Dream Trip Day 98-104: No whaleshark in Utila, and Panick at Border

Posted On 27/06/2014

The Bay Islands of Honduras is a must go for me for the opportunity to see and / or swim with whale shark! It's also a relatively cheap place for learning diving. However, I feel robbed when I realized the 1hour boat costs me US$25! Almost wanted to give up. LP said that it's better to take motion sickness pills for this ride. I was a bit doubtful but anyway swallowed one. While I was making my sandwich on board, the ferry left the pier and the staff started to distribute plastic bags to each passengers. I was amused with the seriousness but not for long.

The ferry suddenly jumped and my bread and jam flew. My backpack rolled onto the floor. I stood up immediately to save my stuff but ended up grabbing the table to prevent falling. I struggled to packed all my stuff together and look at my pale-faced travelmates....Ooops! We fell onto the chair right at the pier of Utila and sat there for 45mins without being able to move 1 inch.. Welcome to Utila!

We stayed in a divers' house in Utila. Both are Dive Master Trainee. One of them introduced us with her diving friends and we had a great house party (girls night!). Make me feel like living university life again. If I had had the one month time and money for doing a DM, I would have stayed.

Without scuba diving, we walked along the shore and snorkeled daily. In 5 whole days we can't go for a whale shark tour due to the strong wind. The forecast said it'd be windy for the coming 2 weeks. With no other choice and a whole continent awaiting me to explore, I had to leave with regret.

The journey from Utila to Leon, Nicaragua is soooooo long. 6am boat to La Ceiba, then a 7 hour chicken bus ride to the dangerous capital Tegucigalpa. There we stayed a night before starting another long day to Nicaragua. With a 'second class national' passport, direct tourist shuttle bus in Central America was beyond my imagination. The only way is to take the local chicken bus to the border to try my luck.

Successfully evaded the $3USD exit fee scam on the Honduras side, and I start to become nervous when approaching Nicaragua. There were some medics waving at travellers. Must be some kind of insurance scam, I thought. I tried to walk pass by pretending not seeing the counter. But they stopped me and brought me to a set of rustic tables.

There were some cotton balls and alcohol scattered on the tables. Medics were punching syringe-like thing onto travellers' arms. Everyone looked calm but Hey! This is a dusty border with questionable hygienic conditions!! We don't even know what's in the syringe! Why aren't people worried?!!

Before I could figure out a way to escape this injection, my arm was caught by one of the medics. I started struggling and screaming "No!!" when others looked at me in confusion. I'm going to die of infection in Nicaragua... I threw a dispaired look at the thing against my arm......

...and finally saw clear that it was aTHERMOMETER.All we needed to do was a temperature check at the armpit, no injection, no scam, no dying of infection. I stopped struggling, accepted the thermometer, thanked goodness that my temperature didn't rise too much due to the stupid panick, and embarassingly walked away with a "checked" tag.

Except for the self-panick, it was a surprisingly smooth entrance to Nicaragua. There's even tourist ambassador giving out free maps and postcards! Finally passed through all the tricky borders in CA. Thank goodness and even the cheap simple chicken soup at the border taste great!