narrower and shallower as we entered the mangroves. It was like a fairy land, the mangroves created a covered arch above our heads and the light dappled through. This beautiful image was destroyed by the brown, foul smelling water, the crabs and dinosaur like iguanas parading around. Due to the mechanical steering error the mangroves were crashed into quite a lot. This fairy hell was terminated as we arrived at a large open harbour and made our way down the deserted beach. We left the kayak on the sands and went to a deserted beach. Swam and paddled and got the kulak tired as he was too tired to swim to the reef, even with fins on. He made some excuse that Lisa wouldn’t be able to make it without fins. On the beach the kulak Honduran native was bothered by sand flies and complained bitterly about the sun. On another occasion we had dragged him to the beach. Whilst we tried to scorch our bodies the kulak sulked in the shade but still managed to darken by about 4 shades on a Dulux scale and begin to peel. We simply went red! He also managed to be the only person bothered by mosquitoes at a bar when he was surrounded by 5 white folk. A pure and simple case of attention seeking! The return kayak journey was rushed as the kulak had to get to work. The going went well in the kayak until we reached the sea leg! There was a strong current by now and we had already spent 1 hour just to get here. The kulak did none of the steering so Lisa, as a front rudder, spent every once of sweat trying to turn the kayak every three strokes, using all the anger energy that would otherwise have been directed at the kulak. After this adventure the idea of going kayaking again was never mentioned!

Misery Floats

One day, Charlie and Ali decided to hire a kayak and follow Lisa and the Kulak’s route through the mangrove canal. Both parties found the kayak very uncomfortable but managed to get into some sort of paddling rhythm eventually. The only wildlife observed was birds and crabs, and the mangrove canal stunk. The bottom of the kayak kept grounding on the bottom as well, and the water was murky and brown. However, the secluded beach reached at the end of the hideous mangrove canal was nice-ish. Luckily the sea was not too choppy on the way back so the kayak didn’t capsize.

Spanglish – The Errors of Learning a Second Language.

Common Kulak Errors

• Maybe Later
• Use of ´one´ instead of ´a´ and ´an´
• One special invitation
• One special meal
• I take one shower
• Use of the word ´full´
• Full drunk
• Full happy
• Full sad
• Full crying
• Full witch
• Full bad
• Any person of the male gender that dares to speak to Lisa becomes ´one a******´ in Kulak language
• Many opportunities
• I know many somethings
• I know all (blatant lie)
• Ill = Elf
• Inappropriate use of the word ´disgusting´.
• Overuse of the word ´delicious´

A Very Messy Day

One day the Kulak thought it would be nice for us to “take one walk” to Pumpkin Hill. It was a very long and hot trek through mosquito infested swamp roads and involved jumping over lots of barbed wire just to reach the bottom of the hill. The ascent itself was another ordeal - a nearly vertical climb up slippery muddy sides with only some thin wire ropes attached to trees to help us on our way. Lisa almost made it to the top unscathed, but then fell at the final hurdle, sliding down the hill on her back, stopping only when her foot connected with Charlie’s white shorts, covering them and him with mud. If it weren’t for this barrier, she would have surely slid right down to the bottom of the hill. Shortly after this, Lisa suffered a heart attack that continued for the rest of the trek. Eventually we made it to the top of the hill, much hotter, sweatier and muddier than when we started out. Thanks Kulak.

Cinema

There is a “cinema” on Utila, and so for the first time in 3 months we were able to watch some English language films (and not the usual Spanish dubbed horrors we are usually subjected to on long bus journeys). Attending the cinema is a very eclectic experience, since it combines aspects of a modern cinema (large-ish screen and air conditioning) with more avant garde elements, such as wooden bench seats with chintz garden furniture chushions and tombstone headrests. Many good and bad films were devoured here by TV starved eyes during our month long stay. A personal favourite of Lisa’s was “The OH in Ohio”. Parents beware. The best bit about the cinema was the price of the ticket – only 1 pound. Bargain!

The Black Ram Tupping the White Ewe

Many lies had to be said to the Kulak. The main lie was the one designed so that we could leave the island. This lie consisted of a fabulous opportunity for education. A professor from St. Andrews invited Lisa to accompany him on a lecture series around South America, for one month. An extra lie was added for our amusement only, which was that Marja was also coming across as she was doing a course studying Albatrosses! A date was also given for a flight from Panama City to Quito where Lisa would be meeting up with her professor and Marja. The date was given as the 17th of Feb which should have given us enough time to get away from Utila. There was a small scare as we waited for a package to arrive from the UK which was taking much longer then the 2 weeks predicted. It actually took 3 and a half weeks to arrive, but we eventually managed to leave Utila with the package and say adios Kulak. Lisa had intended to use this month to say it is not working and goodbye but the Kulak is a nice convenience whilst in Utila and it wasn´t so distressing. In fact some parts were very good indeed! We are enjoying the lies and hopefully there will be more to come.

