I’M IN FRICKIN HONDURAS!!!

Hi Team!

So I’m in Honduras… okay. I’m really back in LA.

But Craig… why don’t you write these emails on the the trips anymore?
The answer:  there’s no internet cafes. Or at least, I didn’t see any on my 15 day journey through Honduras, Nicaragua (and for a day in El Salvador!)
Since Wi-fi has taken over the backpacker experience, they just don’t exist.
And I miss them.
I miss going out a couple times during the trip, checking in, and sharing adventures while there.
So next time I’m going to bring a blue tooth keyboard and type it up on my phone and share it that way…

At this point you might say:
“Craig, you went to Honduras? Nicaragua? WTF?!?!”
And honestly, that was a bit of my thought too when this trip first showed up. I checked out the US State Department travel advisories. There are 4 levels of advisors.
1:  Generally safe. Common caution.
2:  Upgraded caution. Be more aware.
3:  Rethink travel due to safety concerns
4:  DO NOT GO.   (Think Iraq or Afghanistan).

Well, Nicaragua, was surprisingly a 2. That’s cool. Just like Cuba, or India.
Honduras was a 3.  “Rethink Travel”.
Warnings consisted of DO NOT TRAVEL AT NIGHT. And lots of warnings about the capital city and other major cities and the entire eastern part of the country.

I’m not going to lie. It was a bit intimidating. I love adventure, but going to war zones or places of high human conflict or danger — no thanks.

So again, you ask: “Why did you go?”

Well, faithful readers, you might recall a certain adventure involving millions of crabs from the Cuba emails earlier this year. And you might recall Hannah and Fabian, the two totally awesome German’s I shared that with, whom I also rock climbed and scuba dived with. Some of my favorite people I’ve ever met traveling. Well those two have been traveling since I met them back in March. They went from Cuba to Mexico, bought a VW Camper van and have been driving south ever since. Months in Mexico. Climbing volcanoes and sailing and exploring caves with huge underground waterfalls in Guatemala. And they were headed into Honduras for diving and beyond. So I thought: Let’s have some more adventures together and joined them for a couple of weeks.  In addition, they had two friends from Germany with them, Stefi and Franzi (Twin sisters), who joined a a couple weeks before me and were doing 2-3 months.

Me, Hannah, Franzi, Fabian, Steffi

So the stage is set, I’ve got pickpocket proof travel wallets, belts with hidden money compartments, and a plane ticket to Roatan, Honduras. I land on a short runway in the rain of this lovely island. Then hop the ferry for the 1 hour ride to Utila. A smaller island nearby. Well, the ferry crossing was one of the wildest boat rides I’ve ever been on. The waves were BIG. Like 10 foot at times big, and rolling into the boat side to side. The horizon was grey. Sheets of rain came down. I loved it! I was on the top deck, enjoying the fresh air and the wind. At one point the crew told everyone to sit down and looked genuinely concerned… hmmm….

In the end we landed in Utila and Hannah and Fabian were there to greet me on the dock with giant hugs and smiles and frankly it felt like we’d seen each other a week ago. And it’s been 6 months. It’s one of the amazing thing about travel. I spent a total of 5 days with them in Cuba, but it’s like 5 weeks of normal time. And as a result, we just clicked back in to stories and jokes and good times. It was awesome.

DIVING DEEP:

So the main thing to do in Utila is Scuba dive. It’s one of the cheapest places in the world to learn. So I did my Advanced open water with Fabian and Franzi. (Hannah and Steffi had already done it). Doing the class meant 7 dives in 3 days, and some book and class work. We did our book work on a pier overlooking the Caribbean sea. Now that’s a classroom!

Our first day was actually snorkeling and hanging out on piers and enjoying the island. Because, for whatever reason they decided to do the classes the next day. We’re on island time now!

Well, at 3 am I woke… and did NOT feel good. Nausea. Headache. Really?!?!? I just got here. That’s gotta be a record. My best guess was the Poke I ate at the beach wasn’t so good. So my first morning was sleeping while they started diving. It was the right call as I felt better 12 hours later, but still. Whew.

