OUR VERY OWN ISLAND
The main reason for this trip was to be able to stay on our very own island. Everyone kept asking us how we found out about it. Well, its simple. Jonathan has wanted to vacation on our own island for a while but traveling to places like Fiji and Tahiti are going to wait until we can save A LOT more money each month in our vacation fund. Traveling to Central America is cost effective (hence that is all we've traveled to so far), so after poking around Central America on Google Earth, he found 3 islands north of Honduras. They are Utila, Roatan and Guanaja. He first googled "Utila" and this site came up. If you scroll to the bottom of this page, you can see where it says you can have your own private tropical island and he was hooked! We were in contact with Barry and Erica Jackson, the owners of Little Cay and Sandy Cay and after communicating with them, we wired them money to reserve our stay on Little Cay for 5 nights and 6 days.
Getting to the cay was a bit difficult. A lot of things needed to work out, and our last trip didn't go as planned (due to the weather) so we wanted to try to prevent that as much as we could for this trip-and the way we prevented that was by avoiding hops in little puddle jumpers from one small airport to the next. Jonathan read on the site that we could get to the cay from the mainland and it involved us getting shuttled to the port city of La Ceiba (which was about 30 minutes from the Pico Bonito Lodge, so we arranged transportation with them) where we could then catch a ferry, the Utila Princess, to the island of Utila. From there, Barry would pick us up in his boat and take us out to Little Cay. Simple enough.
We planned on leaving Pico Bonito around 7:30am for the 9am ferry. One of the managers of the Lodge, James, found us at breakfast and told us some of his workers warned him that there was a lot of traffic on the road to La Ceiba so we needed to leave a little earlier than planned. He left, we slammed down breakfast and then James came back to tell us that he would be sending one of his employees, Michelle, with us on the drive and she would help us get a cab to get us to the ferry port because apparently the traffic was pretty bad. We were a little worried because we didn't really know what to expect, but from what he said we knew we'd be leaving one car and somehow getting to another, probably by walking.
We headed into town and soon came upon the aforementioned traffic jam. Our driver Rene was weaving in and out of traffic, off the main road onto dirt roads and squeezing the van between just about everything he could so we could get as far as possible. He got out a couple times to ask bystanders what was going on and got what information he could get about the traffic. We saw a lot of people walking and heard a lot of horns honking. We flooded Michelle with questions but she didn't know what was going on. We ended up getting out of the van and walking through town (Jonathan and I being noticeably white and having "TOURIST" written all over us) while Michelle weaved us in and out of the crowd of people while Rene pulled our luggage-he refused to let Jonathan pull anything. There wasn't anything violent going on, but we felt VERY out of place. Michelle was on her cell phone arranging transportation after she learned there was a protest on the bridge. She said the protest was about raising the minimum wage and things like this did happen every so often especially with the teachers. Protesters stood on the bridge blocking cars from passing by placing big boulders in the road. An ambulance actually needed to get through and they moved the boulders for that, but moved them right back after it passed. They held up signs and chanted something. A few moments later, we met up with a guy Michelle knew who drove a cab and we made it to the ferry port with plenty of time to spare. We dodged that bullet!
Jonathan did manage to pull out the camera and take a quick picture of the crowd.
The sign at the port.
Taxis, people and luggage busy-ness at the port.
Our ferry.
We read somewhere to bring Dramamine, and we also spoke to a couple at the Lodge who suggested the same thing-they said the ride was BAD! We took it right before the ferry left the port (of course we read the instructions too late and learned we should have taken it 30 to 60 minutes prior to activity, so we missed the boat on that one).
The mountains in the back ground, and you can see workers loading up another boat to take supplies out to the islands.
Lots of bananas!
Where the driver sat.
The windows to the ferry were quite high and you couldn't see anything but the sky when sitting down looking out. The ride was very bumpy and within minutes we were standing on the side staring out the window towards the horizon. Others didn't fare so well and there was lots of puke flying (into plastic bags thankfully) amongst other passengers. Others slept or listened to iPods to get them through the ride.
