I just spent almost ten minutes on the phone with a local pizza place, trying to give them my phone number for a delivery. The part of my phone number that gives me the most trouble is 33. Now, tres (”three” in Spanish) can sound an awful lot like seis (”six”), and I guess I just assumed that the “tr” and “s” sounds were enough to tell them apart. Clearly this isn’t working for me.

Every time I give out my phone number over the phone, they always get it wrong. Always. And it is infuriating. I never have this problem giving my phone number out face-to-face. But over the phone, they inevitably hear “six” instead of “three”, no matter what Byzantine technique I use to correct them.

I went through two pizza girls on the phone, unsuccessfully trying a few different strategies. 33! (Too bad treinta y tres, “33″, sounds an awful lot like sesenta y seis, “66″. Arrgh!) No, not six! Three! As in four minus one! (Why did I think math would work?) And I eventually yelled at the second girl in exasperation, “No! No hay ningún seis en mi número de teléfono, entiende?!” (”No! There isn’t a single six in my phone number, understand?!”)

After gritting my teeth and pulling out my hair, I apologized, took a deep breath and then we started over from the beginning. The gods of cell phone reception smiled on me and she finally wrote down my phone number—the one without any sixes in it. Sure enough, the pizza has already arrived as I write this post. Now the only question remains, how many slices will I have—three or six?

This put all the girls on edge a little bit and we got to talking about spiders, scorpions, rats, mice and chupacabras (right, Colleen?).

Before we left, Rob recruited me again to help kill another mouse in their bedroom. I broke a broomstick in the process, but Rob got the kill. Angel then decided it’d be a good idea to make sure our house wasn’t crawling with mice, so what did she find when she looked under the sink? Snake!

She ran to get the guard, Don Ramón, who’s better at telling the dangerous snakes apart from the harmless ones. This one, luckily, was harmless. Ramón gave it an unceremonious beating with our machete and then took it out into the street. It’s been quite the evening for little critters!

There’s a distinct lack of any safety standards like we’d be used to in Canada, but for me, at least, that was part of the fun!

The ferris wheel, for example, was certainly not the biggest in the world (maybe 4 storeys high or so) but it was fast. This was definitely not one of those slow, peaceful North American affairs. Brendan was the one who noticed the whole contraption was attached to a truck engine, and the operator was revving it accordingly. Adding to the playful atmosphere were the carnies who’d grab a moving gondola at ground level and hang from the outside of it while rocking it back and forth.

They have all the rides you’d expect—they’re just a little creaky and maybe 30 years too old—and rides cost about 75 cents a pop. We tried the Zipper, the Roundup (which left me and Jessica feeling a little woozy) and the Pirate. Colleen was content to just watch us on most of the rides, but she tried the Pirate, despite her vocal concerns that the lap-bar didn’t stay down on its own. Well, it was either sit down or—and I’m not kidding—try standing up in the cage welded in the centre of the ship. I think Colleen made the right choice. (And I wish I had tried the cage!)

For me, the best attraction by far are the bumper cars. They are seriously fast little buggers. Normally, you putt around in a Canadian bumper car, and you have throw your weight into it to really bump somebody good.

A Honduran bumper car, however, needs a speedometer installed. I’m not kidding. I swear they can go as fast as 20km/h. They don’t bump, they crash. Today I have welts on my shins, because every time I got bumped I bounced up out of my seat and my legs crashed against the dashboard. One guy slammed me so hard he knocked my hat off and my car cleared the 4-inch curb around the track, where it promptly got stuck like a beached whale. It was really awesome.

So, the next time you find yourself in Honduras and the carnival comes to town, enjoy. And maybe bring a helmet.

Vimeo
Diving in Utila
10:03

This video is not by me. It’s from a DVD shot and produced by Jessica Cirkus (Sea Cirkus Creations). Thanks, Jessica!

This was a different kind of vacation for us—reading textbooks, doing homework, even writing quizzes and final exams! Our instructor, Johan, calls this “the boring stuff”. He never skimped on instruction, but he was all about getting through the two days of theory and getting us into the water.