The diving here is AWESOME. We were at Parrot’s dive shop. This rag tag, lovable place with great instructors and a real family fun feel to it. Arjen, our teacher, who’s from Holland, was great, and we dove down to 100 feet multiple times. We did an awesome wreck dive, on the USS Haliburton (yep, that company). It was purposely sunk a number of years ago, and was a really cool cargo ship to float around. It took me all of 2 minutes to get used to diving again, and after the 7 dives I really felt like I had improved a lot.

Highlights included the wreck, a night dive with some bioluminescence and tons of fish (more came out at night!). I loved the deep dive egg trick, where Arjen cracked an egg at 30 meters (100 feet) and it stays together. We could push on it and toss it around like mercury on the surface. And on the birthday dive, there was a free swimming eel that followed us for 12 minutes or more. It came up next to me, like 5 feet away, then swam up the sea mount… then came back. The dive master had skewered a lion fish and fed it to the eel, and then the eel spit it out and got really sassy. It swam up underneath some of us, and even went right up to the dive master, who shooed it away with a harpoon. I’ve never seen a free swimming eel before. Arjen’s passion for the undersea life makes me want to learn more about what I’m seeing down there. It’s another world I recommend to anyone.

BIRTHDAY FUN!

So November 21st was my birthday…. and Stefi and Franzi’s bday too!
Yep! Triple birthday fun!
It started with cake and candles and sweet gifts that Hannah and Fabian had made or got for all of us. Cool stickers with nice notes on them. Then we did our two great dives. And after we came up from the 2nd one: Champagne on the boat! The dive shop got us a bottle and we all celebrated on the ride back.
Then back at the shop:  More cake! The DIVE SHOP had a cake made for us! What?!?! How nice! Then later on the bar gave us one bottle of champagne each! It was pretty great! A fun special day indeed.

3 LIES OF UTILA:
So there is a really funny video about Utila. This island where people come for a week and stay forever. It’s apparently pretty common. I loved the island, but I don’t think I’d get stuck there. (Supposedly it’s Robinson Crusoe’s island. There are signs and maps up all over by someone claiming this was the spot. So they sure got stuck! lol).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LX-H-zF9PJ4

So the video has 3 lies:
1.  “I think I love you.”  and the response “No, you don’t.”
2. “I’m leaving tomorrow” — “No you’re not.”
3. “I’m not drinking tonight.”  — “Yes you will.”  “Cause the truth, not the lies, you’re in Utila still”.

It’s a great place. With great people, and a great vibe. And it’s super safe, and super friendly, and really… it is amazing. And if you love diving: buy that ticket to Utila and enjoy!

MOVIE LOCATIONS, RAP CONCERTS and COLD WIND

So in Ouarzazarte (war-zazat) I did what the tourists do in Hollywood. Went to the big movie locations, took a tour of the studio, and then celebrated with a rap concert in the plaza (one group Moroccan, the other "Legacy" from... USA!).
It's the only sign of nightlife I've heard or seen in Morocco, and it started at 6pm and was over before 8. Was still fun. But there was a cold, COLD wind blowing down from the Atlas mountains. Probably put it in the upper 30s (that's fahrenheit, not centegrade).

During the day we went to Ait Baddadou. Which is this palatial, Unesco protected Ksar (that's walled city) that you've seen in movies from Lawrence of Arabia to Gladiator to Prince of Persia (oh wait, no one saw that movie).
It was really cool to see, and I even took the Berber taxi (that's a donkey) accross the flooded river to get there.

Then I went to ATLAS studios and did the 1 hour tour of movie sets from Kundun, to Alexander, to Gladiator (again), to MISSION: CLEOPATRE, which was pretty awesome. To the KINGDOM OF HEAVEN city of Jeruselem, which took 7 months to build, was shot in for 2 months and had 1500 extras involved. Sweet. I love movies. Can't help it. Can't wait to be making some big ass movie myself. It would be amazing to shoot on sets like the ones I got to see today (or the locations).

Such as the Taorirt Kasbah. Which is featured in many movies, including that crazy Prince Of Persia again. I got to explore all the rooms, and enjoy the maze like aspect of it.

It was a good day.

And today, it was off on a 5 hour bus ride over the very twisty, turny, two lane, cliff hugging road over the high Atlas to the grand daddy of all Moroccan cities, Marrakech. It is here I will likely end my trip. I was going to head to the mountains to hike tomorrow, but forecast calls for rain and clouds, which doesn't bode well for seeing scenery. And it's not easy to get up there, and the ski resort (yes, Morocco actually has skiing!) isn't open yet. Still not enough snow.