Kulak Hair Disaster

The kulak had decided to get all his hair put in plaits to bring money for jobs to a 14 year old girl. Strange reason for a kulak who is only earning 25 lempiras an hour (65 pence). Anyway the hair didn’t look too bad, although it did resemble what we had been referring to as ´Fan Hair`, but it all started to fall out within the next 2 days. The kulak had it redone and it looked better. But one day later on visiting him at the restaurant the hair appeared to be in its usual springy form. The story was one where both Lisa and Charlie wish they had been there to see. The kulak had been putting something in the bin and leant a little too close to the fan, which grabbed one of the plaits and spun it round. Kulak now trapped in the fan decided that ´Fan Hair` was dangerous and took out all the plaits. This was not the behaviour of a rational human being! Thankfully he never tried to put the fan plaits back in. Lisa walked back to the hotel to tell the story to Charlie and both rolled around in hysterics for a good long period of time.

Lisa´s Night Out – The Utila Water Sports BBQ

Utila Water Sports decided to host a BBQ for all staff and students as two of the members of staff had their birthdays on the same weekend. This was an all you can eat and drink for 150 lempiras (4 pounds). Lisa decided that as a vegetarian she should make full use of the bar as she would be denied the meat food. A dangerous state of affairs for a vegetatrian. Charlie and Lisa had already had a little to drink to overcome the fear of such a social occasion. Then the bar was free and the glasses were bigger than pints. Many Flor de Caña (Rum) and cokes were drunk. Lisa´s behaviour gradually worsened as she attempted to steal vegetables and coleslaw before all was ready! Thankfully for the other guests Lisa´s over activity, late nights and early mornings finally put her into a tired drunken stupor at the table. She attempted to sleep peacefully but all were trying to stop her! Charlie tried to explain to a boy at the table, who French Lesbian was. She was a French Canadian with very closely cropped hair and so French Lesbian was a fitting name. Unfortunately Charlie, unknowingly, decided to explain this to French Lesbian´s boyfriend. Ooops. Lisa spilt drinks over people and onto the floor until the party moved to Tranquila bar. En route Lisa became jealous of a sleeping policeman and decided to join him by lying in the road and shouting at all passers-by on noisy mopeds and motorbikes. Eventually she was dragged by Charlie and other diving friends to the bar. Lisa became more alive and even held a conversation but Kulak was waiting in the bar and looked very angry. This is further explained in ´Kulak mini periods´ section. Lisa´s behaviour was forgotten by herself and so luckily there was no shame! Thank god for amnesia.

Kulak Mini Periods

The kulak mini periods were times of anger for no particular reason. These seemed to occur for no real reason and were never justified or explained. A few examples are outlined below but there were many more (almost daily). Lisa had decided to get her hair cut and so explained to kulak that she would need one hour after diving to get her hair cut by a friend and then Lisa would meet him for lunch. To this the Kulak got cross and said “you go with your friends for lunch then, maybe I see you later!” Lisa explained for a second time hoping that it was a lost in translation moment but he stormed off in front of Charlie and so Lisa said goodbye. Everytime Lisa would have a drink with friends or at the dive school the Kulak would take exception and have a small huff. This also happened when she got drunk with Charlie. This may be explained if the Kulak was against drinking but he encouraged it if he was with Lisa. Bizarre behaviour. One day Lisa and Charlie decided to visit Gunter´s Driftwood Gallery to see what he made. Again the Kulak had a mini period and told us that it was disgusting if we went there without buying anything. Kulak worked every night except Sunday and so Charlie and Lisa dined together at night. One night they decided to go to a fairly new restaurant on the island, which turned out to be expensive with average food. On telling the kulak he had a mini rage and told Lisa that the restaurant was where he wanted to go. Kulak was duly annoyed again. Micro periods were common but never commented on again and usually forgotten within a few minutes, which angered Lisa as she holds a grudge for a lifetime!

Tarantula

On a short visit to a treetop bar (Treetanic) in the Jade Seahorse complex a very large furry friend visited. A tarantula walked slowly and elegantly over the decking. All people crowded around and Kulak tried to grab it but it just ran and scared everyone. Charlie remained cautiously behind everyone else. It was nice to see one in the wild in that nice controlled setting with alcohol for courage.

Familiar Faces

One evening Charlie and Lisa were sitting outside having a drink on the decking outside Muchies, overlooking the main road. A boy walked past who looked very much like Charlie Hazlerigg from our biology class at Uni. “That looks like Charlie!” Charlie said. “Yes it really does, even from the back!” Lisa replied. Then we forgot about this similarity. 10 minutes later, who should turn up at our table but… George Bush! No, not really, it was Charlie and his sister. “What a coincidence!” we all chimed like old women. It turns out they had emailed us to say they were coming, but due to the lack of internet on Utila we hadn’t a clue. Unfortunately we were leaving the island just a few days later, but it was still good to see some familiar faces, if only for a short while.

The few conversations we managed to fit into the short space of time mainly consisted of lies because they all took place within earshot of the Kulak. A fatal error was nearly made one day when the existence of this very travel journal was made public, previously unknown to the kulak. Luckily the fabric of lies was spun so deep that only a few more little white ones were necessary in order to preserve the truth.

Final thoughts: A nice island with many fabulous characters. Charlie and Lisa separation was not nice. One month was a bit too long.

Mark out of 10 = 8

Next time… La Ceiba