Comments Disabled – My Bad

I was feeling pretty bad yesterday when I looked at my last post Scuba Diving in Honduras and saw that my comments were closed.  I thought to myself “that is odd.”

And then I went back to my last three posts and saw that they were also closed.  Silly me, I didn’t know how that happened.  It ended up being a result of having a fatal error in our WordPress custom fields.  A very easy fix, but I’m not very technically savvy. Dave takes care of all of the code and I write the posts,  It has worked well.  However, he has been working on the movie Scott Pilgrim Verses the World for the past few weeks and has been very busy. So I have been left struggling through the little things.

It has been a good learning curve for me though. I have relied on Dave way too much when it comes to adding a new plugin, changing the layout etc. It is a little embarrassing.  I came across a notice stating that we had a fatal error regarding memory size when I added a new post.  Instead of trying to figure out how to fix it, I just went back to an old draft that I never ended up using and I cut and pasted a new article in.

Being me, I didn’t double check any of my settings and posted away happy in my own little world.

I was starting to feel a little bad. I can’t help it, I am sensitive. No comments were coming in and I always at least get a comment or two from some of my friends and readers.

So, I just wanted to write a little post and let you know that you can now leave comments and say hi.  Thank you for your patience, I am going to have this internet stuff figured out soon, I promise.  Or, Dave will be done his movie soon and all will be well.

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Scuba Diving the Bay Islands: Utila, Honduras

So after our travels through Belize and our heart pounding boat ride from Honduras, we finally were able to settle down and relax on the Island of Utila.
Neighbor to Roatan, the larger, more developed and popular with tourists island of Honduras, Utila is known on the backpacker circuit as a cheap place to get your divers certification, people come to Utila for one thing and one thing only.
To Dive.
Dave and I were no exception.  We had been diving for a year in Canada.  And were already certified rescue divers.  We had logged our hours and were ready to finish our Dive Masters in the warm clear waters of Honduras.

Relaxing in the Hammock at Freddy's

We settled in at Freddy’s Place, a fabulous place to relax.  Located right on the water, hammocks hang on the veranda and it is far away from the main area, so it is quiet and relaxing. For less than $20 you can have a clean room with fan, hot water and shared kitchen.  Perfect for long-term stay.
Utila is cheap and you can stay for as little as a couple of dollars per night.  A word of advice, bring a lot of bug spray with you to Utila, you will need it.  The island is infested with Sand Fleas and beach time was not an option for us.

Poor Dave, the sand fleas just loved his blood, but he wasn’t as bad as some of the other people we had seen.  From the knees down, we saw people covered in welts and big red bites all over their calves and ankles.   At least at Freddy’s we had a breeze off of the water, so they weren’t too bad there.
When searching for a dive shop, you have to be very careful.  Your life is in their hands and you want to make sure that they are safe, established and reliable.  A good way to find one is through guidebook recommendations, travel forums and word of mouth.

Our Dive Shop

We had read warnings about some of the dive shops on the island, so we wanted to make sure to dive with a safe and reputable company.  We talked to other divers and had done some research before leaving Canada.  We ended up diving with Deep Blue Divers and they were a fantastic shop.
The next two weeks were filled with stress free diving enjoying the reefs around the Bay Islands.  We saw everything you can think of wanting to see while diving. But nothing compared to the day that we spotted a whale shark.
One minute we were relaxing on the boat heading to the next location for our second dive and the next, the captain was turning the boat around yelling at us to get ready because he spotted a whale shark.  There wasn’t any time think and we jumped in with our masks and snorkels witnessing this rare and spectacular moment.

Dave Loves the Water

That was more than enough to give us great stories when we returned home, but during another dive, we spotted a pod of dolphins.  We jumped in the water and swam with them in the middle of the sea. They swam under Dave’s legs, and gave him a little nudge.
It was magical.  After all that, we really felt that we had seen it all.  Seahorses, Barracuda’s, sea turtles, nurse sharks, trumpet fish, starfish, and stingrays. We really saw it all when it came to marine life in Central America.