We got off the ferry and that is when the Dramamine started taking its toll on me. Exactly 30 minutes later I was in a daze. Jonathan was getting frustrated with me because I was wandering aimlessly and couldn't think very clearly. After a few minutes of fresh air, we got our luggage and didn't see anyone with a "Mr. Jonathan Kassebaum" sign, nor anyone who looked like a Barry Jackson (we had no idea what he looked like). We saw in the distance "Captain Morgan's Dive Center" and we knew he was affiliated with Barry so we walked there and told Mr. Captain Morgan (his real name was Kevin , but the locals call him Capt. Morgan-and he was from Louisiana) him what was going on. He called for Barry on his radio and Erica came on and said Barry would soon be over to pick us up. Kevin suggested we leave our luggage with him and go up the street to get groceries (since it was just us on the island...no cooks, no restaurant) so we did and started walking down the road.
This is when sheer panic and fear set in for me. Jonathan pats his pocket and says to me "honey, where's my wallet" which had our IDs, a debit card and $1000.00 is cash. I instantly can't breath (mind you I was already out of it from the Dramamine) and I start freaking out. We had 3 places the wallet would have/should have been and it wasn't there. I remembered we bought bananas on the ferry from a street vendor and that was the last time we saw the wallet. He ran back to the ferry and I started digging through our back pack when I found it. I ran out to find Jonathan, who was walking back from an empty ferry port, holding his wallet in the air. We later discussed what went through our minds and it was pretty funny. I figured we'd be stuck there forever, no money, no credit cards (we did have our Passports so there was some hope) and we'd be washing dishes to make money to call home and have family wire us money. Jonathan knew places had our credit card # on file and we'd go from there. I blame my irrational behavior on the Dramamine.
We walked a few yards down the road to Bush's Supermarket and bought about 5 days worth of food. About half way through we wondered how we'd get this back to where Barry was to pick us up. During check out, the cashier asked us if we needed our stuff delivered somewhere and we said "YES! We didn't know what we were going to do". We saw no cars on the island, rather golf carts, tiny taxis and 4 wheelers. People got around that way, or they'd just walk.
~Some pix on Utila near the port~
The ferry parked at Utila.
The alleyway to the dock.
This is what we saw when we entered into Utila. I spotted the sign for Captain Morgans Dive Center (4 story building that on the left) after I went upstairs in the building on the right looking for a bathroom.
Road to the supermarket. Church on the left.
Dental clinic.
Someone who provides laundry service in their home. They obviously don't use dryers either and hang dry their garments.
Docks on Utila-kids and dogs playing.
Another view of C M Dive Center.
After all this, we finally boarded Barry's boat, along with our delivered groceries, and headed to our island.
Me on the boat, still zoning from Dramamine.
One of the cays where locals live.
Barry and his boat. He supposedly has the fastest boat on Utila. They have races every Easter and he always wins.
After traveling 3 miles from Utila, we roll up onto our own little piece of paradise!
Up next-part 4
Getting to the cay was a bit difficult. A lot of things needed to work out, and our last trip didn't go as planned (due to the weather) so we wanted to try to prevent that as much as we could for this trip-and the way we prevented that was by avoiding hops in little puddle jumpers from one small airport to the next. Jonathan read on the site that we could get to the cay from the mainland and it involved us getting shuttled to the port city of La Ceiba (which was about 30 minutes from the Pico Bonito Lodge, so we arranged transportation with them) where we could then catch a ferry, the Utila Princess, to the island of Utila. From there, Barry would pick us up in his boat and take us out to Little Cay. Simple enough.
We planned on leaving Pico Bonito around 7:30am for the 9am ferry. One of the managers of the Lodge, James, found us at breakfast and told us some of his workers warned him that there was a lot of traffic on the road to La Ceiba so we needed to leave a little earlier than planned. He left, we slammed down breakfast and then James came back to tell us that he would be sending one of his employees, Michelle, with us on the drive and she would help us get a cab to get us to the ferry port because apparently the traffic was pretty bad. We were a little worried because we didn't really know what to expect, but from what he said we knew we'd be leaving one car and somehow getting to another, probably by walking.
We headed into town and soon came upon the aforementioned traffic jam. Our driver Rene was weaving in and out of traffic, off the main road onto dirt roads and squeezing the van between just about everything he could so we could get as far as possible. He got out a couple times to ask bystanders what was going on and got what information he could get about the traffic. We saw a lot of people walking and heard a lot of horns honking. We flooded Michelle with questions but she didn't know what was going on. We ended up getting out of the van and walking through town (Jonathan and I being noticeably white and having "TOURIST" written all over us) while Michelle weaved us in and out of the crowd of people while Rene pulled our luggage-he refused to let Jonathan pull anything. There wasn't anything violent going on, but we felt VERY out of place. Michelle was on her cell phone arranging transportation after she learned there was a protest on the bridge. She said the protest was about raising the minimum wage and things like this did happen every so often especially with the teachers. Protesters stood on the bridge blocking cars from passing by placing big boulders in the road. An ambulance actually needed to get through and they moved the boulders for that, but moved them right back after it passed. They held up signs and chanted something. A few moments later, we met up with a guy Michelle knew who drove a cab and we made it to the ferry port with plenty of time to spare. We dodged that bullet!