In between the theory and the open ocean we did what are called “confined water” sessions. This is where we put on all the gear (wetsuit, mask, snorkel, fins, weights, BCD and oxygen tank) and hopped into the pool to demonstrate our skills. There are all kinds of things you need to know how to do underwater in, as Johan says, the “unlikely event” something happens. Once in the pool, we’d first watch Johan do something and then show him we understood by copying him. Monkey see, monkey do.

The skills are pretty fun, actually. There are trivial things like hand signals, clearing water out of your mask, taking your mask off and putting it back on, getting in and out of all your gear while underwater, or throwing your regulator behind you and then retrieving it. Then there are the really important skills like descending, ascending, buoyancy, or sharing oxygen with your buddy when you run out. This last one was a real treat because they deliberately turned off our oxygen so we’d know exactly what the lack of oxygen felt like.

For me, controlling my buoyancy was pretty tricky at first (by the end of the course I was getting the hang of it). You have to learn how to make yourself neutrally buoyant—you neither sink nor float—at which point you then control your depth precisely with just your lungs. Breathe in, and you rise. Breathe out, and you descend. Lung control is a very subtle thing and takes practice. But when perfectly executed, you can hover in one spot indefinitely. Someday, somehow, I will hover and it will be a beautiful thing.

Of course, all of UDC’s instructors made it look really easy. UDC’s policy is to make sure every two students get an assistant instructor underwater. Skill demonstrations go faster and you get more help. On top of that, there were always a couple of instructors-in-training floating in the background for extra assistance. It made for a pretty crowded pool, but everybody appreciated it.

Our assistant instructor was Fernando, and boy, was he good! And I mean good. He’d ask me to demonstrate a skill and then just float there, watching me. He’d always hover cross-legged, seemingly fixed in the water, with his arms folded across his chest while he stroked his beard pensively. He looked so fucking Zen, man. You wish you were that cool.

At some point Johan decided we were ready for the actual ocean, so we hopped on a dive boat for our four “open water” sessions. This was the real deal, folks, and let me tell you, our first dive was a gong show.

Once the group was underwater, hilarity ensued. Some of us sank too quickly, plunking down in the sand at six metres while trying to clear our ears before the pressure crushed our sinuses. Others couldn’t even get down, repeatedly bobbing up to the surface. People were rolling and tilting and kicking their fins and waving their hands like drunk children in the kiddie pool. We put on quite the show that afternoon.

If the first rule of diving is to never hold your breath, then the second rule is to relax. Once everybody kept their wits about them, slowed down and breathed calmly, we did much, much better.

In fact, after each successive dive, we felt more relaxed, confident and in control. By the time I did my fun dives, I was making fewer mistakes (except for that teensy little boo-boo where I accidentally descended to 24 metres!) and having a blast.

Divers are a very social group, and they like to have fun both in and out of the water. Every night the entire class and all the instructors ate dinner together. Johan ended classes each day with the crucial question, “Where are we eating tonight, guys?” It’s a sweet job he’s got, isn’t it?

In addition to the eating there’s the drinking, smoking and partying. One day, we had just gotten back on the boat from a dive and I looked over to see Fernando, still dripping, with a cigarette in his hand, taking apart his gear! I would’ve mentioned something from the textbook about smoking and diving, but Fernando is fucking Zen, so I let him be.

Pretty much the only things to do in Utila are go diving, or hang out after diving and talk about… diving. And the folks at UDC sure know how to have a party. Every Thursday they host a barbecue. The one we went to featured free drinks, fire dancing, and a guy chugging rum and raw eggs through a snorkel. It was a crowd pleaser.

Utila both borders the second largest reef in the world and offers the cheapest scuba diving certification on the planet. That’s a dangerously tempting combination. It’s no wonder so many people extend their stays and get hooked on diving. We, unfortunately, had to return to the real world—in land-locked Olancho. But we’re hooked. Thanks to Johan and the Utila Dive Center. You guys are totally fucking Zen.

