flores was a cool little town. tikal was absolutely amazing, the ruins were huge and words do no justice. i'll be posting pictures soon that will help understand. we ended up heading to tikal in the afternoon and watched the sunset over the ruins. we camped the night and headed to the ruins early to catch the sunrise. unfortunately, it was foggy as it typically is. the day was full of treking about the nearly 300 sq. meters (every distance is in meters now and not feet, i've been converted) area. it took all day to check out the temples and surrounding buildings. i found out i'm a little scared of heights. those temples are quite large and there really isn't any saftey once you climb the steep ladders to the top. fun though. after the ruins we headed back to flores with an english chap we met while there.
that night we found a local taco vendor in the town central and watched a local soccer game. it was dark, the basketball court they used as a feild was illuminated, but not well. the kids playing were around 18 yrs of age i'm guessing. i foiund out it's a league and the teams travel from town to town to play. they were great players, lots of great ball handling abilities considering the feild was a basketball court. eating tacos, watching this soccer game in flores was were i first realized that i had escaped the normality of my life. meaning, until this part i felt as though i was almost needing to work, the vacation seemed to be going on for too long. i wasn't able to relax. but here i realized i had just broken away for the normality that my society lead me to believe was the only way. it feels good to break away, relax and enjoy life knowing that i have the option to sit in an hammock all day and read my book or walk around town and visit what it has to offer. no expectation. no responsibilities. no guidance. no one relying on you or expecting something from you. i let myself get used to that lifestyle now.
from flores we made it the utilia in two hard days of travel. destination, the beach, the ocean, the hammocks. all badly needed. we ended up staying there for nearly 10 days and the internet had broken down then entire time we were on the island, hence the long time period between post and thus the long post...my apologies.
utilia was a lot of fun. met so many people that i've became good friends with. i dived about seven times and now obtain my open water diver certification. i have to be honest though. diving is fun, it's beautiful underwater, the reefs, the fish, the spotted eagle rays, the turtles, but...it really messed with my body causing me not to like it that well. sinuses were affected a lot and when it comes down to it, it's all the same scenery. i'd have to conclude that i was a bit dissappointed and not really sure how necessary it would be if i were to go to another place that was great to dive. the only thing that made it really fun, besides it being new, is a mate i met from germany. he, hendrik, was in my class and we were the "daring students" if you will. as an open water diver you're only aloud to dive to 16 meters but he and i went much deeper. i dived to nearly 22 meters chasing two large spotted eagle rays. i really burned through my air at that deep and the dive was only 30 minutes or so. thinking back, i did have fun and will probably dive again but try to do some things differently so my body adjusts to the pressure easier.
i also met a guy from BC, james. cool dude, he brought a spear gun with him to the island, so the last day we took our snorkel equiptment and headed out to hunt some fish. he ended up shooting a large red snapper that we thouroughly enjoyed for dinner that night. we ended up having a large feast in which many friends attended.
let me give you brief description of our lodging while on utilia. room on the water facing the ocean while waves were crashing beneath our door. the hang out area was a large dock with a balcony nearly 6 meters in the air that we constantly dove off. underneath the upper deck, in the shade, were hammocks scattered all over to relax in all day. the staff were good people and we fit in quite well with them. there was one chef/bardender who usually put something quick together for lunch. the sunset over the ocean on that deck was gorgeous. i digress.
the honduras/nicaragua border crossing deseves some press time. so we´re riding in a microbus which is basically a 12-15 person van. considering public transportation doesn't cross borders you end up taking taxis of multiple sorts across. it's kind of weird. you can cross one border and there could be miles of road until you reach the next border. i'm curious to know who the land in between borders belongs to. once our microbus pulled to it's stop we were immediately swarmed with people offering their services. money exchange, taxi rides and anything else they can make money on. they were like sandflies, poking at you, screaming question in your face. we weren't even out of the microbus yet and they had already climbed on the roof to take our luggage off and put it in there bike they used for taxis. fortunately for us, we had some tips from travelers we met in utilia who told us to just walk across the border. we did with much agruement. they'd tell us we need to rent taxi, it was too far, we wouldn't make the bus in time, anything to get us in their services. it was definetely an experience that you need to accept as it happens at most border crossing.
ma hermano ended up staying on the island and i made my way to leon, nicaragua where i'm determined to find surf. it won't be hard, i've been here two days already and tomorrow i'm headed for my first surf experience...to the beach, the surf and the sun. my hair is getting long, my skin is getting darker everyday, my spanish vocabulary is gettting bigger and i'll be surfing tomorrow...
-->