We boarded a bus just down the road from the hotel and spent about six hours on the road heading for La Ceiba. The city of La Ceiba was viewed in passing as we took taxis from the bus stop to the port where we would be catching a ferry over to the island of Utila, one of the Bay Islands. We waited about an hour for the ferry to be ready for the journey and then all walked on. The trip took another hour and was very smooth, we were blessed with calm seas.
Utila didn’t give the best first impression. The dock was busy, another vessel being unloaded, and there were Utes on the jetty that got in our way as we received our bags from the ferry. At the end of the jetty we were greeted by a dozen or so representatives from the various dive shops all pushing their packages. We walked west along the main concrete street of the town, passing packed together wooden buildings; shops and restaurants with the occasional dive shop. It was all a bit over developed, we were metres from the sea but couldn’t see it for buildings. After a few minutes we turned off the road an up a side street to our hotel. The hotel was nice enough, large rooms with both a fan and air-con.
Meeting downstairs we got the activity lowdown from Josh and some local representatives. While the diving and snorkelling options were run through we met the local mosquitoes, large in number and quite capable of biting through clothing. The bites were rather distracting. Most of the group signed up for a snorkelling trip the next day, Keryn and Dylan coming along as well but diving instead. We then trouped down the road to a restaurant for dinner, the Bundu Cafe. It was well and truly quiet season on the island and there was only one person at the bar and he also was our waiter, as such it took a while to order and receive food. Thankfully the meals were tasty, my large nachos was the biggest pile of food I’ve seen in a long time.
After dinner and back at the hotel I spent some time clearing our room of little biting insects and then it was bedtime, sleep coming as the rain came down.
