utila is full of wild life. as tourists here we wittness it every day. two days ago a huge cockroach (or maybe it even was a mouse) sneaked in my room when i opened the door and since then i sleep and worry what this creature might want to do sooner or later. on the streets we constantly spot some really megasized crabs that move in this funky manner -sideways and the one we saw yesterday was seeking shelter in some guy´s bag that was half open on the ground. i would be terrified if i suddenly found a football sized crab in my bag instead of my water bottle or keys.
there are also iguanas that move swiftly and dodge effectively all sort of vehicles that people ride down the main street here. there are hardly any cars on the island so the population mainly uses scooters, fourwheeled sort of motorbikes that look very funny and then golf cars. especially the golf cars look very out of place here :D the iguanas are apparently on the verge of extinction because they have long been the favourite dish of the locals and so in order to prevent them from disappearing forever there is an iguana research station here on the island. we went to visit that place the other day and were thrilled to see those beautiful creatures, especially when it was lunchtime for them and some fresh small crabs were delivered to them in cages and some real life action took place.
apart from the wild life in the town there is however another part of it that most people find out about through diving. i have not managed to observe that part yet, and i doubt i will do so. our diving course started on monday and i must admit up until now it´s been a pain for me. there is a vast amount of theory that one has to learn and pass the exam (i don´t think i´ve done this much physics since the first year of high school, seriously) such as pressure, how gases behave under water and most important why one should never ever hold breath while scuba diving: the lungs will explode because of the growing gas volume in them when ascending. awful things. however these are not bad, doing the scuba exercises underwater is way worse. it has all been putting your gear on, checking it, then in the water taking the mask off and putting it back on (that is way below the surface), training to be neutrally buoyant using just the lungs as a regulator and such. i have been the one least excited by scuba diving out of us all so far, and ironically enough i have been the one without any cold symptoms (until today) unlike poor marianne that got her nose running and ears blocked and scott that almost had a feverish state on the first day. nevertheless today i skipped the whole business and i don´t frankly speaking care if i won´t get that PADI open water certificate. ok, spotting that big barracuda underwater and not readily cooked on a plate was kind of awesome, but i still don´t enjoy having tonnes of water above me and feeling claustraphobic. no more scuba diving for me after tomorrow. tomorrow is going to be my last suffering on the depth of some 10 to 18 metres and that is why i´d better see that sea turtle or something else worth telling about :D.
other than the fish, there is not much else to see on utila since it is mostly not habitated and i can´t say i´ll miss it tremendously after this week. marianne and scott are all superexcited about their dives and proudly showed me the dive log and calculated that by saturday they will have 6 full dives done and the last two are going to be free fun dives. well, for me the fun dives are going to consist of diving from the beach to the water no deeper than my height and back. i just like it more to be on the firm ground and i just simply start freezing under water after some 20 min which obviously my friends do not experience and kind of crack up when i say it, since the water is some 29 degrees. apart from the streneous diving though, things have gone pretty smoothly. obviously upon arrival i had some mild problems with the stomack as we started eating out every day and the island is a typical touristic place but no big problems. spanish classes have also been very relaxed. today for instance we spent the second part of the lesson on the beach with marianne and our teachers reading some jokes about gringos and indians. life here is kind of in a slow motion and it is not all that bad at all.
No comments:
Post a Comment