Going out for a Dive

We ended up not pursuing our Dive Masters.  I was not feeling well during our time in Central America and found out that I had an overactive thyroid upon our return home.  It explained my reasons for sucking back a lot of oxygen during dives and for anxiety that built up each time I got in the water.
I have since been cured and am no longer on thyroid medication or have any symptoms whatsoever, so maybe one day soon we will get back in the water and fulfill another of our lifelong dreams, to dive the Great Barrier Reef.
To end this post I have to say that I am the luckiest woman in the world.  I was at an emotional breaking point during our time in Mexico, Belize, Honduras and Guatemala.  I didn’t realize I was ill, so it was even more baffling to understand why my moods were up and down so much, why I was losing weight and why I was constantly exhausted.  Dave took everything is stride and in his laidback, chillaxin’ way, he put up with me.
When I was finally diagnosed, he said, “I knew there had to be some reason.”  I am a lucky lady.

One of our dive boats

If you would like to find out more about diving the Bay Islands in Honduras, this is a great book from Lonely Planet to use as a reference D & S Honduras Bay Islands

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Boats and Buses From Belize to Honduras, What a Trip

If you are looking for a great place to learn to dive that won’t break the bank. Utila Honduras is the place to go.

Dave and I had been diving for a year and we decided to go to Honduras to do our dive masters course.  We thought what a fantastic way to travel the world, teaching diving and hanging out on beautiful beaches for the rest of our lives.

Our Boat to Honduras, Life Jackets were a Necessaty

We booked a boat in Belize City to Puerto Cortes, Honduras. It was leaving at 9:00 am and we had a driver coming to get us at 6:30 for the hour and a half drive.  He ended up coming 45 minutes late and we had some delays due to construction.  We arrived at 10:30 an hour and a half late. It didn’t matter though the boat was still there. Actually, we waited for another 45 minutes until we left. More people arrived even later than us and nobody seemed to mind.

Ah, to live on Island time.

At first we found a place in the cabin below, but the sea was high that day my friend.
I was starting to get seasick along with most of the other passengers, so I decided to move outside.  Dave stayed in and ate peanuts and drank orange crush with a businessman from the States.  He seemed to not feel a thing. I remember looking inside and he was laughing and eating. He was oblivious to the pending doom I was feeling.

Dave Enjoying the Ride

The rest of us were on deck, throwing up in tandem.  Between the fumes from the exhaust and the swells going over the boat it was hard keep anything down.  The waves were huge we dropped into the sea surrounded by nothing but water. I was sure that we were going to capsize.

I literally had the headline go through my mind. ‘Two Canadians Lost at Sea in Belize’

Immigration Office in Honduras

We made it to Puerto Cortes in one piece however and we had a lot of time to get over our nausea. Because we were so late arriving, the customs office closed for the day and went home. It was only 1 in the afternoon.  Well, somebody had to go and get them because they had a boatload of tourists stuck on a boat and we couldn’t step foot in the country until we got our passports stamped.

Deb stepping off the Boat, Finally

It was an odd experience.  Puerto Cortes is the principal Port of Central America, and the channel was filled with giant cargo ships. The Chiquita Banana boat was parked beside us, and we sat in the heat waiting and waiting.  Locals gathered and watched us and children laughed at us.  We couldn’t get off the boat and they couldn’t come on. We just sat there looking at each other.  I gave a lady my needle and thread to fix her skirt.  I had just ripped my pants and was working on fixing them, and once people saw that I had thread, it was passed around to do some repairs.  They sewed so quickly and perfectly compared to my crude job.

The Chiquita Banana Boat

We baked in the heat and joked that we would have to turn around and go back to Belize.  That is when the Captain said, I am not going out there again today, the sea is too rough. We all laughed grateful that his skill and experience got us there safe and sound.

Finally the border patrol arrived. One man and one man only processed 50 people.  It was getting late in the day and we didn’t have much time to make our way across the island to catch our ferry to Utilla.

Laughing with the Locals

We were running late, so we raced to catch the express bus to La Ceiba.  We missed it of course, so it was onward to the other express bus to San Pedro Sula.  We made it!