So here in Marrakech, there are tourists EVERYWHERE (well compared to the rest of the trip). I'm actually at a hostel with bunk beds, which normally I don't do, but it's a cool place and I wanted to have some traveler socializing while I was here. But then again, I'm typing emails instead, hmmmm....

But really, that's because I wanted to say thanks to everyone who send me Birthday wishes! WoooooO! Most of them are on Facebook, and I haven't figured out how to get on FB here in Morocco, because of the french interfaces. But I wanted say "THANK YOU!" to all who wished me a happy birthday. And if you didn't...well.... you're still my friends! :) After all, if you don't have FB to tell you it's my bday, you might not know. (Though now I guess you have no excuse since I just told you.).
Anyway, thanks for the wishes. It always makes me feel close to everyone, and when I'm half a world away (from most of you), it means a lot.

And now off to the Djeema El Fna (I think I spelled that right), for the 1000 year old, nightly party that tonight is being held for me! :)

Craigo

Happy Birthday: Costa Rican Style

Thank you all who sent Birthday wishes on Facebook or email. It´s really wonderful to hear from all of you and feel the long distance hugs while here in Costa Rica. I can´t wait to see all of you when I get home and sing some songs and have a partay!

Hope your November has been as great as mine. :)

As for birthday´s here...

Last night I went dancing with some folks from the hostel. A brother and sister from Holland (what? You´re kidding! People from Holland in Costa Rica! Never!) And a gal from Germany.
We rolled by taxi to Liquid, hopped out and danced for a few hours. Within about 20 seconds it was clear that there were not going to be a lot of ladies at the bar this night, and I´m 100 percent sure the fellas there were not upset about this fact. :) The music was good, and the tank tops and mustaches (think 70´s porn) were fun as well. It was a good night.

Today, it was off on a Canyoning trip. We call it Canyoneering in the states. Not really sure why it´s different back home... probably because we like to name things differently for the heck of it. I went with a gal named Petra, who stayed at the hostel before and lives here. Good thing she wanted to go, since they wouldn´t do a tour for just one person.

At first i was dissapointed because I thought we were doing this crazy 7 waterfall rappel trip, but was informed they don´t do that anymore and we´re doing one with 4 or 5 rappels and a natural slide and stuff. It´s an 80 buck tour, so I felt like I´d returned to Bolivia where they pretty much just tell you whatever you want to hear and then do whatever they were going to do in the first place... but then I thought that I´ve never rappeled down a waterfall anyway, so lets go!

The ride there was rough and wild, 4x4 to the max. Muddy. Jungle. Rainforest. Up and down, hills rivers green green. Bamboo 50 feet tall. Took an hour and a half to get there. My hypoglycemia was being all weird, so I downed 2 balance bars and then a bunch of peanuts I bought from this little roadside shack. That got me back to normal and fun was to be had.

2 rappels down a cliff. A natural waterslide that was pretty rough and wild. And then the gonzo, 120 foot waterfall rappel, right along the side of this raging waterfall. Was really wild and fun. Swim in the pool at the bottom and hike up a narrow trail to this suspension bridge that´s 140 feet off the pool below...

And this was made of metal ladders, aircraft cable, and netting. It bounced and shook and was pretty surreal to walk along. It stretched 400 feet accross the gorge. It seemed pretty unstable. So naturally we had to rappel off the sucker!

So hanging off the side, we swing into space and descend to the water below. It was pretty wild. I tried to video it, but I don´t think it shows how cool it really was.

I wanted to go again, and again, and again... but for some reason it doesn´t work like that. Still, they did let us do the waterfall one more time since it was my birthday! Yahoo, birthday cupcakes come for free in the states, here you get to rappel a fricking waterfall.

sweet.

Tonight... who knows? Dance party at the hostel? Chill and chat?
It´s been a great birthday so far. And all the wishes have made it all the better.
I was even able to call my dad and Devin (who´s birthday is tomorrow, that scrappy youngster... he´s 1 day younger than me), thanks to the magic of free internet phone calls. (ahhh, the future).

I want to write an email about the observations of costa rica and panama and such, but I guess that´ll wait until the final adventure that awaits...

stay tuned!

And thanks again!
Hugs to all of you.

Craigo