Exploring Utila Bay...

Friday 13th November 2015

Paul must have turned the fan off at some point as when i woke up it was turned off and i was absolutely sweating. I didn't hesitate to get up and switch it back on.
Unfortunately it was pissing down with rain this morning. We got ready slowly giving it a chance to settle down. We gathered our washing together and took it to a lady who does laundry service - about time we got some clean clothes. For breakfast we went to Munchies where i had an English breakfast and a cup of tea and Paul went for a big bowl of granola and yoghurt and peanut butter on toast. Afterwards we went back to our apartment and changed our room to the cheaper, smaller private room. We had to wait for it to be cleaned but this wasn't a problem as we wanted to get out and do some exploring.
Still neither of the ATM's would let us withdraw any money so we went into the actual bank, where Paul STILL couldn't get hold of money as the minimum to take out was 10,000L, everything really is on me now.
The day was fun and the sun eventually came out. We hired a quad bike to get around the island, we have it for three days. Today we ventured out a bit to see what we could find, there were so many different tracks to take. We didn't really find anything in particular, just done a lot of driving around and exploring, taking photos.
We got pretty peckish so we headed to a bar where i got over excited to see they had cheesy chips and bacon. It was amazing. Paul had a salad, rabbit food. Afterwards we did a little more exploring and took a few more photos before heading back to our place where we chilled before dinner time. We wasn't that hungry this evening so we decided to go and get a Crepe from the little cute man in his little cute Crepe shop. I had a standard sugar and lemon one and Paul had banana and honey. They were very tasty. It was still pretty early in the evening, dark though, so we got back on the quad and Paul went around taking a few night shots. I was just glad to be out of our hot room for as long as possible. We got back to our hostel and chilled for the night. Paul sorted his photos and then it was straight to sleep...of course.

Saturday 14th November 2015

Today was a good day on Utila Island. We got up, got ready and took our daily trip to Munchies for breakfast. Paul had his feast of granola, fruit and yoghurt and i had a breakfast burrito. On the way back to our apartment we picked up our washing from the launderette, some of our things didn't even come out that clean, and a pair of my trousers came back ripped, not good at all. We then got ready for todays mission - Pumpkin Hill - and what a mission it really did turn out to be.
Off on our quad bike we went, round and round exploring, taking in the views and taking many, many different tracks. The map we had was useless, we had to guess every time. Sometimes we could even see the hill, so near yet so far, but every track was just the wrong one. At one point we even ended up on a airfields runway. We drove and we drove, even i drove, yes, i had a go at driving the quad, and it was pretty cool. We saw lots of mini colourful crabs en route too, they were also very cool. We couldn't find this hill for ages, it was meant to be such a simple little hike. We got to one road which was full of muddy puddles, one puddle especially was pretty deep. We hesitated to do it at first but we did and our legs and shoes got drenched in mud. When we got to the other side, the hill was in sight again but we still couldn't reach it, we even tried walking to it at this point but that was no good either. Paul was starting to get a little bit pissed that it was beating him - we needed to hurry up and find this hill. Back we went on the quad, back through all the puddles, drenching us even more, we tried one more road and then suddenly realised we had driven half way up the hill. We parked up and climbed the little bit of the hill we had left. Finally at about 13:30, after loads of off roading and covered in mud, we made it. It was such a beautiful view at the top, we could see over the whole of Utila Island. We took some photos then headed back down and on the way we saw the cutest little hermit crab.
We got back to our place where we chilled a bit and freshened up before dinner. We went to a really nice restaurant called The Mango Inn. The food was just beautiful. I had shrimp scampi on pasta and Paul had tuna and rice, and we both enjoyed a nice refreshing beer.
We got back to our place, chilled a little more, Paul sorted his photos....bedtime.

Sunday 15th November 2015

Today the weather again was a little unsettled so we spent our day having one last drive around on the quad exploring even more of Utila before handing it back in. We also chilled on the beach for a while and then started getting ourselves organised for tomorrows departure. It has been a very relaxing last day. Tonight we treated ourselves to a nice meal and a couple of beverages at Mango Tango. We had a beautiful scenery and delicious food. Perfect.
My best advice to anyone thinking of missing Honduras out in travel plans because of bad stories they have heard is - don't listen. Unfortunately the weather hasn't been its greatest, so three days spent here was the right amount of time for us. Utila bay has been wonderful but it is time to move on.