I have to say, I love their idea of Express Bus. It means “I will still pick you up and drop people off at every stop, I just won’t come to a complete stop.”

In San Pedro Sula, we had to transfer.  We trekked four blocks, dive gear in tow, to the other bus stop to catch the new La Ceiba Express bus and luckily, we just made the last bus of the day.  Being in a rush when we bought our ticket, we were ripped off by 100 Lempira each. ($10)  That’s what happens when you are in a hurry.

A typical bus, comfy eh?

All of our running and transferring didn’t help us though.  We finally made it to La Ceiba, but we were 6 hours behind schedule and almost out of money.  It was too late to go to a bank, so we found a place to stay and found a place to eat.  We didn’t have much cash on us, so all we could afford was a plate of fries.  Mmm, but they were the best fries we ever had.

Happy to Be Chilling OUt

The next day we made our way to the ATM. Armed guards stood at every bank. Armed guards stood everywhere for that matter.  One man told us (now I don’t know if it is true so don’t hold me to it.) that it is legal for a person to have 5 guns in Honduras.  Semi Automatics included.  All I know, is that I saw a lot of guns.

For some reason when traveling, I never worry about guns. They never really make me uncomfortable, except for that time in the Sudan.  A truck of guards drove in front of us as we cycled for km on end. They had their machine guns pointed right at us.  Not that they were going to shoot us, they had big smiles on their faces and they were waving.  They were just watching us cycle in the desert, probably wondering what kind of crazy person would do something like that. The guns were mounted on the truck so they had nowhere else to point them, but we were just a little worried that their finger might slip by mistake.

However, let’s get back to Honduras. I have actually become so used to guards at banks when I am traveling, that when they are not there, I feel a bit odd.  I think to myself, why is the guy with the machine gun not here to protect me?  So the guards in La Ceiba, made me feel good. If I was going to get mugged it wouldn’t be for at least a few blocks.

But, there I go on a tangent again.

A Pleasant Ferry Ride to Utilla

So after two days of traveling, we caught the ferry to Utilla and made it to the island.  We found a great company to dive with and settled into Freddy’s Guesthouse.  We were now ready to relax for awhile. No more carting along our cumbersome dive gear, no more running through the streets, no more waiting at border crossings or waiting for our ride to show up.  Nope, we were just going to sit back and chill in Utila.  Dive, read, drink some Salva Vida Beer and sleep in the hammock.

Ahh this is the life.

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5 More Ridiculous Travel Experiences

We have done so many bone head moves traveling and have had so many close calls in potentially dangerous situations, that I had to add a part two to our list.  So here are some more ridiculous situations that could have gone bad, but luckily didn’t and now we can laugh about them.
5; Having semi automatics (maybe they were fully automatic, I don’t know my guns, but they were huge!) pointed at us as we cycled through the Sudan.  Sure these guys were there to guard, us but when a truck full of militia pulls up in front of you with a high powered gun mounted in the box, it can be a little nerve racking.  They got a kick out of these crazy cyclist riding in the desert and they would drive in front of us forever with their guns aimed.  The good news is they had big smiles and were always waving.  We just prayed that their finger didn’t slip.

4; Running out of gas on the autobahn. We rented a fabulous little car called a Twingo, it went forever on a tank of gas and we had no problem pushing it to the limit.  Gas is expensive in Europe and we made sure to use my sister’s military coupons to give us a nice discount. She now works for NATO (sorry- just had to put that in, it’s a cool job.)  Unfortunately we could only use our coupons in Germany and Belgium. We are notoriously cheap, and really thought we could make it last. So after driving from Germany to Vimy Ridge, Calais, Paris and back we were running extremely low on gas.  We had been on empty for several kms and now the highway had gone down to one lane in rush hour.  We couldn’t see and exit in sight and we were sweating bullets.  I am not exaggerating when I say that we went at least another 30km (my memory tells me 60, but it has probably gotten inflated over the years in my mind) on empty and still didn’t run out of gas! We were sure that we were going to stall in this construction zone.  Concrete barricades were on either side of us and we wondered how a tow truck would even get to us.  Stupid Canadian tourists that we were.  I seriously have to tell you that we had a severe panic attack, but we eventually made it to a cut off and luckily a gas station was not far down the road.

