catching up on no internet

I got up today, rolled over in bed and decided to buy a machette. Perhaps it's a strange thought to have first thing in the morning but it just seemed like the thing to do. So I strapped on my flip flops and made my way into the streets. There are tons of machettes around, it seems everyone has one. People use them to mow their lawns (no joke), trim the trees around the house... actually, they use them for anything that you could use any type of blade for. Think of a use and they use the machette! I suppose it makes sense because it's a cheap tool that can multi task for many jobs. I made my way to the block of stores that looked like they had building supplies and started shopping. Alas, no one had machettes. Perhaps they have a different term for a machette that i was not aware of, but I don't think so. I think they just didn't want a crazy gringo with a ridiculous mustache (yes I still have it!) running around town with a machette. After about 7 stores this persistent gringo found the machette store! A few people told me that a place called Maldonado's had what I was looking for, but the only directions I could get was general finger pointing, no cross streets or address. Finally I went into the last shop and they told me Maldonado's was right across the street. I turned around and, sure enough, there it was! The fine gentleman sold me a brand new machette, leather case with tassles and a file to keep it nice and sharp all for only about $18. And i'll tell you what, I thought that people down here were looking at me strangely before... now I am simply freaking them out! It must be their worst nightmare having a super tall gringo running around with a big blade, a terrible mustache and a goofy smile on his face all while speaking broken spanish with a Mexican slang accent. Actually now that I mention it it kinda frightens me, too. No worries, I decided that as soon as I see my friend Sue and there is someone to verify my mustache, I am going to shave it off. That should make the natives a bit less restless. And what did I use to shave the mustache with? Aw, Snap!!

I met my friend Sue in the afternoon at the ferry terminal and was very excited. She is the kind of super happy, super animated, big hearted friend that you can't wait to see and after a long abscence you jump right back into being best buddies again without missing a step! She brought along her friend and coworker Melissa who turned out to be really cool, extremely chill and a lot of fun. We all hit it off right away! Sue asked me, "what you got there?" and I told her the machette story. We laughed and started catching up on what was what. We got the 1 and a half hour ferry ride over to Utilla and arrived in the afternoon just before sunset. After settling into a second choice hotel we walked around, got a drink or two and found our way to a few really cool bars. One called Tranquilla Bar

had a great view of the bay from a boat dock. Another called Babalu had really good fresh fish and a big hole in the dock where they had lights set up and you could see the schools of fish float by. It had a definite fireplace feel as people were gathered around blankly staring at the intoxicatingly mellow vibe.

Then we went to a bar in a tree house called Treetanic that had a Swiss Family Robinson feel all built around a big ol tree. Sue had heard of this one bar that was only open one night a week (this night) so we set out to find it. It was called Bar in the Bush because it is inland somewhere but it had no signs or anything so it was a bit to find. In fact, we just followed the very loud music pouring from the inland part of the island until we came upon it. Too funny as there was no one there and the music was turned up to 11! We made it back to the hotel and could still hear the music in the breeze about a mile away. Glad we weren't too close or there would have been no sleep that night.

The next few days we did a lot of snorkling and sun tanning. We went to a boat dock that had a sign that stated it was a privat dock, no snorkling unless you buy a drink for a buck and a quarter, then you were cool. We had a beer each and jumped in, seeing all kinds of cool coral and little fishes. I don't have many pictures of this stuff because the brand new batteries for my camera that I bought were dead after about 10 pictures. I guess they were sitting on the shelf for a while, oh well. The next day we hopped on a little boat to a nearby caye. We snorkled around the edge of a little island and saw tons more cool stuff. The highlight was an eagle ray with a wingspan of about 4-5 feet. Really graceful and I was reminded quickly that this is not my element. I thought it stopped and looked at me/us and decided not to pounce, but i may have been a bit paranoid on that one. The next morning we hopped on a private catamaran and motored on over to Roatan. It took about 4 hours and was very relaxing. Roatan turned out to be a bit more to my liking, unfortunately Sue and Melissa were scheduled to fly out from the mainland in the morning. We had a lazy day andwent to a few bars in the evening. The highlight was a bar that was actually a ship. This crazy Canadian who lives down here had just finished building it and it was hilarious. It was docked at the time, but he had put a bar and a bunch of tables and stools on a floor over 3 pontoons with 2 bathrooms (port-a-pottys) and even a little crows nest on top of the bathrooms. He swaid he got all the necesary paperwork done and just rolls up to the beach when its crowded, beaches himself and puts out the plank for people to board the vessel. It was hilarious but not as hilarious as Captain Perry, the crazy Canadian who dreamed this up. He told us stories of dealing with the cops and private parties and heading out to more open water on calm days. I can't describe how hilarious this guy was. It was very nice to see someone who had a crazy dream and made it happen. It doesn't happen very often, that's for sure and definitely not as crazy as this guy's dream!