There are matinees on the weekend, so we went into town on Sunday afternoon with some of the new Olancho Aid volunteers. Now playing: Die Hard 4.0. Admission is 40 Lempiras (about $2) and the snacks are cheap, too. (They even sell cake by the slice, which I’m going to have to try sometime.)

The theatre is comfy, and much larger than I could’ve guessed by the tiny storefront on a narrow downtown street. You could probably seat up to 500 people in there. The seats are small, but recline by sliding out. And of course, there’s air-conditioning. If you don’t mind that Die Hard was out for months before coming to Honduras (let alone Juticalpa) and you can ignore the giant smear in the middle of the screen, it’s actually a pleasant movie-going experience.

Rocky is a spider we noticed a few weeks ago hiding out between the wall and our bathroom sink. He was missing 3 legs on his left side so Angel felt sorry for him and decided not to kill him. She named him, in fact.

And then a few days ago I was washing my hands and noticed he had 3 brand new spindly little legs! I did some Googling and it turns out that spiders do have regenerative powers. Rocky’s since moved on and we wish him well. Although now that he’s a fully able spider again, all bets are off. Angel’s ready with the bug spray, dude.

Ok, here goes…

What were you doing 10 years ago (five things)?

1. Falling head-over-heels-wildly in love with Matthew.
2. Discovering one of my all time favourite poets, Gregory Scofield
3. Wondering what to do with my life.
4. Beginning my life long affair with Joni Mitchell’s music.
5. Spending a lot of time outside in my childhood neighbourhood awestruck by moon filled Autumn nights.

What were you doing one year ago (five things)?

1. Falling in love with Honduras.
2. Strengthening newly made friendships.
3. Daring to eat quesillo and accept it as “cheese” (we eat it all the time now)
4. Falling head-over-heels-wildly in love with Matthew again and this time en Castellano.
5. Slowly recovering from dengue fever.

Five snacks I enjoy:

1. Seasonal fruit: mangos, lycha, oranges, mandarins, guavas, passion fruit, star fruit, avocado, tamarind, etc.
2. A tall cold glass of milk.
3. Lindt dark chocolate
4. Dulce de leche flavour ice cream
5. Home made peanut butter with banana, apple or wheat crackers

Five songs I know the lyrics to: I’m really, really shitty with lyrics because I get too distracted by the music. I acutally usually make up lyrics instead of try and figure out the real ones.

1. Umbrella, (ella, ella), Rihanna
2. Hola Back Girl, Gwen Stefani
3. Para Tu Amor, Juanes
4. Oh Canada (I’m running out of songs I know all the words to)
5. Ray of Light, Madonna (phew, I thought I didn’t remember any more songs…)

Five things you would do if you were a millionaire:

1. Spoil my parents rotten and encourage early retirement.
2. Buy a lovely apartment in the heart of Buenos Aires (sigh)
3. Buy Matthew every toy and gadget known to exist
4. Set up or support an organization that helps the forgotten communities of Madagascar’s vanishing rain forests.
5. Go on a shopping spree with my best friend.

Five bad habits:

1. When I start complaining I get really whiny.
2. I usually have two or three glasses of water on the go and lying around the house.
3. I don’t brush my hair very much so my hair ends up everywhere.
4. I like to have deep conversations at bed time and keep Matthew up late.
5. I’m borderline OCD about keeping my feet and the bed clean.

Five things I like to do:

1. Write
2. Draw and paint
3. Be quietly in a forest exploring
4. Sit and stare at the ocean
5. Have tea and shoot the shit with loved ones

Five things I will never wear again:
1. My bangs perpendicular to my head (what was I thinking)
2. Clothes from high school (thanks for the wake up call, Matthew)
3. Cheap underwear
4. Sweaters my Mom made prior to 1995 (well, at least not out of the house)
5. My Ice Capades Visor that lights up (well, at least not to work!)

I don’t believe in tagging people so it’s up to you guys to share if you feel like it in the comments or on your own blog.

Hope everyone else’s week is going better than mine is. Buenos noches!