3; Almost being left behind in the sand dunes of Mui Ne in Vietnam because I had the nerve to complain about the service of our tour. We were in the middle of nowhere, the sun was going down and I complained that we weren’t going sand boarding when that was the part of the trip that our guide had sold us on. I learned the hard way not to ever make a Vietnamese man lose face in public.  Luckily an NGO was in our group that lived in Vietnam and spoke the language. He smoothed things over after several heated discussions and threats. I had to apologize in a grand gesture in front of everybody and he finally agreed to take me back to the bungalow. Thank God, it was late and he was going to leave me behind in the desert.  Wow, I had never seen such anger in a man’s face before in my life.  The NGO said offhandedly that I was lucky we were in Vietnam and not Cambodia. He said that they just would have shot me in Cambodia.  Luckily they have severe penalties in Vietnam, Woah, thank God I couldn’t understand what they were saying.  He must have been infuriated with me. I was pretty uncomfortable staying there the next few days, since he was the manager of my guest house.

2; Being eaten by fire ants in Honduras.  Dave was being a good Samaritan helping to take everyone’s back packs off our local bus in Honduras.  He put his down and continued to heave luggage handed to him out the window.  It was getting dark and once he had finished, he threw on his pack.  It all happened so fast, I didn’t know what had happened.  All I saw was Dave dancing around like a maniac slapping at his body.  Suddenly his white shirt turned black as thousands of Ants swarmed.  Luckily a quick thinking fellow traveler grabbed some medical gloves from out of nowhere and started brushing off the bugs.  I was busy looking for the bug spray in my back pack (right as if that would have done any good) and was no help whatsoever.  As the local people laughed, our well prepared friend swiped all of them away with little damage to himself. Where he pulled those medical gloves out of, I’ll never know. But I am sure glad that he was there. Dave didn’t have a reaction  to the ant bites luckily, but he has certainly developed a phobia of Ants.

1; Motorcycle accident in Thailand. It was our first trip to Thailand and we were newbie adventure travelers.  We had just got off the ferry in Ko Samui and during our tuk tuk ride, we noticed that several people had bandages on their faces, legs and arms.  We thought that there must be a coral break that people were surfing on or something and never thought anything of it.  The next day we rented a motorbike to tour the island and had a fantastic day.  That is until we turned a corner and lost it on some loose gravel.  We wiped out and both suffered 2nd degree burns on our calf and thigh.  Dave on the muffler and I on the back tire. Dave’s was far worse than mine and both our legs eventually became infected since we didn’t go to the hospital right away.  We made our way to the hospital after many nice people tried to help us by giving us aloe and putting iodine on them, but they only got worse in the heat and humidity. We thought that we would go and get some nice pain killers and be all better at the hospital, but instead and they proceeded to clean Dave’s wound with a razor blade as he bit on a towel. To add insult to injury, they poured pure iodine on the wound after the fact.  I had it a little easier, mine wasn’t quite as bad, so they just peeled away the skin with a big cotton swab.  It was bad, it might as well have been a razor blad.  That cotton swab on a fresh burn felt like fire. We had to keep going back for 3 days to have them change the bandages. And each time was very painful because every day our skin would get stuck in the dressings. We hobbled back and forth from our hotel to the hospital in bandages like the rest of the tourists on the island. And locals laughed  at us yelling, Motorcycle? Motorcycle?  When we got back to Canada we went to the doctors and he said that they did an amazing job cleaning the wounds.  It is 10 years later and neither of us have scars.  So, if you ever burn yourself, just grab a straight razor and scrape away at the burnt flesh until nice new bright red skin is showing. Just make sure that you have a towel to bite on.