Jonathan did manage to pull out the camera and take a quick picture of the crowd.
The sign at the port.
Taxis, people and luggage busy-ness at the port.
Our ferry.We read somewhere to bring Dramamine, and we also spoke to a couple at the Lodge who suggested the same thing-they said the ride was BAD! We took it right before the ferry left the port (of course we read the instructions too late and learned we should have taken it 30 to 60 minutes prior to activity, so we missed the boat on that one).
The mountains in the back ground, and you can see workers loading up another boat to take supplies out to the islands.
Lots of bananas!
Where the driver sat.
The windows to the ferry were quite high and you couldn't see anything but the sky when sitting down looking out. The ride was very bumpy and within minutes we were standing on the side staring out the window towards the horizon. Others didn't fare so well and there was lots of puke flying (into plastic bags thankfully) amongst other passengers. Others slept or listened to iPods to get them through the ride.We got off the ferry and that is when the Dramamine started taking its toll on me. Exactly 30 minutes later I was in a daze. Jonathan was getting frustrated with me because I was wandering aimlessly and couldn't think very clearly. After a few minutes of fresh air, we got our luggage and didn't see anyone with a "Mr. Jonathan Kassebaum" sign, nor anyone who looked like a Barry Jackson (we had no idea what he looked like). We saw in the distance "Captain Morgan's Dive Center" and we knew he was affiliated with Barry so we walked there and told Mr. Captain Morgan (his real name was Kevin , but the locals call him Capt. Morgan-and he was from Louisiana) him what was going on. He called for Barry on his radio and Erica came on and said Barry would soon be over to pick us up. Kevin suggested we leave our luggage with him and go up the street to get groceries (since it was just us on the island...no cooks, no restaurant) so we did and started walking down the road.
This is when sheer panic and fear set in for me. Jonathan pats his pocket and says to me "honey, where's my wallet" which had our IDs, a debit card and $1000.00 is cash. I instantly can't breath (mind you I was already out of it from the Dramamine) and I start freaking out. We had 3 places the wallet would have/should have been and it wasn't there. I remembered we bought bananas on the ferry from a street vendor and that was the last time we saw the wallet. He ran back to the ferry and I started digging through our back pack when I found it. I ran out to find Jonathan, who was walking back from an empty ferry port, holding his wallet in the air. We later discussed what went through our minds and it was pretty funny. I figured we'd be stuck there forever, no money, no credit cards (we did have our Passports so there was some hope) and we'd be washing dishes to make money to call home and have family wire us money. Jonathan knew places had our credit card # on file and we'd go from there. I blame my irrational behavior on the Dramamine.
We walked a few yards down the road to Bush's Supermarket and bought about 5 days worth of food. About half way through we wondered how we'd get this back to where Barry was to pick us up. During check out, the cashier asked us if we needed our stuff delivered somewhere and we said "YES! We didn't know what we were going to do". We saw no cars on the island, rather golf carts, tiny taxis and 4 wheelers. People got around that way, or they'd just walk.
~Some pix on Utila near the port~
The ferry parked at Utila.
The alleyway to the dock.
This is what we saw when we entered into Utila. I spotted the sign for Captain Morgans Dive Center (4 story building that on the left) after I went upstairs in the building on the right looking for a bathroom.
Road to the supermarket. Church on the left.
Dental clinic.
Someone who provides laundry service in their home. They obviously don't use dryers either and hang dry their garments.
Docks on Utila-kids and dogs playing.
Another view of C M Dive Center.After all this, we finally boarded Barry's boat, along with our delivered groceries, and headed to our island.
Me on the boat, still zoning from Dramamine.
One of the cays where locals live.
Barry and his boat. He supposedly has the fastest boat on Utila. They have races every Easter and he always wins.
After traveling 3 miles from Utila, we roll up onto our own little piece of paradise!Up next-part 4
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