Oh. PS Being typical Dave and Deb we were more worried about what we would have to pay for the damages to the bike rather than worrying about our legs.  Luckily we crashed close to a repair shop and they hammered out the pedal for us and straightened out a couple of other things.  We had a few scrapes in the paint, but they didn’t notice when we returned it, thank God. Can you believe, here we are with burns as big as my entire calf and daves entire inner thigh and instead we are busy at the shop fixing the bike.  Ridiculous.

Honorable Mentions.

3; Knee infection in Africa.  Many have read and heard about my knee infection, I have written about it in detail in Tanzania, but it really was one of the scariest travel experiences we have had. My small cut in Tanzania, turned into a serious case of cellulitus.  Infection spread from my ankle to my hip and it was impossible to walk or even move.  The pain was unbearable and antibiotics refused to work.  I went to 2 different hospitals, my leg swelled up so much that the doctor thought that I broke my tibia, and I was worried I was going to have to go home, that is if I could get a ride somewhere to civilization.  The most excruciating pain of my life, but 10 days it cleared up enough to let me continue riding down the continent.  Now I can’t even remember the pain.

2; Climbing in Thailand. We were standing on the beach waiting for our next climb, when out of the blue; a body falls right beside us.  He jumps up and shakes it off, but seriously, he could have died. Apparantly they ran out of rope and the end wasn’t tied off, so it just slipped through the gri gri leaving the climber in a free fall.  These guides had our lives in their hands, so we were a little nervous.  We then proceeded to do our first multipitch climb with a figure 8 descender instead of a gri gri which I am used to. Needless to say, I was white knuckled the entire climb.

1; Driving in a van from Vientianne to Vang Vieng in Laos .   Armed bandits tried to wave us down as we passed.  It is known to be a dangerous highway and when we were there anyway, it was not uncommon for tourists to be shot.  Luckily our driver didn’t stop.

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Suvivorman, Les Stroud Visits YTV

Survivorman came into the studio the other day.  He was promoting his new show “Survive This”.

As I did his make-up, I talked to him about how much I enjoy his show and how I think that it is great what he has accomplished.  He was very nice.

What I really wanted to talk to him about was how I too am an adventurer and working on my own television concept and the reason I am such a fan is because he is doing exactly what I want to do with my life.  I never did get up the nerve.

First of all, that would be very unprofessional as a persons make-up artist.  My job is to make people feel relaxed before their interview, to put them at ease and to talk to them about… well, frankly; them.

Second of all, how could a make-up artist possibly be as  hard-core as he is?  He is Survivorman.  He has been all over the world surviving extreme situations.

Hey wait a minute, Dave and I have been all over the world Surviving extreme situations.

I survived cellulitus, a serious infection in Tanzania.  I had the same knee infection as the guy on “Survivor” the other night. He gave up a million dollars to go home because it was a serious risk to his life.  Now, if I would have known just how dangerous cellulitus can be, I would have gone home myself. Fortunately the fates were on my side and I recovered from my ordeal without harm.

I have been eaten by leaches on the Head Hunters Trail in Borneo, lost in the Desert of Sudan, suffered a pretty nasty burn on my leg from a motorcycle accident in Thailand and have carried home 3 different types of parasites in my stomach at one time.  All while at the side of my husband who has suffered more than I have in many situations.

His burn was far more severe than mine from the motorcycle accident. We won’t even go into detail about how they cleaned his burn with a razor blade while he bit on a wet towel for the pain.  He was swarmed by fire ants in Guatemala,  had a terrible illness on an island in Honduras with the closest hospital being a day away by boat.  While riding his bicycle in Ethiopia, he was chased by baboons for several km and narrowly out ran them.  We were both feasted upon by bed bugs in Malaysia and Thailand, and we  slept with cockroaches crawling all over him while seeing the Pinnacles of Gunung Mulu National Park only to wake up in the morning and our hiking boots and gear covered with swarms of bees.

So, I am worthy of Survivorman. We are definitely not as extreme as he is, but we want to be. Really!  And when you put down it on paper, it looks like we have suffered a bit or two ourselves.

I really should have picked his brain more.  I should have asked some advice. Maybe I could have given him a little advice myself:-)  Ha ha, now I am dreaming.

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